Stef's 7A-FE Rebuild, up and running since 12/16/07 Options

[hurley97]

So obviously my oil problem is only getting worse, I decided it's finally time to do something about it.

so I went and picked up Defgeph's old 7A...
177,000 miles and was begining to use some oil before he swapped and it sat in the garage for 2 years.
but since I was getting it for free from a friend I decided to pick it up and hope for the best...



so I picked it up Fri (8/24) and the next day it came with me to work (I work at a Toyota dealer) where they unloaded it into the brake lathe room and it stayed hidden for a while. this past Saturday (9/8) me and one of the techs began tearing it apart. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is actually in incredibly good condition for its age...

I will be spending close to $500 in parts replacing every bearing, seal, gasket, etc that we can think of. What I need from you guys are your suggestions as to what I can do to make this motor a little stronger and better flowing. I'm keeping the stock pistons and considering bigger cams and having the head machined.

We work for about an hour each morning before customers start coming in. Between Sat, Mon, and Tues (today) we have everything pretty much apart (except for the valves since I haven't decided to send them to the machinist with the head or not yet). This is a huge learning process for me and happy to have the oppotunity to do it. I'll add more pics and info so maybe some of you can learn some things too.

This post has been edited by hurley97: Mar 6, 2008 - 9:09 PM

[hurley97]

we cleaned up block and ground out the intake and exhaust ports a little...






also gasket matched the turbo manifold I bought




now to putting the valves back in.
making sure to keep them in order, we did one cylinder at a time (2 intake and 2 exhaust valves)
everything (washers, valves, springs, keepers, seats, etc) were soaked in oil before doing all this...

(in the pic its only half cleaned up)

then placed the valve seals onto the top of the valves


then using a deep 10mm 12pt socket and extension pushed them down until you feel them almost 'snap' into place


now is the time to place the little washer in place in order to seat the valve springs and the top seat of the spring


heres the part you would have to be very careful with if you were to do this in the car. you have to hand place those tiny keepers into the top seats of the valve springs


there is a special tool for this part but I didn't get a picture of it. I'll get a pic of it if anybody really wants to know what it looks like. pushing the springs back down is the pain in the arse part of this, sometimes the keepers snap right onto the top of the valve and sometimes they don't and you have to take them back out and try again. the tech that's doing this with me likes to tap them gently with a little hammer after this part just to make sure they've seated properly.



thats all for now. just more cleaning and putting back together. its like 90% done