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]

now the fun part... the top end


we started by taking the intake manifold and fuel rail off and stripping the head of everything else (i.e. EGR, brackets, sensors, valve shims)
at that point to get the valve springs out you have to dislodge the keepers from their seat, there is a special tool for that but we did it a different way.

tools include a hollow tube about 1/2" in diameter with a handle on it and a hammer. you just have to place the tube onto the top of the spring seat and hit the top of it pretty hard until the two little keepers come out and the spring pops up...

(beware of doing this in the car since its really easy for the tiny keepers to pop out and into one of the oil return holes)

here you can see all the springs, seats, keepers, and the little washers under the springs


close up of the spring and seat...


the keepers are extremely small... I can't wait to see how we get them back in...


now the valve seals. there is a special tool for them, just grab and pull... really hard


some of the rubber from the valve seals stayed there and need to be cleaned off so the new ones snap into place properly...


at that point the valves slide right out the bottom. they have to stay in order since they have already seated to the head and if you move them they may not seal properly.


I used a wire wheel to clean the crap off the valves... that was very time consuming