Pulling the engine from an L400

[CREGAN]

Wow you work fast! Very impressive so far. My personal and not super valuable opinion is that I would put a new engine in. Always a bit of a crap-shoot with rebuilding in a shop, unless you know the shop or mechanic and they do a proper job without wasting a lot of time, jacking up the labour costs to go with the parts. You have pulled it out, so putting it back in should be alright and you will have the security of knowing that YOU did it, and did it proper. You are doing great, keep us posted as this has been very informative.

Craig

[jessef]

Pull the head.

If you only need to swap the block, you'll find it cheaper than a full engine swap.

Shop around for the best price

Amazing Auto - Richmond
Coombs Auto - north of Nanaimo
Maximum Overdrive - Richmond
Radd Cruisers - N Van
Rising Sun - New Westminster
Rocky Mountain Imports - Vanc Island

[lopar]

Rebuild will (if you do all less machining) will be similar to used engine cost...........

I would get that head inspected by shop for any damage, cracking etc.

IMHO, go for the used complete............ the hard part is done, imo, getting the engine out, be a shame to go through the rebuild and miss a crack or something.

[thedjjack]

Nothing wrong with an engine rebuild if done right...Inspect the crank and bearings (most likely area of damage)...

With a rebuild you know you had a good block and clean it up....basically a new motor. Used engine is well used...

pull the pan and mains and rod and take a look....

I once did this but noticed the Exxon Valdez forming under the car and shut it down with lots of oil in the pan (it blew out instantly for me just as I went to check levels and top up...I never forget to check now).

[northriver]

Took a quick look at the pulled engine saturday and sunday of last week. From a quick visual inspection the crank looked ok ... although I did not take a close look at the bearings. Visually, the damage was in the cylinders; 2&3 looked ok but 1&4 (particularly 1) were scored. It looked to me from cranking the engine manually and checking the piston positions at the same time that piston 1 was being prevented by the damage from reaching its top position.
From what I have read (not a 100% sure about this) this is a reasonable re-build as the cylinders are sleeved, and a rebuild kit is available that includes the sleeves. Regardless, the cost of the rebuild kit (over $1000 CDN), any required shop time and the time to do a re-build (minimally 2 weeks if I took it on ... my guess) quickly made a replacement engine attractive.
On Monday we went down to Vancouver and picked up an engine stripped from an 1995 L400 from Mardy at Amazing Auto Imports. The engine was for a standard transmission so we swapped injection pumps (different shaft sizes I gather) and also stripped some parts off our engine that were missing on the one we were getting (flywheel and a few other items). The engine cost $2300 and included swapping the parts listed above and timing the injection pump (something I was not looking forward to).
While we had the injection pump off the engine Mardy recommended replacing the shaft seal on the injection pump. Apparently, black smoke at startup can be a symptom of a failed seal ... engine oil gets into the injection pump and is burned at startup ... hence the black smoke. The seal replacement was a total of $40.00 so we did it.
Did not really get back to working on it until wednesday but we had the engine in the van with the van running by Friday. It made its first trip into Kamloops and everything seemed fine ... if anything this engine seems more quiet than the original.
It is a bit of a relief to have the van back on the road ... and I was totally paranoid about the oil/filter change on the new (to me) engine!

[lopar]

Admirable turn around time

Good sh!t!

[jessef]

Admirable turn around time

Good sh!t!

x2 nice work

[CREGAN]

Well done. Very impressed.

Craig

[northriver]

Thanks for all the feedback to questions!

I learned a lot ... I always wish I did not learn this way though ...

Pretty daunting job to start ... this forum definitely made it easier to tackle.