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I had that thread open earlier today after searching for oil pump related things. I wish people would post goddamn pictures.
I'll definitely be taking apart the oil pump when the bottom end comes apart, hopefully damage will be obvious, if there is damage to find.
Originally Posted by codrus
Is the debris aluminum?
I'm no metallurgist but it does seem to be non ferrous white metal, that's about all I know for sure. As @afm pointed out to me, it all looks like yellow metal when its in oil.
So last weekend I finally got the last of the parts I needed from Corsa Technic to finally get the new plugs on the harness and finalize the electrical bits.
Quick note here, I absolutely love Corsa Technic. I'm pretty much done with Ballenger and I'll be contacting them next week to return my last order. Those guys get no more business from me from here on out. I'll go into it later if anyone cares.
New EGR tube and OE heater hoses showed up from Priority Mazda so I got those installed.
Well, I didn't actually install the new EGR tube, but I did swoop on the little heat shield thing and move that over to my current EGR tube. You never know when you'll need another stock EGR tube so this one will go in the hoard.
Coolant system got filled with straight distilled water and then I decided to do a super cold/dry compression check.
Front to rear the numbers are:
F - 185 - 180 - 175 - 192 - R
Again, this is as cold and dry as it gets. It's not as even as I'd like but I'll run it for a couple hundred miles and see what it does. Unsure if I'll Seafoam this one or not, we'll see. There was A LOT of carbon in the exhaust so I feel like this thing never had a good hard run in its life, a little bit of exercise will probably do it good.
NGK plug wires, boots for the "coil-near-plug" 6D coil packs and new spark plugs from Dwayne Johnson finally showed up. The wires and such were originals of unknown origin so I figured I should probably replace them before I regret it.
This is my first time with a set of the fancy *** Ruthenium plugs, NGK FR5BHX 96457 for anyone searching. Mazda recommended heat range for the NB1 & NB2 in NGK is 5, where they recommend NGK 6 for all the NA8s. I have like 5 sets of heat range 6 plugs because HURRR DURRR M.NET SEZ BUY RANGE SIX BECUASE EVERYTHING IS AN NA! and I have a terrible time with reading comprehension. These look like they'll be just fine, though that tiny bit of metal attached to the ground strap freaks me the hell out.
I'll be keeping a very close eye on these guys.
Anyway, here she is all buttoned up and ready to go!
And den...
I don't know if I have enough hair left to troubleshoot this.
Remember when I asked someone to remind me that I'd un-plugged the FUEL INJ fuse while doing the compression test on the other engine?
YOU ALL HAD ONE JOB!
Anyway, after sorting out YOUR INCOMPETENCE! I plugged in the fuse and tried again. And deeennnn...
I topped off with distilled and burped it using the Lisle Magic Funnel™ as is tradition.
To celebrate my obvious greatness and once again victory I drove over to Thunderhill to say hi to @afm (who happened to be there doing a trackday) borrowed a tool, and turned around and drove home.
Having successfully completed 100 miles on the new engine I then signed up for a trackday. I'll be returning to Thunderhill West on September 5th to see if I can ruin this engine as well.
Hey Gordon, looks like you are about to try to start the car back up after doing another compression test, make sure you put that Fuel Injection relay back in so you don’t pull your hair out. I’m sure you won’t forget, but just in case..
^^ Bwahaha! I wish that magnet was real, I'd definitely want that for the garage beer fridge.
Interesting discovery while swapping engine:
This is my original starter that came with the car. The corrosion in there is a little mind boggling because I don't know how exactly you get water on top of the starter to cause rust, nor how you get rust in that location at all. There's no rust on the wiring harness lug or the bottom of the nut.
The mind boggles.
I purchased a known working used starter from The Internet and chose to install it instead of my original. So far, it seems to be working MUCH more consistently than the old one. All contacts were cleaned and polished, smeared with the good ol' Dow Corning #4 dialectic grease. Hopefully that'll keep any corrosion at bay for the future.
In addition, I also ordered a new positive battery terminal clamp and crimp on lug for the positive battery cable.
The crimp on lugs are from McMaster-Carr, PN 6926K76 for 4 gauge wire with 5/16" screw hole. Terminal is an OE Subaru "Terminal Base +" PN 81608GA110 left over from WRX ownership. Stud is M8 so pretty much perfect match. I ordered an extra lug just in case.
I recently solved a long-standing starter problem with a new starter from O'Reilley's. Turns out that the stud that delivers current to the motor from the solenoid had backed out and was making intermittent contact. Not the same as your rust situation, but equally frustrating (after spending weeks tracing circuits and replacing components, only to find a defective new starter). I feel your pain.
PS - I'm interested in hearing your "Ballenger Story". My only problem with them is their outrageous shipping charges, but "What are you gonna do?" I tell myself when trying to source a weird connector pigtail.
I recently solved a long-standing starter problem with a new starter from O'Reilley's. Turns out that the stud that delivers current to the motor from the solenoid had backed out and was making intermittent contact. Not the same as your rust situation, but equally frustrating (after spending weeks tracing circuits and replacing components, only to find a defective new starter). I feel your pain.
Oh man, that's horrible. Nothing worse that defective parts out of the box when you are already trying to troubleshoot something.
I'm looking forward to not worrying about the starter actually 'catching' every time I turn the key, seeing how this has been going on for years now. I know the OE Mazda terminal that's crimped to the positive cable in the trunk has been a little questionable for a long time now, but I've kept it shimmed with some 0.01" brass shim stock and its been "okay" but I know it can do better. The Subaru terminal probably isn't the bestest-best terminal ever, but its brand new and should work fine for this application. She's noice and toight, and the ring lug on the cable gives me some replacement options in the future.
Originally Posted by rwyatt365
PS - I'm interested in hearing your "Ballenger Story". My only problem with them is their outrageous shipping charges, but "What are you gonna do?" I tell myself when trying to source a weird connector pigtail.
Once I get it resolved I'll post up. At this point it's just me being pissed off, how they handle it is going to decide how it pans out long term.
So last weekend I finally got the last of the parts I needed from Corsa Technic to finally get the new plugs on the harness and finalize the electrical bits.
Quick note here, I absolutely love Corsa Technic. I'm pretty much done with Ballenger and I'll be contacting them next week to return my last order. Those guys get no more business from me from here on out. I'll go into it later if anyone cares.
Thanks for the tip, just ordered some connectors from them - came out a few bucks under BM.
Very welcome! CT even sent me a sticker for free, just for checking a box. I do love me a free sticker!
I've got a list of other things I need to buy from CT here shortly so that I can complete the custom harness I need to fab up to eliminate my splicing jankery. Once the PNs are confirmed correct, I'll forward them over to @afm and if he's feeling particularly benevolent he can add them to his Überlist. I don't want to start shitposting PNs for connectors and pins until I know they are correct.
World's largest crimpers made short work of lug installation.
Starts with vigor!
I also snuck some washers in under the lower mounts for the TSE radiator, spacing them up ever so slightly so that the stock fan nolonger vibrates against the swaybar. Sweet. Maybe I'll drive it to work tomorrow.
You know what's better than the Amsoil Dominator I can't get?
Redline 40WT Race oil I can get. New Wix 51356 as well. I also dumped the weirdness out of the cooling system and replaced with distilled water, half a bottle of Water Wetter, and a pint of antifreeze, for the stink factor.
I had the O'Rly 10W30 in there for about 350mi and it came out daaaaark. I'll put a couple trackdays on this Redline and then give it another load of FLAPS synthetic and work on flushing out more of this dinosaur oil crud.
(Sidenote: If you are following me on IG a lot of this will be duplicated)
Back at Thunderhill West with Turn8 on Sunday in Intermediate, which was awesome. Things started out pretty great.
I managed to get a few hundred miles on the replacement engine without incident, and I was feeling particularly good about being at the track again.
First session in the morning went without incident, but I didn't bother with the GoPro or the RaceChrono timer (w/10hz GPS) because its the first session and lol. It went without incident and I felt comfortable in Intermediate 2, which was also a confidence boost. I had a little coolant coming from somewhere (posted that pic already) but source was not readily identifiable and temps were good so I chose to not worry about it. I was very much looking forward to going out for session 2 and actually recording some video and getting some times. This was my second time at Thunderhill West and first time with a timer, so I wanted to see where I was at.
Session 2 warmup lap was fine, next lap at speed felt really good... right up until I got on the power out of T7 and I got a nose full of coolant. ****!
Temps were still fine and there was no clouds coming out from under the hood, so I pulled off the line as best I could and cruised to the exit at T10. Quick inspection in the paddock and...
Awesome. The source of the coolant we noticed after the first session but couldn't find is now readily apparent. Water pump is kill.
It only seemed to be an issue under high load/temp so I could have very easily made it home if I really watched it, but we decided to just go ahead and see if we could get a pump and swap it. For those who don't know, the closest "town" to Thunderhill is Willows, which is a bit out in BFE on I-5 in NorCal so we didn't have a lot of options. I called around to the O'Rly, Autozone and Napa in the area and the closest pumps were Redding (1.25h each way) or Sacramento (1.5h each way) so those were not going to cut it.
Luckily, @afm had a brand new Gates pump with a cast impeller bolted to the test fit motor in his foreverproject that's parked nearby so we headed over there and got to work.
owe him a water pump and a bunch of replacement gaskets. As usual, @gesso was on hand to lend invaluable help, something I can't stop thanking him for because I know he missed track time to help me out.
Time to strip it all down again!
A rare pic of me actually doing work. Hah. Ancillaries came off pretty quickly, though this is the first time I've taken apart the top of a 6D with the intent of actually putting it back together, so uncharged territory here.
With the valve cover off we see the horrors of conventional motor oil. This film is GROSS and I suspect it's going to take a while to work it out of this motor. It's not chunky but I don't want to tempt fate so probably won't Seafoam this one. Just because its "low mileage" doesn't necessarily mean its "well maintained." Based on this foulness and the carbon I found in the exhaust ports, I suspect this poor motor was short hopped a lot and probably never really run up to temp. More on this in a bit. Thankfully, the VVT actuator filter was clear.
Some debate as to if we were going to pull the cam gears off, but glad we didn't do it.
FM cam gear came in handy. Ish. Heh. I've always felt the teeth on the FM tool are a little off, but we made it work.
First sign of danger: more clear silicone bathtub calking coming out with the pump bolts. Jesus christ.
Horror of horrors, they glued the pump on with even more bathtub silicone. Well, thars yer prablem!
Remember I found this **** absolutely GOBBED on to the water pump inlet so I guess it should be no surprise that whatever monkey did that work did this as well. It looks like the pump itself was actually fine, in fact it was pretty new and there was no coolant in the weep holes on the pump. There was however, a ton of pink and white crust completely surrounding the pump and alllllll the fasteners were rusty. It was bad enough that the steel spring pins that hold the timing belt cover to the block were completely rusted in place. We removed that cover without removing the crank pully so of course it broke. Hopefully we got the timing right!
Along with the bathtub silicone on the flange, we have another interesting find for the backside of the water pump. I don't know if it comes through in the pics but the hub in the center of the pump is actually making contact with the wall of #1 cylinder. There is actually bright metal in there, indicating direct recent contact. ******* hell. Is this common? I'd love to know if anyone else has seen this on other BPs in the past.
Super glad the Gates pump is going on this block. I'm ever so slightly worried there might be more bathtub silicone floating around in the block, based solely on the size of the gob they used for the pump, but temps seem to be OK for now so I'll keep moving forward. At some point I'll backflush the head from the stock thermostat neck and hope for the best.
New-to-us pump in the foreground and @gesso getting dirty in the background. Luckily we had an OE Mazda gasket available (one of many I now owe @afm ) and a tube of The Right Stuff gasket maker, which is awesome stuff. I may move to this stuff exclusively as it has virtually no cure time. I believe the instructions say "use immediately."
Temps at Thunderhill were straight up out of control while we were doing all this work and we absolutely roasted in the sun. I drank almost a gallon of water and never made a trip to the restroom. We started in the shade but that didn't last forever. It was getting to the point where tools and parts were so hot we had to put on gloves to handle them. Big yikes.
Pics pretty much run out at this point because we were trying to get things done before the event was over, so gross coolant was reused and everything was slapped back together. It really killed me to put that horrible coolant back in the motor but I didn't have much of a coice. A bit of a burp and I made it back to the paddock about 10 minutes before the end of my groups last session. After a bit of negotiation and listening to my sob story, the organizers were kind enough to let me run the last session of the day with the Novice group, which was just fine! I didn't get the timer started but I did get to run in the afternoon, so that was rad.
After running with the Novice group which was the very last session of the last group of the event, I parked it in the paddock and noticed things smelled quite oily. I didn't think much of it because we reused a lot of single use gaskets, but rolling the car back after coming off track (as is my habit) showed this:
Which is juuuuuust a bit more than a leaking valve cover gasket.
While you can usually get away with reusing the VVT oil pipe banjo bolt gaskets, it turns out I wasn't that lucky.
Hard to tell but tings are super oily back there. I added some more torque but it didn't seem to solve the problem, so back to the garage where afm had a set of OE copper banjo washers stashed away. I got those installed and help pack/clean things up, and we called it a day. I had to stop at Walmart in Willows and chug a liter of Pedialyte in an attempt to rehydrate myself, then it was off home.
I'm glad Monday was a holiday because I definitely needed the recovery time after baking in the sun for so many hours on Sunday. It was a bit of a push to get it done, but I got the oil and coolant cleaned up before noon.
A can of Engine Degreaser from the FLAPS and little weenie Ryobi electric pressure washer was a good call here. Put the car about 2' in the air so I could get under it and really get it clean, and it came out looking incredibly good. I mixed up some Simple Green and fed that into the pressure washer as well, then did the wheel wells, the rest of the undercarriage and engine compartment, then went for a 40min drive to get it all dried off.
Things I learned this weekend:
low mileage doesn't mean well maintained
always change the water pump and timing set on a used motor
don't reuse copper crush washers without annealing them first
6D works "fine" with all stock 4W electronics (sans VVT control, of course)
I took a risk and just sent the motor without doing the pump and timing set and it didn't pay off. I know better than to do that but in my defense, RockAuto was sold out of timing sets and could get me parts within a reasonable time frame before I needed to get the motor in for this event.
I'll order a timing set along with cam and crank seals to arrive eventually along with all the parts I now owe afm to replace his stock. I probably won't do the timing set immediately as the belt and pulleys seemed to be in decent shape. The cam and crank seals are leaking, and I'm slightly worried about the wobble you can see in the coolant dripping video above. It might be that the timing plate is slightly tweaked, or maybe the muppet that put the bathtub silicone on the water pump ALSO did the timing set, and maybe didn't get the crank key back on properly. I'm just questioning everything at this point.
Once again, I'm very grateful to have awesome car friends to push me to get stuff like this done, and loan me the parts and sweat equity to make it happen
08-21-2021, 12:01 AM
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