Another big day today.
Bolting in the steering rack, and lower section of the column was easy.
Fitted the new timing belt. Worked out how to release the tensioner, and then pre-tension the idler… clunkier than Tim’s solution that is incredibly obvious AFTER he pointed it out! ?
I screwed up and bought the kit WITHOUT a new tensioner or waterpump… oh well, that’s a problem for future Nathan.
Converted the tensioner for the alternator and AC compressor to work in reverse so it can work once the AC compressor has been removed.
This was a tip from one of the Magna FB pages.
Worked out how long the new belt needs to be (1035mm if anyone cares).
Ground down the heads of a couple of bolts to ensure they don’t attack the new belt.
Filled the engine and gearbox mounts with urethane goo. The main/driver’s side engine mount is rooted, so I have ordered a new Mad Polly urethane mount - should have ordered the whole lot, but I’ve already spent too much money this fortnight… The goo will do for now!
Got the engine back in. Not the worst job ever, but definitely not the best, either. It’s tight on space, and I didn’t have the engine balanced well.
It needed to be put in on angle (gearbox lower than the engine) and then re-balanced to come back up straight. I own one of those engine-crane balancers, but didn’t even think about it until I was firmly committed to doing it the difficult way…
But it is in!
It’s all about halfway hooked up now - I couldn’t do much on the passenger’s side because I haven’t fitted the manual gear change cables and wasn’t up for grovelling around under the dashboard.
Also spent heaps of the day cleaning stuff. Because ever Magna ever has been pouring oil out of dead cam cover gaskets, everything is filthy.
Oh, yeah, I also replaced the rear cam cover gasket. Went to fit new spark plugs while it was apart, and realised that I didn’t have any new plugs… I raided the almost new plugs from the front bank of the recently-removed 3.0 engine.
Also discovered that the 3.5 and 3.0 injector looms are different, and I need to take the 3.0 loom off the old motor and fit it to this one - would have been a super easy job when the top of the intake manifold was off, but now it is considerably more difficult…
It also seems that the auto 3.0 exhaust doesn’t fit onto the manual 3.5 motor - specifically, the manual starter motor sits slightly lower due to the larger ring gear, and then gets in the way of the exhaust. I kept the front section of the blue wreck’s exhaust, so this is no big deal, but was unexpected.
Last job was welding up the Subaru strut holes, so they can be re-drilled to suit the Magna.
