36 - Solving a Minor Mystery

I started the day intending to clean up some housings and take a look at some of the cast aluminum parts that have been removed from the engine block.

I began with a quick pass at the oil filter housing. First up is disassembly of the housing into its component parts for cleaning. I'd like to clean up all the fittings and run them through the ultrasonic cleaner. It'll be nice to start with a clean, fresh set of parts to bolt on -- seems reasonable, given that I have no idea what history this engine has. 

The ultrasonic does well for finer cleaning of parts with internal passageways. It's not great for getting significant deposits off the outside of a part. You have to use a degreaser and a brush for that. So, here's where we start:

I am sure there must be something zen about having a part on a workbench, ready for restoration. It's hard to see it that way, especially at the beginning. But I suppose one must be mindful in order to complete a restoration: nothing significant is done without the consistent application of small hours of effort. And so it is with this part. It's a complicated piece of cast aluminum, with many nooks and crannies. It has to be clean -- both externally, for the visual appeal of the rebuild, but especially inside as well. 

I got the part to the stage where it was clean enough to throw into the ultrasonic. When it comes out, it looks like this:

With some more brushing, degreaser, and attention, it will clean up fairly nicely. I typically use a wire brush, scotchbrite, and I have used sandpaper as well to flatten and clean gasket mating surfaces. It's not perfect, as you can still see grime around the bolt flanges:

These will need to be addressed with another wire brush, or perhaps a dremel. 

But, you know, you can end up with a decent-enough looking part:

I think I'll leave it here, for now, until I decide on whether it makes sense to media blast the outside for a 'perfect' finish. I mean, probably with something like this it's best to leave it as I have, above? I don't know that it needs to be spotless like a $100k+ build. I'm doing this in a suburban garage, not a shop.

I next moved on to some of the other aluminum parts that needed to be cleaned up, including the mounting plate for the fuel lift pump. Remember earlier, when I found pieces of metal in the block right next to the camshaft? 

Yeah, well, I think I found where they came from:

Right. That's annoying. I think I figured out what happened:

These are not LR-spec bolts, I think. At the very least, the one on the left isn't.

Good news is that this part IS available as a used replacement, but the bad news is that it's crazy expensive. Not ideal. I had a bit of a chin-scratch, and ultimately decided that I might be able to work around this problem with an oil-resistant loctite or other compound to stop it from leaking everywhere. At least, that's my hope. Am I just indulging in a fantasy? Time will tell, I guess. Meanwhile, I cleaned up the part, ran it through the ultrasonic, and addressed the mating surfaces by sanding them with 240-grit. 

And I left myself a reminder for later.