engine rebuild

hey, im lookin to rebuild my engine soon, i herd if you dont rebiuld it your self you pay an arm and a leg. so i was wondering how much are kits vs having a shop do it. and how hard is it to rebiuld an engine? would special tools be needed?

thanks


-mike

It isn't that hard, but unless you do a real low-budget "shade tree" rebuild you can't avoid the shop. At a minimum, you would need a ridge reamer, ring compressor, ring expander (or you can have a shop install the rings on the pistons and hope they do it right), a feeler gauge, and a torque wrench. Oh, yeah -- and an engine hoist and an engine stand.

After the engine has been disassembled, you should send the block and the head to a shop. Both should be hot tanked for cleaning. Both should have their mating surfaces checked for flatness and be shaved if they are not flat. The cylinders should be miked for both taper and out-of-round. If they are out of spec, they should be bored to a standard oversize (0.020, 0.030, etc.). Once you bore, you must replace the pistons.

If the pistons will be replaced, you need the shop to press the old pistons off the rods and to press the new pistons on. The shop should also install new camshaft bearins. It's up to you if you have them install new freeze plugs or if you do it yourself.

The shop should also check the valve guides, and either knurl them if slightly worn, or bore out and sleeve if badly worn. Then they can do a valve job. If you plan to do any porting or polishing inside the head, do it before sending the head to the shop.

Then everything comes back to you, and you get to assemble it all. For that, the Factory Service Manual is your friend.

Just oppinion, I think everybody should rebuild at least one motor. Even if it doesn´t run when your done.
Different appraoches to this, the early Dodge approach, change only the pieces that need to be changed, no matter how much of the motor you have to take apart.
Or change everything thats worn, so you don´t have to do it again.
Most every Jeep motor I´ve had apart, had a serious loose crank shaft (some scoring) and/or the piston cylinders where more than a little cone shaped, wider at the top than the bottom.
Machine shops are generally expensive.
Most reputable engine rebuilders, spec out everything, from the oil pump to the cam bearings, valve guides and have a selection of replacements on hand, seriously clean the block and machine what needs to be machined. Often some bearings are non-standard (a little larger than normal), replacement is often a mix and match operation. Nice/necessarly to have a selection on hand.

I see the same question has been posted on the OEM forum. We ask forum participants not to double post. It's imploite, and it doesn't help you get comprehensive answers, it only confuses the replies because responders don't have access to all the relies on the other thread.

Since an engine rebuild is more of an OEM issue than a modification issue, this thread is closed.