The big 2.3E coolant temperature mystery

[K Simmonds]

Just been reading through this thread again over a cup of coffee, using an impact gun on the crank bolt isn't the end of the world, it is however the end of your crank cam belt pulley. Don't be tempted to save a few Euro's and reuse it, throw it in the bin. It does say in the factory manual not to use an impact gun but you we're to know so don't beat yourself up over it, just buy a new one. Terrybullwon on here makes billet bottom pulleys that last forever, they're a few quid but not too expensive for what you get IMO, if your planning on keeping the car a long time I'd personaly try and use one of them.

Daves right to notice all the gunk in the water chanels in the block, looks like it's spent a long time stood with either water or poor quailty coolant at some point, the water holes in the head gasket are quite small and it's fairly normal to get some build up of contamination on the underside, though that is quite a lot. That said in the later pic where you've cleaned off the deck they don't look so bad at all, the corrosion around them isn't great but not terrible either. Giving the deck another going over as I described in my last post might reduce some of it and a new head gasket will seal up fine.

Anyway considering you've not taken an engine appart before your doing great.

On first start up just use tap water and two or three tins of coolant system flush as it's a large capacity system, use a cheap oil to flush as well as I suggested above, let it run up to opperational temp then drop those fluids out and refill will decent quality coolant and oil and the engine should be fine for another 30 odd years with regular maintainance.

[Luuk813]

Just been reading through this thread again over a cup of coffee, using an impact gun on the crank bolt isn't the end of the world, it is however the end of your crank cam belt pulley. Don't be tempted to save a few Euro's and reuse it, throw it in the bin. It does say in the factory manual not to use an impact gun but you we're to know so don't beat yourself up over it, just buy a new one. Terrybullwon on here makes billet bottom pulleys that last forever, they're a few quid but not too expensive for what you get IMO, if your planning on keeping the car a long time I'd personaly try and use one of them.

Daves right to notice all the gunk in the water chanels in the block, looks like it's spent a long time stood with either water or poor quailty coolant at some point, the water holes in the head gasket are quite small and it's fairly normal to get some build up of contamination on the underside, though that is quite a lot. That said in the later pic where you've cleaned off the deck they don't look so bad at all, the corrosion around them isn't great but not terrible either. Giving the deck another going over as I described in my last post might reduce some of it and a new head gasket will seal up fine.

Anyway considering you've not taken an engine appart before your doing great.

On first start up just use tap water and two or three tins of coolant system flush as it's a large capacity system, use a cheap oil to flush as well as I suggested above, let it run up to opperational temp then drop those fluids out and refill will decent quality coolant and oil and the engine should be fine for another 30 odd years with regular maintainance.

Thank you for the great advice! I lightly sanded the block like you suggested, and the results are definitely much better. It's now almost time for me to put the head back on again. Before I do that however, I need to tackle my problem regarding removing the starter motor. The bottom bolt holding it in came out just fine, but the top one is completely rounded. So much so that I can't even identify it as ever having been a bolt:

PXL_20230930_131245605.MP.jpg

Is there perhaps something I'm missing here, or did the previous owner just really mess up the bolt by this much? I noticed that the bolt holding in the transmission (top red arrow) is is on the exact same height as the "bolt" on the starter. Is it perhaps so that what I refer to as the starter bolt is just the end of the transmission bolt?

For you guys that removed the starter motor before on these type of engines; did you just simply remove the top and bottom bolts from the front of the starter, or may my theory about the transmission bolt be correct? If you should actually be able to remove it from the front, then I'm open for suggestions on removing the rounded bolt, since access is really tight, and nothing that I tried so far worked at the slightest

[Nuvo]

The bolt head is the top arrow, you need to undo that from the transmission side.
The bottom nut/bolt is accessed from the bottom (you need to counterhold either the nut/bolt), the top one is accessed from above.

[Tractor Dave]

One bolt is threaded and the other passes through with a nut and washer on the other side.

[Luuk813]

Great, then I can finally continue after removing that one! If only I wasn't so stubborn on trying to remove it from the front, then I would have saved myself quite some time and a lot of swearing

Thanks again!

[K Simmonds]

That bolt can often be an 8mm Allen head on one end and a 17mm nut on the other end, looks like you've got an 8mm Allen head on the starter moter side.

[Luuk813]

Well, happy new year everyone! My year ended on a high-note, since I finally fully assembled the engine on the 30th of last month. The car now runs and drives, albeit not yet perfectly.

Tips for any other noobies replacing their headgasket for their first time on this engine:

- Make sure to remove the starter before even trying to remove the downpipe, otherwise your access will be terrible and you'll waste a day trying to remove the (4... I thought there where only 3 since I couldn't see the last one...) bolts just like I did.
- The top starter bolt is removed from the rear of the transmission bell housing, not from the front like the bottom bolt is....
- If the injectors seem stuck, just pull on them extremely hard. You don't need to unbolt the injectors from the fuel distributor at this point. Trying so will only bent the hard-lines. Just pull back really hard and the o-rings holding them in will eventually come loose.
- Connecting the vacuum system on top of the engine can be a pain. Try connecting all hoses to the rubber intake piece first before installing it and connect the other ends of the hoses later to make sure you'll still have partial access.

The big question is, did it fix my overheating issue? Well, there sure is a lot less pressure on the reservoir cap when the engine is fully warmed up now. The temp gauge still shows around 100 - 105 degrees when idling for a while, but I guess that's still within spec. It is however showing that temp with fan running all the time. The fan came on suddenly and never stops, even when stopping the engine. Perhaps it's just the relay that is stuck?

I'm currently working on sourcing both radiators to replace my current ones, since they're both not in the best of conditions. I'll post my new temperature readings here once I got them installed.

One thing I couldn't really get right after assembling the engine was the ignition/distributor timing. Setting it to TDC wasn't that hard, but using a timing light to set the timing to 15 degrees before TDC, like the specifications call for, was more difficult since I couldn't see the markings on the flywheel clearly. Later on I used a small paint marker to mark the 15, but it was still jumping around way to much for me to say clearly see it. In the end I just set it where it sounded the most healthy and left it there for now. Anyone got any tips for setting the ignition timing?

[_ShurikeN]

Anyone got any tips for setting the ignition timing?

Did you set up ignition timing with a fuse in fuelPump relay? The relay puts VEZ ECU in setup mode and removes ignition correction allowing to setup the ignition.

There is another way to setup ignition on NF/NG/AAR. Put the engine in TDC position and then move the crankshaft 15-18 degrees (control with flywheel marks).
Turn on the ignition and rotate the distributor slowly: when the distributor passes the mark, you hear the cold start valve engaged for a moment. That's the point you're after pretty accurately.

[K Simmonds]

Did you set up ignition timing with a fuse in fuelPump relay? The relay puts VEZ ECU in setup mode and removes ignition correction allowing to setup the ignition.

There is another way to setup ignition on NF/NG/AAR. Put the engine in TDC position and then move the crankshaft 15-18 degrees (control with flywheel marks).
Turn on the ignition and rotate the distributor slowly: when the distributor passes the mark, you hear the cold start valve engaged for a moment. That's the point you're after pretty accurately.

I knew about the fuse in the relay as that's even in the Hayns manual...But the second methond you describe is some exellent information, I didn't know about the rotating the dissy until you hear the cold start method, am guessing clockwise?

I've always just marked the base of the dissy and the head after getting the tamper proof (blooldy stupid idea) nut undo and removing it with the engine at TDC then put it back where I marked it.