Prepping the Engine for Install

So after cleaning the engine, repainting the engine feet, oil pan, and water pump the engine was ready to be all sealed back up.

I cut a new gasket for the oil pan, sealed it on with some RTV gasket maker and put some new bolts in it. Bolted back on the engine feet and water pump. One of the threads in my water pump was gak'd so I needed to re-tap it. Since the threads go all the way through the holes in the water pump I could start at the front and just tapped it all the way through. All the accessories back on the engine I could put it off the stand and hang it to bolt back on the fly-wheel.

The fly-wheel off my car looked like it had been at the bottom of the ocean, there is no cover between the bell housing and the engine so the fly-wheel is just exposed to the road including all the dust, water, mud, and rocks that lie on that road. So the first thing to do was to clean up the flywheel before it went back on the car. Thankfully the clutch surface of the fly-wheel was fairly clean so it just needed to be wiped down with brake cleaner, I could hit the rest of the surfaces with a light wire-wheel since it was so rusty and the surface isn't fragile for operation.

Here are the two fly-wheels I have, the parts car's is on the left, mine on the right.The one that came with my car was lightened, probably shaving a massive 10 or so pounds off the stock format, lending credit to the theory that this motor was kind of sporty once upon a time.

So with the fly-wheel all cleaned up I bolted it back onto the motor and wiped it down with some brake cleaner, then bolted back on the clutch and clutch-plate.

Now that the flywheel and clutch were all cleaned up I'd like them to stay that way, which meant fabricating a plate to bolt onto the trans-axle case and keep the elements out of the bell-housing. So since I had two trans-axles I traced the pattern of the bottom half of the bell-housing onto a sheet of 1/16" steel, cut it out, polished down the edges and drilled holes to bolt it to the bell-housing. 

I painted it black with some engine enamel so it wouldn't rust either.

So I clamped the new plate onto the bell-housing and drilled accompanying holes about a 1/2" deep, then tapped those holes so I could simply bolt on the cover. The cover will have to go on AFTER the engine and trans-axle are attached because the cover goes between the fly-wheel and engine.

I ended up having to re-cut this plate, nearly flat to the bottom of the semi-circle I cut previously to make the fit a little easier, don't really lose any protection but it doesn't interfere with the fly-wheel's rotation.