Finding and preparing a new to me AMF

I've cleaned all of the components that went through rust conversion. Flash rusting is such a problem at the minute, and as I can't plate immediately I have bagged them with a squirt of ACF50.

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This process has generated some interest and there is more to it than is relevant to this thread. I can't find an electrolysis how-to so I will put one together.
 
Had some time to kill yesterday waiting for a delivery so needed a job I could do in the kitchen. Decided to clean the head ready for reassembly.

Firstly wanted to clear any contamination from the fuel chambers. Checked for the fuel inlets:

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Taped what I think are the injector inlets, don't want any muck in there:

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Then I fitted the injectors and filled the cavities with diesel:

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I removed the injectors starting with No3 and let the diesel drain out

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Satisfied the chambers were clean I plugged the inlets:

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Still waiting for a delivery I decided to remove the valve stem seals. The last time I attempted this on a VAG engine I failed miserably and got my engine remanufacturer to do the job.

There is a tool for the job. this is the cheap one. A more expensive one has a lever to pull the seal straight up:

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Pulling with my right hand and guiding the tool with two left fingers I pull the seals straight up:

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Still waiting for my delivery I decided to do a final check and clean of the threads. Both male:

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Also female:

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I use cutting taps that have to be well lubricated so that they don't cut any additional material. The threads taking stretch bolts were visually inspected.

With so much cutting oil and the risk of engine oil being in female threads all were cleaned with brake cleaner and blown out with compressed air:

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Finally the casting was given a @rotifer style wipe with an oily rag:

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My delivery finally arrived.
 
Little Dog said:
Still waiting for a delivery I decided to remove the valve stem seals. The last time I attempted this on a VAG engine I failed miserably and got my engine remanufacturer to do the job.

There is a tool for the job. this is the cheap one. A more expensive one has a lever to pull the seal straight up:

View attachment 119289

Pulling with my right hand and guiding the tool with two left fingers I pull the seals straight up:

View attachment 119290
Click to expand...
Is the removing of the stem seal critical enough to motivate the tool, or is it more for the mounting a tools helps? (i recall many years ago when I did this on a Audi 1.8 petrol and didnt have a tool)
 
Joga said:
Is the removing of the stem seal critical enough to motivate the tool, or is it more for the mounting a tools helps? (i recall many years ago when I did this on a Audi 1.8 petrol and didnt have a tool)
Click to expand...
I had these valve seals stuck solid on a VW PB engine, which was also used in Audi 80. I just couldn’t shift them.
The tool was only £14.50 delivered so I figured it wasn’t worth risking getting stuck again. The mounting tools are a useful bonus.
 
Killing time again in the kitchen; cleaning the valves.

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A scrub with a brass brush in brake cleaner made a good job of the exhaust valves, the masking was not required the brass brush (not brass plated steel) was kind to the steel:

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The inlet vales though had baked carbon on them that the brake cleaner would not touch:

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Still messed up, plan B required:

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Plan B, soda blasting is kind to steel:

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Success:

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A final scrub with a fine finishing pad:

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I would usually give my valves a lapping using a sucker on the end of a stick. Can’t put my hands on it at the moment.
For £9.99 delivered I couldn’t resist ordering one of these:

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I can’t imagine how it mimics the hand tool action. Has anybody used one?
 
Play time :)

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Couldn't quite get the hang of that :(. It has a good reciprocating action but I couldn't get the drill speed right for it. Lapped them by hand:

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Very pleased with the valves, seats still have one or two marks but there is continuous grey round all of them; they will seal. Still feel a little gritty so a good clean up is required tomorrow.
 
Had a good clean up of the head, all grittiness has now gone. This applicator made fitting the valve stem seals so easy:

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There must be a tool for easy fitting of valve cotters, if anybody knows of one please post it up. I had to make do with two BBQ skewers, some micro pliers and the assistance of gravity:

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They go down there:

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When the springs are compressed access isn't great but I got all 6 eventually:

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Probably a step too far for today and not necessary for a 100k miles engine. However I had already bought new hydraulic tappets for the 170k engine in the car:

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Head now waiting for me to start stripping the engine currently in the car:

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Freshly back from Darwen Diesels:

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They reported they are good at 3000 rpm but on bottom tolerance at 300 rpm. I didn't think an AMF would run at 300 rpm? Anyway they are going back in, well within spec at higher revs suits the type of driving I do.

Darwen Diesels are good to deal with, I also understand their repairs are good. However all of the injectors I have sent to them have been in tolerance but output has been on lower limit at low revs, so not yet had to commision a repair https://www.darwendiesels.com/

I'm inching the A2 on but will soon hit a blocker if I can't get the car in my lockup out and the A2 in.
 
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When I removed the head I reversed the tightening procedure. I then lifted the head cleanly, I think the clean lift is the reason the manual specifies a two person lift, and it has been stored gasket face up as recommended by Audi. I've checked the head for flatness and it easily passes to Audi spec.

However these heads have a bad reputation on the internet for blowing head gaskets once they have been disturbed. Furthermore if the head does warp Audi recommend a new head. But why not have it skimmed?

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Having checked a number of engine remanufacturers websites I think the problem is the hardened valve seat inserts which are very close to surface to be skimmed. The inserts have to be removed and refitted after a full skim, or as one machine shop offered, the skim can only be a lite skim.

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Furthermore the valves protrude beyond the head surface. Any increase in that protrusion would need to be added to the piston protrusion when selecting the correct head gasket.

It's too early to say if my efforts will be successful but I did think before I started that the head would be difficult to warp, it is short in length, deep and wide. A bit of a lump; not like a straight 6 cylinder head which must be far more difficult to remove without warping.
 
Does the 3 cylinder head have a reputation for warping? From a quick search on google, I'm not finding much.

This is an excellent thread btw Phil. Very informative and an invaluable reference 👍
 
TFG said:
Does the 3 cylinder head have a reputation for warping? From a quick search on google, I'm not finding much.

This is an excellent thread btw Phil. Very informative and an invaluable reference 👍
Click to expand...
Everything I found related to 4 cylinder heads and some of that I think resulted from poor workmanship. Perhaps the reputation isn’t justified for 3 cylinder?
I found it easy to work on.
 
There has been very little progress recently with Little Dog's new engine; he is sat in the front garden with a trickle charger connected. I'm doing my best to get a car out of my lockup so Little Dog can go in.

This is all the A2 progress I have to report:

I have booked a five month early MOT, I don't want the new engine smoke testing before it has a few miles on it.

I've fitted new seals to the injectors:

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MOT was yesterday, had a couple of minor jobs, exhaust joint blowing, only three out of four washer nozzles working. Good clean inside and out and off to the MOT test station. The MOT tester actually questioned the car being in for a test " is there a reason why it is being tested 6 months early"? My answer was simply yes but he wanted to know more. So I explained it was getting a new engine and I didn't want the new engine smoke testing before it had run in. Off he went to test the car and I got a pass, no advisories. Not bad for a 21 year old car with 175k miles.

In terms of this thread I wanted emission test results to compare with the new engine next year but didn't get what I expected. Last years emission results and all previous years have been exceptional:

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Just 6 months and 2.5k miles later the results have slipped:

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Also the test pass limits have changed, is that an error or have new limits been placed on older cars?

Of interest to me here is the actual values increasing by around 50%. What is that a sign of, a failing engine?
 
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