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[2woody]

I should qualify a bit.....

over the years, I've stripped and rebuilt 12 Omega B V6 engines. In each case, the big ends were compromised to the extent that the bearing surface had completely worn away to expose the copper/brass substrate structure. I've yet to strip one where this hasn't happened.

None of the corresponding main bearings had been worn to that extent.

yes, of course the cause behind this is oil starvation and not the design of the engine

This is to be compared against the other 150 or so engines that I've rebuilt, which show a more normal bearing failure pattern across different types.

[LC0112G]

Ok, upper and lower sumps re-fitted. Next problem...

I can't remember where the engine earth wire connects. I'm fairly sure it threads down the back of the cam belt cover, and then bolts to the front face of the block somewhere close to the water pump. But I'm stuffed if i can see where it came from. Anyone got a photo?

[Andy B]

....
Anyone got a photo?

RobG!!!!!! 

[LC0112G]

Ok almost there. Would have finished yesterday, but ran out of carb cleaner and kitchen towel to clean all the oil out of the breathers, throttle bodies and plenium.

The engine earth attaches to the air con bracket, just above the A/C pump.

There is a place reserved in hell for the designers at Russelheim. I thought the carlton was bad, but the omega is another level of incompetent design. The following is a list of things that took far, far longer than they should, so as a heads up for anyone doing the job..

1) Attaching the water pipes to the back of the engine when the engine is already in. The top hose onto the coolant bridge is Ok, but the bottom one onto the spur in the main coolant pipe is another matter. Getting mole grips in there to compress the spring clip is a right game.

1a) Forgot - the three earth wires onto the side of the DIS mounting bracket. FFS.

2) Passenger side engine to radiator water hose - for the love off god, fit this to the engiine before putting the engine in. 2 hours it took me. The spring clip refused to go over the bulge in the hose where the metal lip on the pipe end is, and you can't get in/under the head to fit the clip first. I was about to give up and fit a jubilee clip when I finally found the right combination of pliers to ge the clip in.

3) The air con compressor. It won't clear the mounting bracket/subframe with the pipework connected, and doing up the pipework in-situe is difficult. How you're supposed to make a clean job of it is beyond me.

4) The radiators. Where to start. The A/C rad (well the drier bottle part) doesn't clear the front fans, so they have to come out. And the distance between the chassis rails is less than the width of the main rad so it's difficult to get it in. I also had to take the rad-fan off the back to fit a broken bagpipe A/V mount. Fitting this back to the rad in the car is almost impossible. There are just 2 screws and a plastic lug, but getting the plastic lug to engage was impossible. And once everything is back in, you've got the joy of connecting the bottom electrical plug to the rad.

5) Whoever signed off on that snake pit of tubes infront of the engine wants a kicking. Water pumps, air pumps, air con gubbins, you couldn't make it any more of a mess if you tried. With it all out, it looks like there is loads of room to fit a V10/V12.

6) When fitting the spin on oil filter, fill it up with oil first to help prime the pump. But, remember to take some paper cloth with you under the car when trying to spin it on. Rubber gloves slip on the outside of the oily filter otherwise, so by the time you've spun it on, any oil that was in the filter will be all over you.

Anyhow, cranked it over yesterday with the injectors disconnected, and I've got oil pressure. So tonight it's just clean and re-fit the breathers and throtle bodies and take it out for a spin. What could possibly go wrong.

[TheBoy]

We wait with baited breath

[Omegatoy]

Malcom, as always your unique way of putting things has me in stitches
fingers crossed it all runs well

[LC0112G]

We wait with baited breath

Well, it started. Didn't start first time, but that might be unfair coz I suppose the fuel rail would have taken a few seconds to pressurise properly. Eventually it did start - to the noise of a very noisy lifter tapping away, and an awfull lot of smoke from the exhaust. The lifter finally shut up after about 10 minutes running, at which time I noticed a water leak.

10 minutes of faffing with the passenger side top hose revealed that it wasn't sealing properly on the rad. So a new jubelee clip, and that was sorted. Another 10 minute run, and most of the smoke from the drivers side exhaust pipe had subsided, but it's still smoking from the passenger side exhaust. So next step is a blat on my local test track...

Except, the tax is up at the end of the month, and I couldn't find my MOT stuff. Didin't want to risk getting stopped by the rozzers so decided I'd better delay the test run till tomorrow so that I can chect it does have a current MOT. Why on earth can't you check the expiry date of an MOT online without the V5 ? Anyhow, the DVLA site appears to be allowing me to renew the tax, so i guess the MOT is valid at least till Thursday.

Initial impressions are I'm not very happy with the idle quality - seems quite lumpy at tickover, and it also attempts to stall at the far ends of the steering lock. And it's still noticibly smoking (or steaming?) from the passenger side exhaust after perhaps 30 minutes running. I think I may do a hydrocarbon test before my test run. 

[Webby the Bear]

Awesome updates here mate and after stripping down a top end i know your frustrations.

Re the hose clamp on the passenger side... if it gave me that much trouble i'd have left it in situ and got a jubille clip on there.

I've read most of this today..... so apologies if i've got it wrong.....

did you have the heads off? or did you buy a complete engine? Best thing i did with the top end was soak lifters upside down in oil over night (turned out to be about a week in the end lol). When mine restarted it was quiet as anything and sounded like a real improvement.

is the exhaust leak from the manifold?

[LC0112G]

did you have the heads off? or did you buy a complete engine?

Bought the complete engine off RobseyMV6. He'd already done all the top end work, including cylinder head gaskets so I didn't want to disturb any of the new stuff. I did take off the exhaust manifolds and replace the studs and nuts though, and there were new exhaust manifold gaskets on it so no reason to doubt what Robsey told me. He did say he oiled the cylinder walls before re-assembly for anti-corrosion, so that will go some way to explaining the smoke.

Best thing i did with the top end was soak lifters upside down in oil over night (turned out to be about a week in the end lol). When mine restarted it was quiet as anything and sounded like a real improvement.

Yeah, but as stated I didn't want to remove ther cam covers, and cams, and sprockets if they had only just been put back together. I did drop the small and big sumps and remove the crank cover, but it all looked quite good so I didn't disturb the main or big end bearings. Just cleaned everything up and re-fitted with new gaskets and Vx grey goo.

is the exhaust leak from the manifold?

I don't think there is an exhaust leak. The smoke/steam? I'm talking about is out of the passenger side tail pipe - and only the passenger side. I think that points towards somethong funny in the passenger side bank of the engine, although it is possibly just oil residue. Should know more tonight when I'm out for my first test run. MOT expires on 2nd May, so a few days yet to run the engine in :-)

I changed all the sensors (DIS, crank and knock x2)  off the old engine onto the new except the cam sensor. No trouble codes at the moment, but I might swap the old cam sensor over too just incase that's responsible for the lumpy running at tickover. If that doesn't cure it then I'll swap the injector manifold headers incase it's a sticky/lazy injector. After that, if the hydrocarbon test is all clear then I'll be scratching my head (and getting splinters no doubt).

[LC0112G]

Hmmmm.

Did a short 2 mile test after work. Lots of smoke on light and medium acceleration - light smoke on tickover and coasting. Not condeming the new engine just yet, but starting to look like possible piston ring issues. Had to abort the test due to heavy traffic.

Just done a blink test, and I've now got some codes :

12   Normal
57   Idle Air Control Voltage Low
21   Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) Voltage High
129   Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) Valve Feedback Voltage Low
31   No Engine RPM Signal

12 & 31 are normal on a stopped engine I believe, but it seems strange to have 3 seemingly discrete sensors all packed up - I'm wondering is there a fuse common to all of these? I suppose this might explain the lumpy tickover running.

And either the battery has died in sympathy, or something is drawing a lot of current.

Now 10:30 pm so I'm gonna look for blown fuses and go and give it some aggro.

[RobseyMV6]

The smoke from any engine rebuild is normal for new gaskets burning/beding in, as I said I dropped 3in1 oil on pots while I was rebuilding heads, had this before with tail smoke, will clear!! Do take it out but don't give it hell as brand new head gaskets to seal and look after good 100 miles first!!!! Block is fine!! You have a good engine there!!

I'd never sell something with a problem!

[LC0112G]

The smoke from any engine rebuild is normal for new gaskets burning/beding in, as I said I dropped 3in1 oil on pots while I was rebuilding heads, had this before with tail smoke, will clear!! Do take it out but don't give it hell as brand new head gaskets to seal and look after good 100 miles first!!!! Block is fine!! You have a good engine there!!

I'd never sell something with a problem!

You're probably right - the old engine was smoking like a steam train so it's probably not just your 3-in-1, but an exhaust full of old oil too. Tonights test run was fairly good. No obvious red-arrows trail at speeds up to 70MPH, and after a 30 minute run the only significant smoke was from under the bonnet. I'll need to get back underneath to see if its oil, or just assembly grease and cleaner residue burning off. I did a sniffy-do-dah test on the header tank afterwards, and the dye stayed green so CHG seems good.

The trouble codes don't cause an EML lamp to come on. On thinking about it, when I was building up oil pressure I did it by cranking over with the plenium off, and the injector loom disconnected. That means that the EGR, TPS and IACV were all disconnected, so I wonder if these are left over trouble codes from that. If so - how do you clear the stored trouble codes? Is it disconnect the battery for 30 minutes like on Carltons/Sennys, or does it need Tech2?

I've put a fully charged battery on it tonight - will see if it's still ok tomorrow.

[chrisgixer]

Needs a suitable code reader. Disconnecting the battery won't work.

Not sure if the usual post y2k obd2 readers will work on pre facelift ecu's though. Maybe someone will confirm. The codes may well be historic. But clearing them with a code reader and seeing if they return, and are hence considered current, would be the normal way.
Rumour has it some codes clear themselves after a number of fault free starts though.


Good job btw. Excellent read.

[Kevin Wood]

I would say those codes would light the EML if they were present. My guess is that cranking it with things disconnected raised those codes.

If the cats and exhaust system have been drowned in oil it will take a long drive to get everything up to temperature for long enough to burn all the old oil off. I'd give it a bit more time before condemning anything.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Usual cause of poor idle is an airleak somewhere and I have also seen it as a result of the spark plugs not being connected correctly on the 2-4-6 bank (as the connections are not so obvious)