Impact wrench and call it good

 

take the belt off the back of the harmonic balance, tighten the balance snug, put the belt back on and torque it.

 

I followed a pretty neat trick I found on YouTube and removed the inspection plate and locked the flywheel with a 13mm wrench which fits perfectly in the notch at the bottom right of the bell housing. The flywheel didn't budge. (See attached photo.) While I was in there, I checked the area around the rear crank seal and it was bone dry.

Good news--the snout, keyway and seal were all fine, however the pulley bolt was alarmingly easy to remove; a light turn on my 24mm combo wrench was all it took to loosen it, so it probably wasn't torqued down enough the last time it was removed. (?) I reinstalled and torqued the pulley without any problems, restarted the engine and it didn't blow up... so far, so good!

The idling issue seems to be gone, but I still need to address the oil pressure issue. This weekend I'll run some engine flush prior to draining, pull the pan and pickup tube, and see what I find. My guess is that between the excess goop I used on the pan and the Lucas Engine Oil Stop Leak on top of switching to 15/40 diesel, the soup is too thick for the motor. (?)

I'll use the Right Stuff when I bolt the pan back up, stick with the diesel oil and not add anything to it, and see if that solves the pressure issue. I'll report back next week. Thanks again for your help!

 

Cool, glad your taking the time to learn a few tricks. If the oil pressure switch is not the oiling problem and it's not the oil pick-up it's the top end - rocker assembly on both sides. Notorious. In order to clean them properly you need to remove them. The rocker shafts and rockers are like removing shish kabob eats and skewers from the barby, that easy. I'll bet a brewski that you'll find the rocker shafts and rockers themselves near full occlusion with baked oil and sludge. The rocker shaft pedestal bolts go right through the shafts, oil then builds a sludge wall. The rockers will have carbon in the ports for p-rods and shaft oiling. The front and back pedestals have holes where the oil comes through from the pump, coat hanger, thin stainless wire - whatever it takes to clean those up. You'll notice there is no more ticking after you fire it up.

You don't have to remove the heads to clean up the top end, just shafts and rockers. Well worth the work to hold a rebuild off for another few years..... If the oil pressure has been a problem for awhile the shells are probably not doing that good either. With the oil pan off I would check at least one large and one main set of shells. You'll need new bolts after removing caps because they're torque to yield stretch types.......one use only.

Oh and to soak anything with carbon use Chemtool and acetone. Can find both at Wallyworld. Dental picks or hobby picks you can find at chain lumber stores in the tool section.

 

The oil pressure switch is brand new from Atlantic British. Is it possible that it's defective? I replaced it at the same time as the oil pan gasket, diesel oil and engine seal--and the oil light issue got worse although the switch is no longer a leak point.

The previous owner replaced the main and rod bearings as well as the oil pump. Is it safe to assume he replaced the shells along with them and if so, shouldn't they be okay? If I remove them to inspect and/or clean, what is the specific name of the bolts I'll have to replace, and where can I get them?

Can't wait to see what the rocker assembly looks like if it hasn't been cleaned in a while. This will be an awesome weekend to have to tackle all of this with temperatures expected to reach 110... woo hoo!

Thanks again!

 

Regarding the oil pressure switch--I'm wondering if I installed the right part? The switch I ordered from Atlantic British looked different from the old one I pulled out... and now I'm seeing that there are two different switches for this vehicle although each switch is recommended for Discos "to VIN XA231750"... and my VIN is within that range. The new switch I installed is STC4104, but the old switch looked more like AMR2092. Here's a link to both parts. Is there a big difference between the two?

 

Main and rod bearings are shells, so that's off the checklist, no bolts to worry about there. Oil pump is off the list (sort of, don't know what the gear-rotor to backplate measurement is...). So, that leaves the oil pickup screen and the rocker assembly. Switches are electrical not mechanical. I like to know what the readings are with a gauge.

It's fairly warm in my neck of the woods too. The rocker assembly on the passenger side is pretty easy to get off first, that will tell you what the other side is gonna be like......

 

How about the two different switches I linked to above? Any appreciable difference between them that could be a factor in my oil pressure issue? I've read through the RAVE manual on how to check the pressure, I'll do that after completing all the procedures.

Was just commenting to my brother-in-law about an hour ago that I'm going to pull the passenger side first and see what I find. Here's what it looked like in February when I refitted the gasket that was leaking...

 

I don't think there's an electrical difference between the two switches, they both fit the exact same years and are the same price. I don't have a parts catalog (well I've got the Russian bootleg one). Antichrist would know. Anyways...... I'd yank the rocker assemblies, they look ok but there's signs of buildup. Should look more like this, inside and out;

 

Looks pretty grungy to me and could benefit from a through cleaning.