Mercury Grey MK1 VTS Restoration - Updated 103/07/16

[Gandi699]

Head gasket has gone?

[saxokid100]

Done some nice repair work on this bud!!

[Jigs2895]

Sorry for the lack of updates, been a busy few weeks.

I drove the car to work on trade plates to see how everything was. First few meters I heard a rotational clunk.. Carried on anyway.

Got to work, opened the bonnet and the rad is full of fresh oil, and lots of it. Either the oil cooler is split (most likely as it didn't have any oil in the rad when I bleed the system, so as soon as the thermostat opens it sends water to the cooler) or I blew the headgasket on the drive to work.

Either way I'm picking up a new engine tonight, and a new gearbox as mine has 5th gear rattling around in pieces in the box.

Engine is going to be rebuilt. I won't do rings unless it needs it. Resisting the urge to buy some cams..

More updates tonight when I've collected the engine.

[Gandi699]

cant you just bypass it to test it? Rather odd for it to dump a lot of oil in right away especially coinciding with a "clunk", usually its a slow and gradual thing

[Jigs2895]

Originally Posted by Gandi699

cant you just bypass it to test it? Rather odd for it to dump a lot of oil in right away especially coinciding with a "clunk", usually its a slow and gradual thing

Its more than likely the heat exchanger to be honest. And the clunking was from the gearbox.

Anyhow I've got a engine with 68k on it, which is over 100k less than this engine, gives me a good excuse to strip it down and build it back up and swap the engines over.

[Jigs2895]

Picked up the new engine Friday evening. 68k taken out a GTI. Missing a few parts but nothing that i can't swap over from my the other engine.



New box, matched with that engine.



Did have CatCams in it, but the last owner took those out before he sold it to me and kept the cam covers. Inlet will be replaced also.



Anyway, had a spare few hours today so got it all stripped down ready to be built back up. Not many pictures as my hands where oily, but you get the idea.

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All the bolts and parts bagged and labeled up into categories.



So over the next 2 weeks I am to get the following done:

Head skimmed, rebuilt and painted
Block painted
Check the condition of the rings
Gearbox paint and seals, nose cone, release bearings etc.. changed
All engine seals and gaskets changed
Injectors cleaned
New belt, water pump, idlers, clutch etc..
Get the lugs of the J4 covers skimmed off and polished up
All brackets painted

Ideally i'd like to get the engine out the other one so I can build this one up fully to drop it in.

[SimpleJoee]

Out of curiosity, where did you first learn basic mechanics? College/job or self learning etc? Would love to be able to do half, even a quarter of the jobs you can do.

[Jigs2895]

Originally Posted by SimpleJoee

Out of curiosity, where did you first learn basic mechanics? College/job or self learning etc? Would love to be able to do half, even a quarter of the jobs you can do.

For my first year I self taught. But there is only so much you can do without someone showing you how bits work, this is the stage I got to and then got myself apprenticeship.

However the best way to learn is to buy yourself a cheap VTS engine (£80 or so) and just pull it apart, do your research before hand, these engines are extremely easy to work on, very simple and not much to them.

[Mickswan]

He couldn't even put an exhaust on 18 months ago, now he's a kind of pimp

[lincolndanny]

Originally Posted by Mickswan

He couldn't even put an exhaust on 18 months ago, now he's a kind of pimp

[Gandi699]

Good work here mate. Must have missed the fact the old engine was on 168k, well due some tlc


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SimpleJoee]

Originally Posted by Jigs2895

For my first year I self taught. But there is only so much you can do without someone showing you how bits work, this is the stage I got to and then got myself apprenticeship.

However the best way to learn is to buy yourself a cheap VTS engine (£80 or so) and just pull it apart, do your research before hand, these engines are extremely easy to work on, very simple and not much to them.

I'm on the lookout for a cheap S/Gti as a little project to work on myself, and learn new things. I suppose a lot of it involves being just 'thrown into the deep end' and going from there.

[Jigs2895]

Decided to whip the engine out the car today.









Started stripping the engine down for spare parts for the engine I'm building.



All done.



Now the plan is the 68k engine up. Getting a variety of bits powder coated. I'll also be sorting out the engine bay and respraying it etc..

[lincolndanny]

Good work mate definitely going in the right direction this car

[Jigs2895]

Now I have everything I need from the 2 engines to make one good one, so its time to start building the engine.

Started with degreasing and getting all the relevant sensors into the new box.



Jet washed off. Unfortunately someone has painted the box black in the past.



Anyhow, after a good wire brush I masked up a few componants and got it painted. I'll hold my hands up and admit I did rush the paint a bit, so its not as good as I would have liked but its better than nothing. End plate will be getting rubbed down and painted black soon.





Next I moved onto the exhaust manifold:



Probably the first time in Saxo history anyone has shown one of these love. Gave it a good rub down and got some high temp paint onto it, very happy with the result.





Built up a inlet manifold out of the 3 I had lying around. Has a ported and polished throttle body, not that I care. Cleaned all the sensors and had to swap over the 16v badge as someone decided to paint it, just waiting on the tiger seal to go off over night.



I spent a large part of today cleaning down the block, the front was covered in thick oil and the rear of the block was covered in CV grease... this is how I left it tonight, nearly clean enough for some paint.





Tomorrow I'll be stripping down the engine bay ready for some welding and paint. And hopefully get the head stripped down ready to be skimmed.

[nuttysaxo]

Nice work there , you are putting me to shame jobs finished on my saxo this year are as follows painted underneath and arches , cleaned up calipers .

[shiz]

Im liking this thread, keep up the good work.

[MuZiZZle]

I like your ramps

[Jigs2895]

Finished painting the OEM wheels I had shot blasted a few weeks back.

Primed.



Painted.



Just need to get some fresh rubber for these.

Pulled the sump off the block as it needs replacing, noticed a few metal fragments in the oil strainer.... pulled it apart to find this.



Initially I thought the worst, but further investigation revealed it is actually loads of small fragments of glass??



Absolutely no idea how glass has managed to find its way to there, couldn't see any other fragments in the head or around the crank so who knows how it got there. I've cleaned the strainer out and put it back on now.



Had a few troubles with the play in the crank. But after some research it appears that amount of end float it normal for this engine.

Got the hydraulic lifters soaking in some break fluid over night so I can compress the pistons to reset them tomorrow.



Finished painting the gearbox end plate and cleaned up the workshop for today.



This week I would like to:

Get the new sump on and sealed up
Finish painting the block
Get the head skimmed and painted
Strip and clean the engine bay

[lincolndanny]

Make sure you keep this one mate, good effort