You should be able to turn the engine over by hand. If you can get a ratchet on the bolt on your crank pully it should be able to turn the engine over. It's a little harder when there is plugs in, but you could make it easier on yourself and remove the backside plugs to relieve some of the compression. If I can rotate a big block chevy with a 3/8 ratchet with 13:1 compression and all plugs installed, there should be no reason that you can't turn a 2.8 over with 8.5:1 compression.

Edit: If you have your accessories installed I.E. Alternator and your belt is tight. You might be able to rotate the engine via the alternator bolt.

[This message has been edited by fieroluv (edited 11-29-2006).]

With the belt, tried it, couldn't budge a thing. Already have the back plugs removed and I pre-installed the front (wall) plugs before putting the head on so I didn't have to mess with it later. Hope it can stay that way. :P

When the heads were off I even tried shoving down on one of the pistons to budge it (just for fun), but nothing there either. It's a friggin' miracle that starter can turn this massive piece of brick...

Big, and relevant, question... which way does the engine turn anyway? Tighten (R) on the ratchet...? Or loosen (L)?

------------------

'87 Fiero GT, Automatic, 153k miles, stock everything, just trying to make it all work again.

Engines will turn either way. Just turn it to the right slowly. Pull off the inner wheel well cover and use a long ratchet. Stick a piece of pipe over a short ratchet to make it longer if needed. Don't hurry things, turn slowly and watch the timing marks on the crank pulley. I think its an 18mm socket for the crank pulley bolt.

You need to set the valve lash on each cylinder when it is on top dead center for that cylinder.

Remember that your crank turns twice for every single revolution of the cam so you keep going on those timing marks on the crank.

edit, still can't spell.

[This message has been edited by jetman (edited 11-30-2006).]

Okay, I've gotten several blurbs of advice about this, most telling me that I should do all sorts of paranoid cylinder-by-cylinder manual cranking of the engine (seriously, does anyone realize how difficult that is in such a cramped space???? AT ALL??), a routine more difficult than timing the engine! I've written up what I've done to put the rockers and rods back on, and somehow I get the idea that I'm being "that guy" that asks for the advice and then tells them to take a hike.

I've always hated people that don't take other people's advice. I hoped not to become one of those. But seriously though. We're not dealing with engine timing here. If the arms aren't set right and it makes the engine run crappy (or not at all), big whoop, I'll just take it apart again and adjust them. But the whole concept of hydraulic lifters is sound and simple, compensating for any small variations in adjustments... and having performed the zero-adjustment yesterday (adjusted all those which were "down" to the no-slack point, then turned the engine half a turn, then finished the others), and the turn-and-a-half today, it all goes together fine! If there's too much pressure on a rod (valve open when it should be closed), the lifter will slack and compensate as it should.

I really appreciate the advice and help in other areas I've encountered (at least, most of it), but seriously, on this topic, the amount of meticulous detail involved in fine "tuning" an automatically-adjusting device is just overkill for me. Once I find that screw I dropped earlier today, I'll have it back together and I'm 95% certain it's going to run just fine, with a 4% chance it'll run rough (due to other unsolved problems) and a 1% chance it won't start at all.

I'd love to get away from this with as few unhurt feelings as possible... but how can I be kind when I'm appearing to tell people to take their advice and cram it?

If I break it, I own all the pieces. I know that...

Your last statement sums it up pretty well. It's your car, your engine, and your decision. Advice is just that..... but again it's your decision whether or not to follow it. Most of the advice you get here is very well intended, and based on lessons learned by those who provide it. Just be aware that you are off in 'wing it mode" a bit here, but if it's a risk you're willing to take, that's all you have to worry about. I think part of the reason people might be kind of harping on you, could be that you've made it clear you don't have 2 spare nickles to rub together..... so are trying to spare you the expense of having to do things over.... and also possibly additional expense (say if you bend a pushrod, or whatever....).


Rich

[This message has been edited by Richjk21 (edited 11-29-2006).]

Umm, if the lifter is bottomed out, it will not self-adjust. If it is too loose, it will not self-adjust. The procedure that jetman described is to get the pushrod sitting in the middle of the lifter bore. You are not hurting anybody's feelings at all. You might get a few snickers when your engine does not run right though. I personally hope you have good luck and your engine runs like a top.

Be very, very careful. I hope it turns out well, but if the rockers are too tight you could very easily wipe a cam lobe. I know this to be fact. I have done it. And guess what, it only took about five minutes. Started the engine it wasn't quite running right and I rev'd it a couple times, then it started popping through the carburetor. Took everything apart and found a completely round cam lobe.

I guess we really weren't understanding what you were talking about when you said you couldn't turn the engine over. I understood it as physically turn it over. But you were talking about space.

Do you have any extensions for your ratchet, I think you will need about 18" worth. If you take the wheel off and the inner wheel well off you can use an extension and you should have more than enough room to rotate the engine. Or alternately you can turn it over at the flywheel or flexplate if its an automatic with an open end wrench.

Good luck.

And my camera's screen is shattered... no idea how THAT happened but let's hope that luck doesn't continue...

As far as the rods go, I figure the way it came out should be the way it goes back in. The pictures I took showed the same adjustment, and the rods and rockers I took out went back in the same positions. It should all be fine. I appreciate the concern though... shows the power of the community, for sure

Here's where I'm at now... I think my camera was stuck in "manual" mode last time I took a picture (for tight focusing) so it's blurry. I might be able to blindly navigate through the functions to switch back to auto and keep taking pictures... (Or I could just hook it up to a TV and see its screen, LOL!)

Assembly is looking good so far.
There is more than one way to skin a cat or set a valve lash. The Chiltons manual has a method which you only turn the engine halfway. As long as you have the preload on the lifters set about half way, you should be good to go. You can always make fine adjustments later, especially when you have more room to work with. We will keep our fingers crossed for you.

Thanks!! I hope I didn't cause any hard feelings with that valve thing... I love y'all.

Maybe because I'm in a just giddy mood. The car's done at least one day ahead of schedule!!! That allows a little more room for fine tuning before the big day, the 2nd... need to catch one Xmas party locally, and maybe even the West Coast Fieros BBQ on the same day - that's about a 3 hour drive from here! I want my car to be there... so bad.

And here's the best picture I could get with a camera that no longer has a viewfinder...


Mere minutes away from hitting the starter!! Wish me luck!

Let me ask... what does a shop do when timing a V6 GM engine? I had to have the head gaskets changed on my Aztek with the 3.4 (FWD). They must have a procedure? If so, then I would assume the procedure they use would be the one to follow. They have to perform the work in a reasonable amount of time, yet to it correctly. If there is a shortcut, they would know it.

I will ask them next time the Aztek is in for repair, which won't be long with the A/C compressor leaking fluid. @#%%

J.

Which one, valve timing or ignition timing? Valve timing, I'm sure they have the engine out of the car to begin with (to have messed up the cam timing) and they do some weird crap. Ignition timing? A wrench and a timing light. But since nothing ever moved while I was working on the car, I didn't even need to adjust either one. That's why I'm fairly confident it adjusted itself just fine.

Today's the 30th and hence my permit expires today... so I'm going to take it in for its first ever smog test today as well. Going to adjust the ignition timing, maybe that's causing some problems here since I only went on a couple marks I made to reinstall it. Then I'm gonna hope I can get that idle down. Down down. Ahh, so much to do, less typing, more working! Wish me luck!

valve timing.

Hmm. Running around a bit just before the smog... and I'm finding some odd things. First, the engine runs great, doesn't run great, runs great, doesn't run great. Idling kinda rough, almost wanting to stall. It finally idles around 1000 where it belongs, but maybe only because it's having trouble staying running.

I have the odd feeling that "1 and a half turns" was what caused this... probably keeping the valves too far open. But then again, if the lifters do have as much travel as they ought to, it shouldn't be a problem...

Still getting a bit of smoke coming off the wall side of the engine... not sure what's causing that, probably some of that leftover crap.

But one thing there is NONE of: STEAM! No more columns of steam coming out of the tailpipes! Just the usual cold-car stuff that dies off... how awesome is that???

Let the car warm up to temp, set the timing with your timing light, then disconnect the negative bat cable about a minute to reset the computer, take it for another drive over 35 MPH to let the computer re-learn the idle. Lets see if the computer will throw a code at you to help figure out that odd idle.

Geeeee!!! IT RUNS GREAT!!

The smog test did everything the ECM wanted to know. Except for one thing: it never opened the EGR, so I failed smog (visual passed, function passed, emissions failed w/ HC average, CO average, and NO very high). Nice.

But the car has GO! It has power! I can go from zero to 60 in, well... traffic permitting, I have no idea. haha. It goes though! It goes very nicely! It has no more cooling problems! It stays cool while idling for a long time, no more smoke from the engine, no more steam from the exhaust, no more weird noises, no nothing!

Except the gas pedal is still sticky... I have to carefully jam on the pedal to get it unstuck - I think the flap on the throttle is to blame there. Often makes it look like I'm flooring it from a stop light... lol. But the sucker runs, and it runs great!

Also, thanks to my glorious alignment marks, I didn't even need to adjust the timing after I put the distributor back in. I hooked up the timing light and did the average, it's about 8 degrees (in whatever the scale counts). It's loving life!

I guess I might be able to catch that West Coast Fieros BBQ after all...

[This message has been edited by Falcon4 (edited 11-30-2006).]

quote Originally posted by Falcon4: Geeeee!!! IT RUNS GREAT!! But the car has GO! It has power! I can go from zero to 60 in, well...

Really flys now, eh?

Nice to hear of the good news, way to go!

Well, when it just started up for the first time, it didn't have much power and was really rough. I don't know why... I'll have to talk with fresnofiero about that in person. He'll know what's up.

And surprisingly enough, it's still hard to start...

Cold start injector. Anyone still sell them?

congrats, it's a good feeling to accomplish a task such as this huh? Now maybe for your next major task you can tackle an engine rebuild.

happy motoring.

Cool!
Congrats!

That's a heck of an accomplishment for someone who's never been in a motor before.

Is the peddle still sticking? Was you idle screw uncovered in the TB? If so you might need to turn it in just a bit so the blade does not stick. It might also fix the up down idle. There is a process for setting it but you might be able to get it close by just adjusting.

That's for sure. I'm still somewhat concerned that the "turn and a half" on the rocker arm nuts was too far... I seriously doubt I bottomed out any of the lifters (somehow without any noticeable difference in adjustments?) but something's still really different.

One more session of driving ended me up with a few more thoughts. It's really, really quiet now! Really friggin' quiet! The only way I know it's running is by feeling it in the seat back! Oh, and a little rumble, but wow, it's a whole ton quieter than it was before. It still seems to be fighting with itself when in Neutral. The RPM is all over the place - rumbling down (as if a cylinder wasn't working right), then back up a little, down a little, back up, so on and so forth... really confusing.

Other than that, it has plenty of power and is doing absolutely great with temperature. Due to the radiator being under the hood that's hard to open (thanks to the problem presented in my small accident early last month), I only filled through the thermostat housing - since that's the only place coolant leaked out of. It ran great and cool despite that. However when I opened it up on the radiator after a drive, pressure (but no liquid) was released from the cap, and the thermostat side was low. I don't think it's leaking, just working out air bubbles. The reservoir was empty, which is a very welcome sight after having the reservoir overflowing and never refilling 90% of the time.

One more day, and I get to go to the West Coast Fieros BBQ! You think I'm looking forward to that? Just a little? Maybe? Yep!! It'd be my first Fiero-owners meet

If the TB is sticking it's been messed with already. Just work the TB by hand and turn the screw in until the sticking stops.
Then you might turn the screw another 1/8 of a turn and see how it responds. Don't go much more than that. the IAC should take care of it from there. That's a ruff adjustment but should work. If you do a search there are some that measure from the edge of the TB to the bottom of the plate and set it that way.

Well, in a perfect world there should be no gap at all (as far as I know)... otherwise the idle'll go through the roof and the IAC wouldn't be able to fix that. The resolution I read about for the well-known sticking problem is a bit of throttle body cleaner and some high temperature grease in the pivot points. I'm trying to decide if that's what I want to do, because the last thing I want to do is make my idle any higher! It's already teetering on the edge of not being able to lower it to specs... I can't find any vacuum leaks but it still doesn't like coming down to the right speed (1000 is the lowest I've ever seen it in neutral). Really kinda bugs me.

But it's plain enough that the screw's probably been tampered with... so I guess it can't hurt to try tweaking a little. If it screws up my idle, back down with it, and to pep boys for the can of TB cleaner.

Call ahead to that BBQ, see if someone can bring an "auto x-ray scanner", sure would be nice to actually "see" what's up with that idle. Good Call on the TB cleaner, get the one that's sensor safe. Your O2 sensor may already be toasted from the antifreeze / oil and whatever else during the rebuild but that's guessing on my part without a scanner.

Instead of calling ahead, I think I should just post in the thread (in General)

I wonder why it's not on the calendar either... I'll post that either. I think that scanner would come in major handy. WinALDL was a major non-help... blam that stupid melting cable I made. Short lived, that's for sure!

We can use my scanner tomorrow adjust your idle screw if you're having idle issues and you think its been tweaked. It just needs to be set so that when there are no vacuum leaks, you've got like 15 or so IAC motor steps when the idle is right with the car warmed up. That way the IAC has plenty of range to open or close to adjust for different loads on the motor at idle or to idle high for warm up, etc.

I'm not sure if the idle screw will affect your startup problem.. I think the IAC opens at least a dozen steps during cranking so even if your throttle plate is completely closed it should still start okay.