Engine Refresh How-To: First, Research and Documentation

Many of us have owned a car that’s great but needs a little help under the hood. You don’t want to rebuild  the engine or swap it—it just needs a little reconditioning. Each day this week, I’ll be covering one of the basic steps for reconditioning any engine on a reasonable budget.

The first step to doing a good job is to do a little research and documentation before you start. Knowing exactly what engine you have will save you a lot of hassle at the parts counter. For instance, the car I’ll be using as a reference, my grandfather’s 1970 Buick LeSabre, has a 350ci engine. It’s not the same as the common Chevy 350, though, so I have to be careful to make sure the parts guys know this when they give me my gaskets. You 4 cylinder guys know that not all 2.0 litres are created equal.

Now that you know what you have under the hood, you’ve got to decide how far you want to go. Base this decision on how long the car can be down and your own mechanical ability. With that information figured out you can then start making your list of items that you’re going to need. On my first trip to the parts counter, I got hoses, belts, intake gaskets, caburator gaskets, vacuum line, paint, a case of brake clean and a 5 gallon jug of concentrated degreaser. That brought me to about $110.00 to start. Continued…

With the initial shopping done, it’s time to move onto documentation. Taking pictures of an engine before you tear into it can be invaluable later on when it comes time to figuring out how something was routed or what went where. Manuals can help, but your own actual pictures are worth there weight in gold. Several good photos from the front and both sides should give you all the information you need when reinstalling. Labeling electrical connectors and vacuum lines as you remove them will also make your life a lot easier when it comes time for reassembly. In the case of my Caprice engine swap, I even went so far as to purchase Ziploc bags and blank mailing labels to help keep all of my bolts and misc fasteners organized.

With these steps now taken you should be ready to start the tear-down process, which can be the fastest and most fun part of this project if nothing fights you too much. Enjoy it while you can, because tomorrow’s step (Cleaning and Preparation) can become quite tedious.