Oyvind Ryeng
New User
Sorry, did not mean to keep you guys hanging! After getting new valve locks from tremendous gentleman "graham_in_NJ" I got the engine put back together again. Getting the freshly semi-rebuilt engine run-in concerned me for a while, but I ended up towing my old ~1500 kg. Volvo station wagon up and down a hilly road for about an hour. I had my brother steering the car, it's engine was running and just engine braking in first gear just under 4000 RPM. It seemed like the load on the tractor was just right and the engine coolant temperature was right on the whole time. Brother just had to give it a little gas to help lessen the load near the top of the steepest inclines and the run-in "appears to have worked fine".
When doing the turbo conversion on the tractor I had mistakenly plumbed the oil return from turbo into a factory threaded hole in the block that turned out to be connected to the suction side of the oil pump! No wonder the engine oil pressure fluctuated and caused me to lose the bearings in the turbo at the end of the run-in. Got that sorted for a song a few weeks later and made a proper return path to the timing cover and that problem was solved. Seemingly happily boosting at 10 PSI at the moment; I have not yet made any changes to the fuel injection pump or fitted an intercooler.
While doing the engine work I drilled the head for modern NGK 12V glow plugs directly into the pre-combustion chambers and removed the thermostart valve in the intake manifold. The engine now starts a whole lot easier than it did previously, but still likes to have the block heater used when the temperature is below freezing; it starts noticeably easier after being plugged in for about half an hour. I believe this less-than-perfect starting in the cold is caused by losing a little static compression when refreshing the valve seats, as the new valves are seated about 0.040" deeper than before. Just over the service limit I believe, but fitting new valve seats was not in the cards at this time. Time will tell if I made the right call.
When doing the turbo conversion on the tractor I had mistakenly plumbed the oil return from turbo into a factory threaded hole in the block that turned out to be connected to the suction side of the oil pump! No wonder the engine oil pressure fluctuated and caused me to lose the bearings in the turbo at the end of the run-in. Got that sorted for a song a few weeks later and made a proper return path to the timing cover and that problem was solved. Seemingly happily boosting at 10 PSI at the moment; I have not yet made any changes to the fuel injection pump or fitted an intercooler.
While doing the engine work I drilled the head for modern NGK 12V glow plugs directly into the pre-combustion chambers and removed the thermostart valve in the intake manifold. The engine now starts a whole lot easier than it did previously, but still likes to have the block heater used when the temperature is below freezing; it starts noticeably easier after being plugged in for about half an hour. I believe this less-than-perfect starting in the cold is caused by losing a little static compression when refreshing the valve seats, as the new valves are seated about 0.040" deeper than before. Just over the service limit I believe, but fitting new valve seats was not in the cards at this time. Time will tell if I made the right call.
