ianD

I'm getting ready to put my engine back together and had to get my crankshaft reground. The shop told me that after the crank is reground it isn't cleaned so make sure I clean out the oil ports real well. He told me to just use gun barrel brushes, brake cleaner, and compressed air. Is this sufficient? Also I figured I'd remove the allen head screws, that plug the crosshole from the main journal to rod journal, for a thorough cleaning. I removed one and the threads on the allen screw are all buggered up, but the threads in the crank are ok. Is the screw made of a softer metal, designed to deform as it threads in to prevent it from coming out? It still threads back in, but are these non reusable? Is it even necessary to remove these for a proper cleaning?

ianD

Oh yeah, it's a 22re

osv

yes, he's right, it's absolutely necessary to clean the junk out of all of the oil ports on the crank, or the residue will wash out under oil pressure, into the bearings, and trash everything.

just replace the allen head screws with new ones, be sure and use locktite on 'em, you don't want 'em coming loose.

same thing with the ports in the engine block.

ianD

I've been able to get 2 of them out but the other two aren't budging. I hit them with some pb blaster and let them sit for a few hours but still no luck. Any tips for getting these thing out?

PreviousOwner

Impact driver (NOT pneumatic impact wrench) to "wake up" the fastener - it may break the crud/sealant free. If the wife isn't home you could throw it in the oven for an hour at a moderate temperature.

ianD

Well, I screwed up and about rounded one of the heads out. Gonna try drilling and tapping it for a left handed bolt, hopefully I can wind it out with that and an impact, and a little heat persuasion too. If there wasn't any debris in those ports from the regrinding there sure will be by the time I get this screw out.

osv

how about an easy out? with some heat? don't want to screw up the threads on the crank.

can you access the inside of that port from another angle, say, the other side of the crank? blow it out good and swab it out from there?

millball

Two different machinists that have done 22r crank work for me, told me that it was unnecessary to remove these plugs, and they refused to do so when I asked them to.

Both said that it was easy to damage a crank because of the strong tightning and peening that was given to these plugs.

They said that the crank galleys could be cleaned satisfactorily thru the journal holes with brushes, solvent and compressed air.

I can't believe that a shop would return work that they had not cleaned perfectly.

I don't think I would give them any more work.

ianD

Probably should have talked to the shop first, got impatient and didn't want to wait till tomorrow. The ones on my crank didn't appear to be peened though, and 2 of them came out pretty easily. Oh well, lesson learned

osv

how are they going to clean it if they can't get a brush or pipe cleaner into the galley?

machine shops are not in the business of cleaning parts, that's the engine builders job.

"The first order of business is to clean all the oil passages in the crank.
Most good machine shops usually do a decent job, but you should NEVER rely on them to give you absolutely clean parts back. That applies especially to crankshafts that have been ground.
The grinding debris ends up in the oil passages and if not cleaned out spotlessly, will EAT your new bearings and crank journals.

I started with some carb cleaner solvent and nice heavy duty pipe cleaners, (doubled up to fill the holes better) :
Keep cleaning the oil passages with pipe cleaners until they come out perfectly clean.
Here's a pipe cleaner after the 3rd time cleaning this particular hole, (needs a lot more cleaning):
Lots of little metal particles and dirt that would end up directly in the bearings at start-up
I had to clean this particular passage 11 times.
Think "surgical clean" when prepping a rebuild."
http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum3/HTML/000026-8.html

osv

yours were not peened because they aren't plugs, they are screwed in... yes the softer metal of the allen head screw deforms to increase the friction fit, because it should be a tapered hole.

getting the plugs out can be a difficult proposition see this thread:

http://honda-tech.com/all-motor-natu...balls-1877945/

ianD

That's what the guy at the shop told me, "cleaning is the responsibility of the engine builder". Is it tapered as in a standard NPT thread, or some oddball metric one? I thought about TIG welding something onto the screw that I could get a better hold on but I'm hesitant about all that heat right next to the crank journals.

PreviousOwner

If you have left handed drill bits, use them to drill for the easy out...I have had great luck with the drill bit walking the broken stud out (the heat of the drilling helps) without even using the easy out...and if they don't do the trick the easy out should. Good luck.

osv

i've had luck doing it like previousowner said, harbor freight has a cheap set of left-hand drill bits, but they aren't real sturdy.

i'd imagine that it's metric, can't say for sure, but if you can't get to it to clean the galley from the other end, worst case you could take it to the machine shop.

i was surprised to see those honda guys having to pull the plugs like that.

ianD

Ok I finally got the plugs out. For some reason I liked the idea of the left hand tap/left hand bolt. Bolt sheared off in the plug, back to square one. I never had much luck with easy outs but I had always used the spiral ones. I got my hands on a square one which needed a 5/16 pilot. I made a drill guide on my lathe that sat in the counter bored area above the plug to keep me straight as possible. Used a beefy set of tap handles on the easy out and they broke free without too much effort. My faith in easy outs has been restored, just get the square ones. Kind of a pain, but worth the peace of mind knowing that my oil passages are totally clean.

osv

wow! that got pretty ugly, glad to hear that it's resolved.

you'll probably want to give the oil passages in the block the same treatment.