I’ll try to step through the process as I did it. First, preparation. All the parts that did not go out to ECI for refurb had been inspected, cleaned or replaced. All fasteners were thrown out and new MilSpec hardware was used. A mixture of 50/50 STP/oil was used to coat most moving parts before assembly. Moly engine assembly grease was used in a few spots where something thicker was needed. Thread sealant was used (no teflon tape) thruout. Loctite 515 sealant was used instead of silk thread (Lycoming approved). So, all that stuff was acquired and made handy.
As far as literature to help, I printed a copy of the Lycoming direct drive aircraft engines overhaul manual, also the ECI Engine Assembly Hardware Manual was useful – it covers all the hardware you’ll need and gives the torque values for everything, same as in the Lycoming overhaul manual, but easier to find. I also bought a video that describes the overhaul of an IO-360. It was not very comprehensive or complete, but gives a basic overview of the process.
First job was to reassemble the prop governor drive in the case. I’m not putting a CS prop in, but you never know, may as well put it in so I don’t have to spit the case if I do decide to put one in. After it was installed, the main gear shaft was wire-locked to the case.
I didn’t have an engine stand, but when I disassembled the engine, I found that a piece of 3/4″ MDF with a prop flange bolt pattern drilled in it made a fine engine stand. It worked fine for reassy, too. But, I recommend that you drill a 2 1/2″ hole in the middle for the large hole in the end of the crank to go thru, and use big washers on the bolts to distribute the load on the MDF. Actually, if I had 3/4″ plywood handy, I would have used it. Once the whole engine is resting on it, the MDF was pretty loaded up. I slid some 2×3’s under the MDF so the it wasn’t rocking on the bolts.
Once the crank was upright, the crank gear was installed. ECI rejected my crank gear, so this is a new one. Lycoming has a bulletin on the installation of the crank gear. You want to be sure its properly seated against the crank. A tap with a hammer should yield a nice ping, and your smallest feeler gauge shouldn’t be able to slide between it and the crank. The bolt was torqued on and the safety tab was bent over the bolt head.
Next step was the connecting rods. Bearings inserted in first, lubed up with 50/50 STP/oil. New bolts/nuts. The bolts used on an IO-360 are stretch bolts. They are torqued to a specific value (35 ft-lbs, I think), then measured for length and re-torqued until a specific length is achieved. You need a micrometer for this, a caliper really doesn’t work well for this sort of thing. I had my friend Wade over to help with this part. I torqued, he measured. There’s also a specific way the rods have to go on. There’s numbers engraved one each rod, and all the numbers line up the same way.
I’ve seen some put the cases onto the crank while the crank is mounted vertically. That just seemed to be a bit too tough, so the crank was removed from the MDF holder and placed into the crank case. Before that, tho, the crank seal had to be put onto the crank. I remember pulling the seal out of the rebuild kit and thinking, ok, how is this seal going to get over the prop flange. After doing some reading, tho, there’s a Lycoming service note describing how to do this. The closest thing I can compare it to is a woman giving birth. It seems unnatural to stretch something that far, but my wife survived, and so did the seal. The Lycoming service not describes the process, but basically, the inner spring is removed from the seal, and its stretched over the crank flange. I found that a pickle fork (used to replace ball joints) was useful in stretching it around the flange. I don’t have any pics of this process – it was rather traumatic, and I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible and didn’t pause to snap any shots. Anyway, with the crank seal on, the crank bearings were put in the case and lubed up. The crank seal seat on the case halves and the seal itself were painted with Pliabond (my local A&P was nice enough to lend me his bottle). With everything lubed up, the crank was lowered into the case half. In the other case half, the cam was placed and secured (that case half will need to be held inverted, so zip ties were used to secure the cam). All the thru-bolt o-ring seals were lubed and put in place.
I used Loctite 515 instead of the other stuff and silk thread to seal the cases. It went on real easy, just a thin coat was necessary (there’s a Lycoming service instruction that describes the application of the case sealant).
After checking to make sure everything was in its correct position and nothing was forgotten, the cases were joined. Just a little tapping was all that was necessary to get them to seat together. All the 1/4-20 fasteners were installed and finger tightened. The thru-bolts were inserted, temporary large washers and nuts were put on and the thru bolts were torqued down in the correct order to seat the bearings. Then all other fasteners were torqued to the correct spec. The internal fasteners in the sump and under the cam gear were safety wired.
The shafts the idler gears run on were installed onto the back of the case. They use a plate that goes under the bolts to lock the bolts.
All the galley plugs were installed (hope I got them all!). These are just the ones in the main cases, not the accessory case.
Now was a good time to put the piston squirters in. I realized that I hadn’t cleaned these out and checked them, so I had to do that, first. The Lycoming procedure to test the squirters is to blow oil thru them. I forget the exact numbers, but they’re supposed to open at ~20psi and spray a 1″ diameter mist at something like 4″ (its in the Lycoming engine overhaul manual). To clean them out and test them, I modified a quick-connect air fitting by tapping a 1/16″-27NPT port on one side. I could fill the back end with solvent or oil and spray it out at whatever pressure I set on the compressor. Worked very well. Once I had them all cleaned and checked for spray, I installed them in the case.
I was going to put the accessory case on next, but I had a look at the idler gear that goes between the crank and cam gears and thought I should replace it. I didn’t send it to ECI with the rest of the parts, as on initial inspection it looked fine. But, I took another good look at it before I was going to install it and noticed some pitting on a few of the gear lobes, so I ordered another one. It took a few day s to get in, so I decided to install the cylinders next while I waited for the new gear to arrive.
The cylinders came back from Aircraft Cylinder Repair fully assembled. I just had to put the pistons in the cylinders. Before putting the pistons in the cylinders, I made sure the rings were not lined up. Essentially, the bottom and top rings were 120deg apart, the middle ring 60deg from each of them, and none of them lined up with the piston pins. Don Goyette (Aircraft Cylinder Repair) was nice enough to lend me his piston ring compressor. No pics of installing the pistons in the cylinders, but its quick and easy. Just push them far enough so that you can still get the piston pin in. I used the one-piece Superior piston pins (new). Probably best to do this with a helper, but I just held the cylinder under one arm lining up the piston with the con rod and slipped the pin in. Then, gently slid the cylinder on and put the base nuts on finger tight.
Once the cylinders were on, my nice red powder coated push rod tubes went on. Before putting the tubes on, the lifter plungers need to be assembled and inserted into the lifters. I forgot to get pictures of these, just a picture showing them inserted into the lifter. I used just enough oil to lubricate the plunger, but they should be installed “dry” to get the proper adjustment for the rocker clearance. Once the lifter plunger assys are in, the lifter tubes can be installed, seals on each end with spring-clips on the case side. I didn’t safety wire the spring clips yet, as I thought they may have to come off when I had to switch around push rods to get the right valve clearance. Notice the nasty green splotch on each cylinder? That’s to indicate that they’ve been oversized 2 stops. Sort of clashes with the black and red, so once I got the engine all together, I took a brush and painted over most of the green so it was only on a couple of the fins. Silly little thing that will be covered up by the cooling shroud, but it sort of bothered me.
My new idler gear arrived, so I timed the cam to the crank and installed it. Pretty straightforward. Just put the #1 cylinder in TDC, then place the gear so the marks on it line up with marks on both the crank gear and cam gear.
The oil drain tubes from the cylinders back into the base of the case were then installed.
Now, the accessory housing. I debated about installing the tach drive. There’s really no reason to install the tach drive, but I thought I may as well put it in. A new seal in the accessory housing where the tach drive goes through. Then the oil pump goes on. My oil pump may look strange as I think the LIO-360 (my engine) may have a slightly different pump as the gears are turning the opposite direction. Nuts were safety wired. A new gasket for the accessory housing and the housing was then tapped into place, making sure that the oil pump drive meshed up with the crank gear, and the fuel pump plunger cleared its cam drive. You can see the excess gasket extending out in one picture, that was trimmed off and siliconed prior to putting the sump on. An inspection from underneath confirmed that the oil pump was nicely seated in the crank gear and the fuel pump drive plunger was under its cam.
Now for all the accessories! I won’t go thru them all individually, the pictures tell the story. One by one the vacuum pump, fuel pump, prop govener cover plate, oil filter/vent/Vernatherm were all fitted. You’ll notice all the gaskets were put on dry. I saw some folks indicating that sealants should be used on all gaskets, but I saw no mention of this in the Lycoming overhaul manual, and other Lycoming A&P’s I talked to indicated that no sealants were necessary.
The magneto and EI hall effect sensor were installed. At this point, I didn’t make any attempt to time them to the engine, I took care of that later.
The oil pressure regulator was installed and safety wired…
Now time to install the sump. The excess accessory housing gasket was trimmed and silicone was dabbed over the three case joints. A new gasket was installed and the sump was bolted onto the case and the 1/4-20 nuts/bolts were torqued in the correct sequence. After that, the quick-release sump drain and sniffle valve were installed and wired and the oil filter screen was installed with a new gasket. Once the sump was on, the shiny powder coated intake lines were installed as well as the fuel servo elbow. You’ll also notice that I installed the engine mount and wiring harness at this point, as well.
With the wiring harness on, the starter and alternator were installed.
Almost done. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures covering the assembly of the push rods and rocker and rocker panels. This pretty straightforward, tho. The clearance for each valve is checked by installing the push rod and rocker, then pushing down on the push rod side of the rocker, lifting the rocker off the valve (make sure the tappet is on the base circle of the cam so the valve is closed). Then, a feeler gauge is inserted between the rocker arm and valve stem cap. That gap should be at least 0.028″ but not more than 0.080″. Lycoming makes a go, no go gauge for this, but I just used a regular feeler gauge. Its best to rotate the cam so each valve lifts and leave it in this lifted state for a few minutes. This will drain the lifter plunger and make sure it is “dry.” Then rotate the crank to close the valve and do the measurement. There’s four or five lengths of push rods. My engine had three different lengths and I was able to get all valves but one to meet the specified go, no go clearance. So, I had to order one push rod – only ~$30, but it was an annoying delay. Once all the valve clearances are checked, the rocker shaft caps can be installed and the valve covers can be put on. I chose to use silicone rocker panel gaskets instead of the cork ones that came with the gasket kit.
You can see from the above picture, I also installed the fuel servo, distributor, injectors and lines. You can see one rocker cover isn’t installed – I was waiting for the extra push rod I had to order to come in. You can also see the ignition coils on the top for the electronic ignition. The exhaust was also installed along with the CHT and EGT sensors. Manifod pressure and oil sensor lines were installed, too. The last thing was, because I’m using a fixed-pitch prop, an expansion plug has to be installed into the end of the crank. This is covered in the Lycoming Service instruction Conversion from Constant Speed to Fixed Pitch Propeller – SI1435. In addition to installing the expansion plug, you have to make sure that the plug inside the crank is not installed. Here’s a picture to verify the plug is not installed, and the expansion plug installed.
I think that’s about it. I’m sure I missed a few little details, but that’s about when I loaded up the engine onto my trailer and took it back out to the hangar and mounted it back on my Velocity. Right now, its almost plumbed up and ready to go, just a few things to take care of before I fill it up with oil and give it a run. I’ll break it in using the Lycoming Service Instruction #1427B, but that’s for another post…