SAAB V4 ENGINE RECONDITIONED

I've just reconditioned another Saab V4 engine, this one for a  '73 Sonett III. The photo above shows new piston rings about to go onto a cleaned up piston. Note the piston ring expanding tool at the right. The yellow sleeves are to protect the crankshaft when the piston is installed in the engine block. I always have the connecting rod big ends "sized" and always use NEW connecting rod bolts and nuts. These are torqued to a "stretch" or "yield" condition and can NOT be re-used, as they may well break if they are again torqued to yield.  

 I always take a picture of the installed, new timing gears and tuck the photo into the records for that engine [this one was rebuild number 474...].  Note the new design of the big camshaft gear. Nice quality...BUT...the manufacturer didn't do enough homework. The two standard bolts that retain the intermediate plate [visible at the very bottom of the photo] contacts the outer ring of the aluminum center of the gear. I make special THIN head bolts to retain that plate and use Loctite to keep the bolts in place--no room for lock washers, not even the thin spring plate type.  I call that "close, but no banana".

 Note the big valves in the right cylinder head. I use these big valves in ALL my reconditioned V4 engines.  ALL the valve parts are NEW except the top retaining plates that hold the split keys. The exhaust valves are hardened and I install hardened valve seats for the exhaust valves. This was a warmed up street engine so the owner wished to stay with a single barrel carburetor. I use NEW Weber carburetors on ALL reconditioned V4 engines, this one a 34 ICH.

You can see the Weber carb and special air cleaner assembly, the reconditioned Bosch distributor, the new oil fill cap and the light flywheel and new clutch and pressure plate.  What you can't see is the camshaft, reground to Iskenderian F4 specs, and the new tappets [cam followers]. The yellow tabs are shims this clutch set required to get the release bearing plate [the six-sided plate in the center of the pressure plate ass'y] in its correct fore-aft location. The six shims go between the pressure plate and the flywheel. These MUST be offset by installing a slightly thicker shim WASHER under each of the six coil springs inside the pressure plate. About HALF the NEW clutch kits [clutch disc and pressure plate] I get these days require this shimming. I am really picky about the machining of the flywheels to maintain the STOCK depth of the pressure surface to the pressure plate mounting surface, so I know the problem is NOT the flywheels.   Necessity, someone said, is the mother of invention......