18RG Rebuild

January 7, 2001

After a minor mishap it became apparent that it was time to pull the 18RG engine out of my RA21 1973 Celica ST in order to freshen it up.

The mishap was simple enough, a fitting that held my oil pressure sender snapped off. This allowed oil to squirt through a small hole until there was no more. In addition to making a horrible mess under the hood, the engine also started making bad noises (I turned it off shortly after the bad noises began). While I don't think there was any long term damage done to the engine, I decided it was time to do a minor rebuild. I want to eliminate oil leaks and get a good smooth running engine. I also need to get the oil pan sump baffled so I can have oil pressure on hard right hand turns.

So, here is a pictorial of the rebuild process.

Click on all images for a 640x480 enlargement (60kb each)

The bum oil fitting: The sheared fitting is the round brass button visible in the middle of the aluminum piece (below oil filter).
Here are the "before" pictures of the misc. engine parts, starting with a front end shot.	Engine Top:
Exhaust (clean) side of engine:	Cams:
After some dissasembly (head removed), I was pleasantly suprised to learn that the engine has been bored to 92mm (stock bore is 88.4mm). This also probably means my pistons are high compression, so hopefully I can reuse them!
	Here is a shot showing the piston dome height:
The cylinder head looks pretty clean to me:	I wonder how worn a timing chain guide can be before needing replacement?