Back in November 2018, I purchased a bunch of used 1303 struts and spindles and assorted other parts form a guy about an hour south of here.
When I was going through all of his stuff, I noticed he had an engine sitting to the side that was an AJ FI case. It had most of the FI ripped off of it, but I seem to recall getting it for like $50 extra or so. At the time, it was worth it for me to have back up FI tins and such, and I had hoped that other parts were usable.
Now the journey there was to acquire a full second set of 1303 spindles (since they are not made anymore) and I figured the 1303 control arms and struts would be good to have as backups for the future.
I think I paid him maybe $250 for so much stuff and there was a speedometer in there too.
So the
I had broken the engine down to a short block and it sat for all this time in a bin.
During my cleaning today, I decided to finally tear it down to get the case cleaned up.
Now there was some issues with the heads. I remember the cylinders were pretty rusty. But that’s all I remember.
I spent 3 hours tearing it apart, having to spent a lot of time and effort on the cylinder studs with a lot of heat.
The deeper I went, the worse it got.
There’s no point in sharing much of the photos, but it was one of the worst engines I’ve ever torn apart.
I should have known something was up when I removed the oil drain plate.
I kept working at it, having to spend an extra 3 minutes to get the damn pressure relief valve bolts off.
The crank was shot and rusty and the rods were pretty much the same.
The distributor pinion gear is seized in the case, and I noticed the distributor gear on the crank was damaged.
This explained everything I found earlier when I finally got the oil pump out. Of course, this tool forever and I actually had to use my slide hammer to get it out.
With everything removed, I took the case halves to my solvent bins to start degreasing.
I poured solvent over the insides and outside and did not notice anything yet out of the ordinary more so than that funk I had cleaned out of the strainer.
Well… let’s just say that the entire sump plate area of the case alloy is cottage cheese.
I mean, all that crud that was in the bottom has destroyed it and I serious doubt this case has any usable function anymore.
So much for having a backup AS21 AJ case on hand.
I did get a lot of FI one-off stuff off the engine, including and extra FI fan, so that’s a good thing.
The crank is trash. I still don’t know if the cam could be reused.
I’ll clean up the lifters and use them for practice on my Hoover mod oiling dremel work.
I’ll pull all the engine studs out since I need replacements on the other cases.
It kind of sucks
AS21 cases are kind of rare for me to come by.
I should have torn this down way earlier, but I had bought it while just 2 months after my knee replacement, and I was in no shape to immediately do anything with the parts. They sat in the garage for a very long time.
Such is life.