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1

Omega General Help / Re: LPG conversion - why?

« on: 08 December 2010, 21:09:08 »

It's gone up some in 5 years then, 'gas' had recently gone over $2/US gallon when we were over there.

Indeed it has.  At the peak of it a couple years ago gas was over $4/gallon.  High for us.  Still cheap for the rest of the world.

Beware  there are several ways of rating octane. UK/EU fuel is sold bearing the "research octane number" (RON). US fuel is sold bearing the average of the RON and "motor octane number" (MON).

So it's not as bad as it looks.

87 octane (US) is equivalent to around 92 octane (EU).

Our "Regular" unleaded (95 RON) would be about 91 octane in the US whereas "Super Unleaded" (98) would be 94.

Kevin

Excellent point.  Fuel here is available in 87, 89, and 92 octane, specified with the (R+M)/2.  In other states 93 is available.  And 100 octane unleaded race fuel is available for around $8/gallon.

And hence why the V6 in the Caterra has a lower compression ratio

I didn't know that the Catera 3.0 has a lower compression ratio than the Omega.  Perhaps that's why the Catera is rated at 200hp and the Omega is something like 206hp?

What's the difference?  Head gasket?  Different pistons?

2

Omega General Help / Re: LPG conversion - why?

« on: 08 December 2010, 08:39:27 »

The other 'plus' is that lpg burns cleaner & is ultimately better for the engine & the air quality 

That's cool.  It's good when things are a benefit all around.

3

Omega General Help / Re: LPG conversion - why?

« on: 08 December 2010, 08:30:12 »

in my country regular gas is 1,2 euros and LPG is 60 eurocents. if a car has an average of 10liters per 100km with lpg will have 11 liters per 100km. so to do 100km on gas you pay 12 euros and on lpg 6.60 euros. but there is also the price of the lpg kit...

Wow, that's quite a substantial cost difference!  Since you save 5.4 euros per 100km, you'd save 540 in 10000km and it seems like it shouldn't cost more than that to retrofit.  If so, that seems like a pretty quick breakeven - basically two oil change intervals and then you're money ahead.

Over here regular (87 octane) gasoline is about $3.17/gallon and propane is about $2.20/gallon so the payback would be longer.  Plus, although propane is readily available for barbecue grills and heating homes, there's not much infrastructure built for fueling cars.

4

Omega General Help / LPG conversion - why?

« on: 08 December 2010, 08:12:55 »

I've seen a bunch of talk on here about LPG conversions and it has made me curious, as this is virtually unheard of in the states. 

What is driving all these conversions?  Is it for performance reasons because of the higher octane?  Is it economically advantageous, either with taxes or fuel cost?

Just curious.

Doug

5

Omega General Help / Re: Heart Transplant

« on: 09 December 2010, 02:40:04 »

Made some more progress today.  I must have learned something because it took an hour less to pull this time, even though this car wasn't on a lift.  In the process I answered most of my questions from above and here's what I learned.

1  Motor mounts.  Removing the bottom nut on both mounts and the bottom and top nut on the right mount worked well.  The mounts came out easily and neither is torn.

3  Lifting arrangement.  I changed the length of the rear chain (longer) and this worked well enough.

2  Supporting the rear of the trans when crossmember is removed.  I had the car up in the air to work on the bottom, then wanted it down on the ground for clearance when removing the drivetrain.  I needed a way to support the rear of the transmission while the mount was removed, and while I was lowering the car to the ground.  I had this support fixture I'd made for a different car so I used it and held up the motor by the rear lift point.  Then I put the car on the ground, put a jack under the transmission to carry the weight, and removed this fixture.

Note that it's sitting on the edges of the fenders.  I wouldn't recommend this for a car you cared about, but a similar piece could be made a couple inches narrower.





So anyway, here's where I am now.  Currently trying to decide how much, if anything, I want to do to this motor before it gets transplanted into the gold car. 



Doug

6

Omega General Help / Re: Heart Transplant

« on: 08 December 2010, 18:43:58 »

Sorry nobody came up with the answers Doug. How is the transplant going?

No worries.  Just got started on the engine removal from the black car yesterday.  Should have it out today.  Then I need to decide how much work to do while it's out.  Gaskets, etc.

Doug

7

Omega General Help / Re: Heart Transplant

« on: 07 December 2010, 04:55:05 »

Progress!

Here's how I started the day:



And five hours later:





Well, I learned a little more about Cateras today.  Pulling the drive train will do that I guess.  MAN, things are cramped in that left front corner of the engine bay!  A/C, power steering, every wire in the whole car, and the battery.  Aargh!  Also, it's amazing how a plastic duct attached to the alternator can hold a whole engine in.

You're right, the engine can be removed without opening the A/C but I don't know how the hell I'm going to get it back in.  That's definitely going to require a lot more swear words.

Seriously though, except for some cramped working spaces (which all cars have) it actually wasn't too bad.  Which is good, because I'm doing it again tomorrow.  That car's not on a lift and it has a smaller working space, so it'll present its own challenges.


OK, questions.

1  Both motor mounts are torn.  I think it's likely that I did this because it took me a couple yanks before I realized that the factory service manual missed the step about unbolting the mounts from the top as well as the bottom.  I then disconnected the top of the right one and the engine came out ok.  Should I unbolt both from the top and bottom, or is it ok the way I did it - right one top and bottom, left one bottom?  Basically, I don't know how fragile these motor mounts are.

2  Next time I would like to unbolt the rear trans mount crossmember and then set the car on the ground.  I assume this will put too much load on the motor mounts so I need an easy way to hold this up while I'm lowering the car to the ground.  Any ideas?  The service manual talks about an engine support fixture to keep the engine from moving when the trans it out.  Any pics of this around?

3  Here's how I attached the motor to the hoist when I pulled it.  Got any better ideas?  The load balancer was hard to work when the engine got really tilted because the crank interfered with the hoist.  From feeling the balance points, it seems like it would balance at about the right angle if I only used the front two mounts.  What do you think?




I'll start pulling the good motor and trans from the black car tomorrow but probably won't have a chance to finish it until Wednesday. 


Doug

8

Omega General Help / Re: Heart Transplant

« on: 06 December 2010, 03:18:37 »

1) should be 3 lifting eyes, one either side of block and one at the rear. Pic of rear http://images.omegaowners.com/images/guides/v6_engine_pics/IMG_0025.jpg
2) Engine & box can be removed as one unit
3) yep, unbolt compressor & swing away.

Aha!  I found the other two!  Thank you.  The one at the rear is burried in a bunch of stuff, and the one on the left is cleverly hidden under a plastic cap so it won't chafe through the wiring bundle.

Thanks for the answers on 2 & 3 and, more importantly, thanks for giving me the answers I wanted to hear!

9

Omega General Help / Heart Transplant

« on: 05 December 2010, 23:50:33 »

Greetings!

I just joined the site and my back story is here.  To summarize, I'm going to be transplanting the engine and transmission from a crashed '97 Catera into a non-crashed '97 Catera that has multiple engine problems.

My normal job is race car repair and fabrication and I have the factory service manual so I shouldn't need any hand-holding, but I have some specific questions for those of you who have done this before.

1  Engine lift points.  My car has one near the center of the right head.  The service manaul identifies these lifts points as a special tool.  Does anybody have any photos of these installed?  Making them shouldn't be a problem, but I'd rather not reinvent the wheel if I don't have to.  I searched the forum for "engine lift points" but didn't find anything.

2  The service manual says to remove the transmission, then remove the engine.  Is this necessary for clearance, or can they come out together?

3  A/C lines.  Is it possible to pull the motor without opening the AC lines?  Something like unbolt the compressor and move it out of the way?  It looks like it might be possible, but it'll be tight and I'd rather not have the engine hanging on the hoist while learning that it definitely cannot be done. 

I'm sure I'll run across other things where I'll ask for advice, but until then I'll keep y'all updated as I make progress.

10

Newbie Welcome Area / Re: Two Cateras and a change of plans

« on: 07 December 2010, 05:03:35 »

I dowloaded some more photos tonight, and here's a pic of what happened when it fell over on its side.

Engine swap began today.  Details here: http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1291593033 if you're interested.

11

Newbie Welcome Area / Re: Two Cateras and a change of plans

« on: 07 December 2010, 04:11:17 »

funny that - I stayed for a couple of days in Snohomish just last year.

Yep, that's just up the road.  Small world, indeed.

Doug

12

Newbie Welcome Area / Re: Two Cateras and a change of plans

« on: 06 December 2010, 17:49:01 »

which bit of Washington ?  - one of my favourite places

and welcome by the way

Generally, I'm in the greater Seattle area.  More specifically, I'm in small town called Duvall about 30 minutes from downtown Seattle. 

13

Newbie Welcome Area / Re: Two Cateras and a change of plans

« on: 06 December 2010, 03:10:04 »

welcome to the forum doug , a bit of an oops with the off roading eh.

Yep, that wasn't quite the intended path of travel.  Oh well, lessons learned all around.

Thanks for the welcomes, both of you!

14

Newbie Welcome Area / Two Cateras and a change of plans

« on: 05 December 2010, 22:47:41 »

Hi All,

I thought I'd drop in and introduce myself since I've been surfing around here learning stuff for a while.  Looks like a good forum so far, and I'm happy to have found it.

At the beginning of June this year I bought two '97 Cadillac Cateras.  I got a gold one with 67k miles and a dead engine, and a black one with 134k miles and a dead transmission.  Both are very good cosmetically and both had leather interior.  I planned to fix them both, keep the black one, and sell the gold one. 



I rebuilt the transmission in the black one and drove it for several months and several thousand miles, then two weeks ago it slid off the road during a teenage snow driving lesson.  Oops.  It doesn't have much mechanical damage from this, but the whole left side of the car is wrinkled up. 



I recently started working on the gold car.  The previous owner said it came to him with a bad head gasket, and it also had low oil pressure, and then it had developed a cranks but won't start condition.  When I got the car it would crank forever without starting and the cranking sounded a little uneven.  The other day, before a real compression test, I did a "crank and listen for unevenness" check.  After cranking for about two seconds and thinking to myself, "this doesn't sound uneven at all", the car started!  Odd, indeed.

It has a bit of a knock and I currently believe this to be a connecting rod.  It also appears that a previous owner has bypassed the oil cooler by cutting off the lines right above the oil filter and looping a piece of rubber hose between them.  This leaks pretty significantly when the car is running.  I have a feeling that I'm going to discover more and more the farther I dig into this motor.

That brings me to the change of plans.  I believe at this point I'm going to transplant in the motor (and freshly rebuilt trans) from the black car, then sell or part out the black car.

So that's my story so far.  I'll be asking some more specific questions about the engine swap, but wanted to drop in here and introduce myself first.

Doug