Still working on the engine

For years this engine has been lying upside down, without it's sump, in a shed.
The engine is now completely striped down and, as I thought, it is full of grime and grit!
Crankshaft out and inspected, all looks good; bearings and journals are in remarkably good condition, as is the camshaft.

The Subaru engine is a cast alloy unit. I have tried several methods of degreasing and cleaning. One method of cleaning I tried was a DIY home made ultrasonic cleaner! OK - it's not actually ultrasonic, it's a plastic box with an orbital sander strapped to the side, as seen on youtube.com !

Step 1: fill the box with water and add ultrasonic engine cleaner - that didn't work so then I added karcher pressure washer fluid - and that didn't work! So I have resorted to using a container full of Gunk engine degreaser, and brushes -  hard work and time consuming - followed with a visit back to the ultrasonic box to be rinsed - well, it seemed a shame to waste it! - then pressure washed to finish, that worked well, then dried off with the compressed air.

I forgot to mention the inside of the rocker covers were filthy, solid with years of oil, carbon, and grime - they took a couple of days to steep in the degreasing bath before cleaning.

As for cleaning up the outer casings of the engine, after degreasing and pressure washing I am going to try giving them a blast over with the soda blaster. I've never used baking soda, yes, I did say baking soda! to blast before so this should be interesting to see how it works out.
I am lucky enough to have my own blast equipment: a blast pot and cabinet.

I found soda blasting on good old youtube.com, a great source of information and 'how to's.

Soda blasting appears to be non abrasive and is kind to glass, rubber, and chrome but is great for removing paint. I can also recommend electrolysis as a method of removing rust - again, you will find it on youtube.com

I would say that this engine is worth fixing (the engine didn't cost me much) the only thing is that parts are not easy to come by for the EA81, and although you can find parts on ebay.co.uk, they mostly come from America so p&p is expensive - and watch out for import tax!

So far all I need is a full set of standard piston rings, which I can get in the UK. A full gasket set however is more difficult to get here, although I can get it as an import from the USA.

Subaru EA81 flat four 1800cc

Subaru ea 81

Sat 30 nov 2013
Subaru EA81 flat four 1800cc

The engine is an unknown quantity. I have no history of this engine or the year, I think it came from a brat pickup.

The engine is currently mounted on my engine stand for work purposes - a great pice of kit - it allows me complete access as I can turn the engine round to any angle to work on it. 
The engine is not looking good. I put a spanner on the crank to see how it would turn and oops! It didn't MMMM! Only one thing for it, get the plugs out and have a look, YUCK! I've never seen anything so bad! - one of the plugs was completely rusted up, so I had to take the cylinder heads off - this is a straightforward job, and everything went well. The two rear cylinders were sitting with water in, and obviously had been for some time, this has resulted in a buildup of rust in the barrels. I have soaked them with engine degreaser, then cleaned them out. I gave them a bit of a rub with some polish, which has helped, so I'm thinking I might get away with some light honing?  Still got the jury out on that one!

The heads
I don't think they're as bad as the look; I might get away with cleaning and re-seating the valves.

very rusty spark plug

cylinder head / right

cylinder bore / right

cylinder bore / left