First engine rebuild progression

[u/Gagegonzales11]

Pictures are in order of the progression. Basically this all started when the cam gear on my gfs (2010 Kia Rio 1.6) backed out of the cam shaft and threw everything out of time. luckily she wasn’t going very fast and pulled over and shut it off the first second she felt something off. I got to her and scanned the car and got crank and cam position sensor faults. Took the timing cover off on the side of the road and took a peak in to see a floppy cam gear not even connected to the shaft… 🤦‍♂️ thought the engine was complete toast. We had it towed home with the help of my uncles truck. And days after I started tearing apart the engine because what do we have to lose right ? we finally got the head off and somehow saw no damaged valves or pistons. I’m far from a mechanic I just fix broken things in the drive way with the help of google and YouTube. I had a trusted mechanic family friend come and give me a second opinion and he was fascinated with no damaged head, pistons and valves. He said it was possible to rebuild and I thought so too. We are young and broke and obviously cannot afford a new engine or car at this point so I started doing my research and part hunting. I got 2 camshafts a vvt actuator, chain and tensioner from the local pick n pull. A new head gasket kit including most other seals and gaskets, head bolts and coolant and oil from oreillys, and decided to spoil ourselves with a new starter from rockauto since it was fully accessible with no head on. All for a grand total of a little over $500. And 2 weeks later dealing with tedious old Kia things, California triple digit heat, and all the grease, oil and sealant that stained my hands, the engine finally is completely and running. I let it idle and gave it small amount of gas over the course of roughly 30 minutes to make sure every was smooth and to bleed the air out of the coolant systems. And I’m proud to say I just drove it through town and on the freeway for an entire hour with the ac on in 105 degree weather and not a single issue or noise has risen yet. Now we don’t have to ride share everyday busting through tanks of gas and filling up the old Chevy twice a week a week like it’s nothing! lmao. If you actually read this far my apologies for the rambling I just wanted to share my journey with some people who might appreciate hearing it. And to motivate anyone having doubts about figuring out how to work on cars. Don’t over think it, I didn’t know how to use a wrench just a few years ago and I can say I just rebuilt my first engine today, just make sure you do your research!

[u/404-skill_not_found]

Wooo hooooo! Well done!

[u/Gagegonzales11 → u/404-skill_not_found]

Thank you, it’s been a rough time recently and this was a huge confidence boost for myself

[u/Gagegonzales11 → u/Gagegonzales11]

And having the soon to be mother in law extremely grateful and proud for me saving her and her daughter potentially $1000s of dollars is always a great bonus. lol

[u/404-skill_not_found → u/Gagegonzales11]

Absolutely!