Into the valley of 2861

[Mike F]

Hello all. The mad curiosity of the state of affairs in the valley of 2861 finally got to me, so I decided it was time to venture in and see what's what. I figured while I was in there it would be a good time to do a few other things, so in addition to cleaning the valley I will be replacing:

All of the standard intake manifold service stuff (O-rings, W-pipe gaskets, etc.)
Intake manifold bolts & washers
Spark plugs & wires
Distributor cap & rotor
All of the fuel system copper O-rings
Injector seals & clips
Y-pipe bolts & washers
Water pump hoses & clamps
Vacuum lines

I began tearing everything down late this afternoon. Let me first say thanks to a couple of people who made this considerably less painful. First to Mike L. (opethmike) for putting together such a well organized how-to on this procedure. I used this as a guiding document and it was as smooth a process as you could ask for. Second, to Julee at DMCMW for helping me get everything put together and ordered. She had the entire fuel system's o-ring list together and went as far as listing the location that each one is used by part number on my invoice, which will make reassembly much more straight forward.

So it begins:

My pile of parts and the uncharted territory (at least for me) underneath that manifold...
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W-pipe and ISM removed. I plugged those holes immediately after taking this pic! :wink:
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Fuel lines removed. I labeled them with wire markers and drew up a corresponding distributor sketch to make reassembly easier.
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Mixture unit out.
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Cold start valve. Is this thing inside where the line connects normal?
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It was then time to remove the manifold bolts. I knew that they weren't as prone to snapping as the Y-pipe bolts but I was still very nervous! Each one cracked loose without a fight, and once I removed them I saw why. They had anti-seize on them. I breathed a sigh of relief! The service history that I received with the car included an extensive amount of work done at DMCH (back in 1995), and this is continuing to pay dividends even 18 years later. So, manifold comes off. At this point I am expecting a birdbath of coolant staring me in the face. I find...........none. It's dirty, but there is not a drop of coolant to be found. Everything's as dry as a bone. I can't even begin to describe how relieved that made me.
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This was as far as I got today. To get this far took me about two hours, but that was going very slowly; reading the step-by-step instructions, bagging and tagging each bolt, etc. Not too bad for a first-timer I think. Hopefully I'll be able to wrench on it some more tomorrow, and little bits each night during the week. I still need to pull the block plugs and drain the coolant so I can get the y-pipe and water pump hoses off. Here's hoping that the y-pipe bolts follow the same pattern as the manifold bolts! I'll take more pics as I go, and update this thread as the job moves forward.

If anyone has any tips for me while I'm in there, please let me know! :)

[DMCMW Dave]

Cold start valve. Is this thing inside where the line connects normal?
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No. DPO hack work.


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Wait until you see how deep the small square holes are. . . . Get a screwdriver and a shop vac, go slowly.

[kings1527]

Nice job! It looks like you're well on your way!

One thing that I wish I did during my valley cleaning and major service was install Hervey's clutch bleeder line. You'll have great access to the clutch slave and there's no better/easier time to install one. Then you can pick up a power bleeder and use it on either the brake system or clutch system and have your clutch system bled in about five minutes from start to finish.

Good luck!

Oh yeah, your cold start pipe is NOT normal.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Nice job! It looks like you're well on your way!

One thing that I wish I did during my valley cleaning and major service was install Hervey's clutch bleeder line. You'll have great access to the clutch slave and there's no better/easier time to install one. Then you can pick up a power bleeder and use it on either the brake system or clutch system and have your clutch system bled in about five minutes from start to finish.

Good luck!

Oh yeah, your cold start pipe is NOT normal.

+1 I still have my slave line to install but am just waiting to go into the valley again.

So it really sets your mind to rest to see your valley is in good shape. Every one should do this.

[AugustneverEnds]

Excellent work!! Isn't anti-seize a god send??

Also while you have the manifold off you may want to check the heater control valve. It's towards the back of the engine on the right hand side. When I did the same thing your doing this past spring my valve was seeping, enough to matter but not enough to leave a puddle underneath. Also with the coolant drained it doesn't hurt to put a new otterstat and seal in and avoid the coolant bath.

Cheers! :)

[Mike F]

Excellent work!! Isn't anti-seize a god send??

Also while you have the manifold off you may want to check the heater control valve. It's towards the back of the engine on the right hand side.

Cheers! :)

I actually just replaced it a couple of months ago when I did my clutch slave. I debated just doing the valley then; knowing it would have been easier. I powered through, though and did the slave the hard way. After seeing the totally unimpeded access to that thing that you have with the manifold off, I would definitely go this route if I ever had to replace it again.




So it really sets your mind to rest to see your valley is in good shape. Every one should do this.

Yes, most definitely! I can't tell you how relieved I was to see it all in fairly good order under there.


No. DPO hack work.

Darn. I've been pretty lucky so far to have not really come upon any of those! I suppose finding one eventually was inevitable! So, what do you suppose the idea was behind this "mod?" I pulled on this, whatever it is (albeit gently so far) and it doesn't seem to come out. Am I supposed to have just an open outlet here?

[DMCMW Dave]

I actually just replaced it a couple of months ago when I did my clutch slave. I debated just doing the valley then; knowing it would have been easier. I powered through, though and did the slave the hard way. After seeing the totally unimpeded access to that thing that you have with the manifold off, I would definitely go this route if I ever had to replace it again.



Yes, most definitely! I can't tell you how relieved I was to see it all in fairly good order under there.



Darn. I've been pretty lucky so far to have not really come upon any of those! I suppose finding one eventually was inevitable! So, what do you suppose the idea was behind this "mod?" I pulled on this, whatever it is (albeit gently so far) and it doesn't seem to come out. Am I supposed to have just an open outlet here?


Not sure (could be either) but those two ports are vacuum ports. One should go to the Oil filler cap (PCV suction) and one to the carbon canister aka evaporative emissions can. My guess is that someone decided it was a good idea to remove the carbon canister. Which means the fuel tank is now vented into the left pontoon or worse. Any bad gas smells you can't account for?

[Mike F]

No, no gas smells at all. I imagine it would be pretty noticeable in the garage, too, but I've never had any fuel odor in there. There is a vacuum line connected to that port, which does run into where the carbon canister should be. I haven't removed the access panel to confirm that it's actually there, though. I'll do that tomorrow and report back what I find.

[Josh]

if you need any engine related parts let me know!

[Mike F]

Ok, confirmed that the charcoal canister is there, and the tank vent tube is connected. Been swamped at work so far this week, so the job is going to go at a snails pace (if at all) until the weekend rolls around.

I still need to pull the y-pipe, so i have a question for those that have drained the block- given their locations how do you manage to pull the plugs without having coolant gushing all over the place? There are a number of things there that I don't want to give a coolant bath (oil filter, sender, etc. not to mention it running into various cracks and crevices). Any tips/tricks, or is that just the nature of the beast here? All the stuff I have done so far on the car could be done by just draining from the radiator, so this is my first foray into draining the block.

I appreciate everyone's input so far! I'll keep posting as I move along!

[Bitsyncmaster]

If you remove the engine drain plugs you will get coolant everywhere. What you can do to get most out is pull a hose at a low point down under the car.

[Mike F]

I made a bit more progress this weekend. Going slowly and being very methodical; this being my first time delving into this procedure. That, and the fact that I only have (part of) the weekends to do it, so it'll take a while, but I'll eventually get there! Anyway, I got out as much of the coolant as I could before pulling the y-pipe. Little did I know how much was left. My dry, dirty valley turned into a wet, sludgy one real quick once I pulled that pipe. Live and learn, I guess. On the plus side, none of the bolts snapped! These did NOT appear to have anti-seize on them like the manifold bolts did, so I consider myself very, very lucky.

My sludgy valley after sucking up the coolant, and the infamous y-pipe bolts (in ONE piece!)
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Here are the weapons I used to conquer the mess:
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The vacuum attachments came from Home Depot. The kit includes reducers to allow the smaller pinpoint attachments to connect to a standard wet/dry vac. This was invaluable for getting into the smaller crevices. The Simple Green Motorsports degreaser is non-corrosive, and is safe on aluminum and other surfaces you wouldn't normally want to use Simple Green on. The blue stick tool actually comes from a glass industry supplier. I used to keep a few of them in my toolbox during my days as an audio installer. They work well for running wires, tucking satellite radio antenna leads under glass trim, etc. I discovered it also works well for digging out coolant sludge from the valley and scraping off residue without scratching or scoring the aluminum. The syringe helps suck out coolant; I just attached some tygon tubing to the end to get down into the deeper wells. What's not here is the Dremel and wire brush attachments. The stainless and brass brushes are great for getting the stubborn crud off.

Delicious...
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After some elbow grease I got all of the sludge taken care of. Much better than before! Still a bit of drying to be done on the back wells and crevices.
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New distributor cap, rotor, plugs & wires, and new injector seals and clips. The old injector seals were hard as a rock.
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All installed (minus the wires), along with a new coolant distribution pipe, hose, and clamps.
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Y-pipe cleaned up and reinstalled with new O-rings, bolts, washers, hose, and clamps.
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Silicone vacuum hoses going in...
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Now I would like to bring you "gifts from the valley," a collection of goodies that had managed to find their way down into the depths of the valley.
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Looks like a few copper washers, a fuel line bolt, an o-ring, and the head of a snapped bolt. Looks like someone at some point wasn't as lucky as I was during this job. I also found a 7/16 socket. Puzzling, since I have yet to find a fastener on this car (definitely not on this job, at least) that is this size.

So that's where I am at this point. I still have some cleaning to do, along with finishing up the vacuum hoses, plug wires, and of course the reassembly. I have all new copper O-rings for the fuel lines, so those will go on when I start reattaching everything. One thing that I wasn't able to find in the workshop manual were the torque specs for the y-pipe bolts. Does anyone have that info?

[Josh]

Gifts from the valley... That made me laugh!

There should be not fasteners that require a 7/16 socket in the engine bay. However when you move to suspension things like the caliper bolts, upper rear links, and some other bolts here and there are not metric.

[virtualchuck]

I'm about to start my journey to the valley this weekend Mike, any chance you can provide a parts list of things you needed so I can compare it to what I've already ordered?

Thanks!

Chuck

[Mike F]

I'm about to start my journey to the valley this weekend Mike, any chance you can provide a parts list of things you needed so I can compare it to what I've already ordered?

Thanks!

Chuck

Sure, Chuck! Mine is a bit extensive, since I took the opportunity to do a bunch of other things while in there. Hopefully I'll have the time to actually finish it up this weekend! Most of it is complete, I just need to put the manifold and mixture unit back on and I should be done. I haven't had time for the past several days to even touch it.

Here goes:

K111170 - Water pump install kit (this includes everything the intake manifold gasket/seal kit does, plus the hoses and clamps for the water pump)
102606 - Distributor cap
102604 - Rotor
102702 - Ignition wires
106907 - Ignition coil wire
K102443 - Spark plugs (Bosch silver)
102191 - Intake manifold bolts (4)
102148 - Y-pipe bolt (2)
102107 - Y-pipe bolt (2)
101048 - Washer for the above bolts [8]
102631 - Injector seal (6)
102346 - Injector clip (6)
102344 - M8 copper washer (32)
102360 - M12 copper washer (5)
102352 - M10 copper washer (2)
102482 - Coolant return pipe (mine was pretty rusty)

All of the copper washers are for the fuel lines. The above quantities cover all of them, even those you don't necessarily have to remove when doing a valley job. I wanted to replace them all while I had everything apart. I purchased all of the above items from DMCMW, so the part numbers you see are DMC part numbers; I also purchased the silicone vacuum hose kit from John Hervey, which is item #30367 on his site (I got it in black, he has other colors available).

Hopefully this helps!

[virtualchuck]

Thanks so much for the reply, I literally just finished reaching the valley and I was hoping to start working on a list. Mine isn't nearly as bad as expected. Ran into many replacement bolts and nothing frozen, so clearly it has been done somewhat recently.

I purchased most of your list recently from DMCMW, just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. I also placed an order for the clutch bleeder from John (per the suggestions in the post), and I guess I will order the hose kit too!

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Chuck Pullen

[Mike F]

Glad I could help! Also glad that you didn't run into any catastrophes under there. Looks like we had similar luck.

[Mike F]

Alrighty, a few days ago I got everything back together. I replaced the coolant, and went through the bleeding process (I have Toby's auto bleeder kit with the stopcock at the radiator & the continuous bleeder at the thermostat housing), leaving the coolant level in the header bottle at about 3/5 as I usually do. It took a while to start - although I figured that would be the case - but once started everything ran fine, and I found no fuel or coolant leaks (whew!). I brought it up to temperature, expecting the cooling fans to kick on, which usually happens about halfway between the first tick and the 220 line. They didn't come on. Once the temp got to roughly 3/4 of the way to the 220 mark, I shut the car off; the fans should have come on by then so it wasn't worth heating it up any more. I went to the back and felt the header bottle. Cold. I thought that maybe the engine took in all of the coolant I had put in, since I definitely lost more coolant in this whole process than just what I had drained from the radiator initially. After the car cooled a bit, I removed the cap and saw that the coolant level was exactly where it was when I filled it. Suspecting that there was still air in the system, I poked around and saw a small drip from the lower radiator hose, which I had loosened to drain the coolant initially. I tightened it back up, but perhaps not enough. I went through the bleeding process again, this time getting virtually no air at all from the radiator stopcock, and started her up (started beautifully; first try, took less than a second). Same thing. Temp continued to rise, header bottle cold, large hoses to left and right of the water pump cold as well. No drip from the lower radiator hose this time, so my tightening did the trick.

Any thoughts on this? Thermostat not opening, maybe? Before I did this teardown, everything worked great. Fans came on like clockwork, car never overheated. I replaced the thermostat back in December (559 miles ago) during a previous "gotta drain the coolant, so why not" job, so it's practically new, and has been proven functional; at least before this valley job.

What do you think?

[DMCMW Dave]

What do you think?

Air trapped in the engine. Bleed the engine again. And the upper radiator while you are at it.

If everything is full, it sounds like the water pump is broken internally. Is this a new pump? Did you use the thick back gasket?

Another quick check - with the cap off the header bottle run the engine. If no water is spraying from the small hose (look inside the bottle) water is not moving. It should spray whether or not the thermostat is open. There are only three possibilities:
--plugged bleeder Tee behind the engine so there is air trapped in the heads
--so much air in the engine the pump isn't working. The water pump will not move air
--water pump impeller is broken.

[Mike F]

Air trapped in the engine. Bleed the engine again. And the upper radiator while you are at it.

If everything is full, it sounds like the water pump is broken internally. Is this a new pump? Did you use the thick back gasket?

Another quick check - with the cap off the header bottle run the engine. If no water is spraying from the small hose (look inside the bottle) water is not moving. It should spray whether or not the thermostat is open. There are only three possibilities:
--plugged bleeder Tee behind the engine so there is air trapped in the heads
--so much air in the engine the pump isn't working. The water pump will not move air
--water pump impeller is broken.

Wow! Thanks for such a quick response, Dave! :smile:

When you say to bleed the upper radiator; how do I go about that process? I can't say I've done that before. The petcock for the bleeder kit is on the small upper radiator hose, but I imagine there's probably more to the process that you're referring to.

No, the pump is not new. It worked fine and didn't have any leaking from the weep hole, so I stuck with it. I danced around whether to replace it or not during this job. You and I even spoke on the phone about it a while back, and I said that given my luck if I don't do it, it will probably break within a week of me finishing the valley job! I sincerely hope this isn't the case. Would there be a reason that a functioning pump would go bad during the job I just finished, though?

When you refer to the bleeder tee behind the engine, are you talking about something other than the bleeder off the thermostat housing?

Thanks again for your help!

[DMCMW Dave]

When you refer to the bleeder tee behind the engine, are you talking about something other than the bleeder off the thermostat housing?

Thanks again for your help!

Pump is probably OK if you have not touched it.

Sounds like you have the right bleeder - normally you disconnect the small hose at the top of the radiator and let the air out. If you have a valve there you just open it but you can't tell if the coolant is coming from the hose or the radiator, so it may still have air in the radiator.

The only bleeder on the engine is the one on the thermostat housing. It is important to remember that one is bleeding the engine through the (closed) thermostat so it can take a very long time to get the air out when cold with no pressure. There is a tiny bleed hole in the thermostat but it is extremely low flow with the 'stat cold. If you have a pressure bleeder that can speed it up, otherwise just be patient. You have apparently added a bleeder hose there which should serve the same purpose, but the same caveat applies.

A pressure bleeder won't help if you have the hose connected because you are pressurizing both sides of the hose. The hose has to be open at one end.

The bleeder hose kit is a nice idea but does change processes a bit, and can, in the long run, hide problems.

[Mike F]

Sounds good. I'll check the flow with the cap off and run through the bleeding process a few more times. We're in the middle of a deluge here at the moment, so I can't open the garage right now to start it. As soon as the rain subsides a bit I'll give it a shot and report back! Thanks again!

[Mike F]

Ok. Checked the flow in the header bottle with the cap off and the car running - no flow. I shut off the bleeder valve leading to the bottle and pulled the hose from the bleeder barb on the thermostat housing. Upon doing that, the level in the header bottle dropped quite a bit...there must have been a significant pocket of air trapped in there. I replenished the coolant in the bottle, bled the radiator, and again brought the bottle to the proper level. With the cap off, I started the car and voila! Coolant was flowing. I capped the bottle and played the waiting game. The temperature came up slower this time; which is to say that it rose at what seemed like the normal rate, whereas before it was rising faster than normal. I guess coolant actually flowing through the engine will have that effect! :wink: Once the temperature came up, the fans kicked on. :partyhat: There may or may not have been an end zone dance done in the garage. Can't really say for sure.

Anyway, thanks a bunch for the help and advice, Dave!

With that, I guess I can say the book is finally closed on this particular job. As soon as this goes away - which doesn't look like it will happen soon -
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I'll go for a drive!

Here are some pics from the home stretch:

The connections for the temp sender and ground attached to the right side of the manifold were looking worn, so I spruced them up:
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New plug wires installed, fuel lines reattached:
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Manifold and mixture assembly back on:
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Funny story (not at the time, though) about the mixture unit going back on. I got everything secured and went to reattach the throttle arm. Anyone who's done that knows how much of a pain that little clip is. I fumbled with it for a few tries and right about when I thought I had it...I dropped it. Straight down into the valley. I thought for about five minutes about just ordering a new one, but knowing that thing was down there would have kept me awake at night. Plus, it would have been dumb to be lazy now after having just gone through the whole job to clean things out down there. So...off came the mixture unit and manifold again for a $1.98 clip. Got it out, and it went back in on the first try the next time around.

W-pipe & ISM back in:
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The pipe of agony didn't turn out to be too bad. I used the "light through the meter flap" technique. Took a try or two but it eventually went in.

Thanks to everyone for their tips throughout this process. If I can be of any help to anyone else about to dive in to this job, just let me know! :thumbup:

Oh, by the way...

This thing sticking out of my CSV pipe:
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Turned out to be a cotter pin. It was clearly put there on purpose, since it was bent very deliberately to stay in place. Can't imagine why this was done. I removed it, and so far the CSV seems to be working just fine. Really wondering what the thought process was here. Guess that will remain a mystery for now...