Did this during the morning while the temp was only in the mid 90's :)
Attachment 12218
-Gary
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Did this during the morning while the temp was only in the mid 90's :)
Attachment 12218
-Gary
Long weekend. Saturday we put in my new clutch, finally. After 6 weeks of waiting for it, the new part went in nice and easy. Getting the transmission back in was a little tough though. A lot of swearing, but we got it. Aligned the linkage and crossgate cable, bled the new clutch, and hit the road. Everything was going great - transmission running perfect, clutch way better than the worn out one. Linkage was extremely precise.
Then, I went for a quick drive later in the evening to enjoy the fruits of our labor. As I pulled into a parking lot to grab a bite, the engine bay filled with a huge cloud of steam. I shut the engine off and opened the hood - EVERYTHING was covered in coolant and I couldn't see where it had come from. The bottle was dry. I walked to the store and bought some bottled water to dump in - everything I poured in came right back out the bottom. Sigh. Called a tow truck for the first time ever. When I got home I analyzed the situation and realized the heater control valve had broken in half. Bought a replacement at O'reilly and installed it this morning. Pressure tested the system and it held. Only needed about 3/4 gallon of coolant to top off so I didn't lose as much as I thought. Idled the engine up to operating temp and it ran fine and stayed cool. Everything is back together now and I'm just trying to get up the nerve to go for a drive.
Spent the weekend solid trying to remove my transmission oil fill plug - drain plug took a hell of a force but eventually "cracked" (no I didn't empty her though), but the fill plug was absolutely fused in place. The insane amount of force I had to used did nothing but, eventually, strip the absolute bejesus out of it necessitating other tools such as vice grips (which likewise got a really good hold of it, but with sufficient force would eventually just strip the metal as well). Several days of soaking penetrators made no difference.
Tonight I took a new approach - grabbed my wife's (cooking) blow torch and proceeded to cook the spray oil into the thread. Boiled the crap out of it and then vice gripped on and pulled as hard as I could - repeated the process five times and she finally began turning!
It is hard to imagine it has ever been changed with what has now been pouring out of her - it is utterly utterly utterly utterly utterly horrid. I think I'll change it again in another month just to give her a good flushing.
Yeah get some cheap gear oil and use it for a few hrs then refill with MTL which is about $13qt
unsatisfied with just a car wash, I painted the driver door jams.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...c/IMG_0597.jpg
Replaced the nuts securing the binnacle with wing nuts. I thought it would make future removal of it easier. For reference the binnacle studs are M4.
Also, I experimented with fitting a rocker type on/off switch for the engine bay lights. Surprisingly, the original switch was working, but I don't necessarily want the light to always turn on when I open the engine cover. I had to do some modification to the switch housing in order to make it fit.
Cleaned out plug well #1, which fixed my engine jerkiness. Went for a brief but satisfying (and incident-free) drive. Tried to track down why my left turn signals are flashing so fast, with more tests to run this evening. Tonight I plan to nail down that flash problem, re-tighten a couple of hose clamps that are weeping a bit, reinstall my trailing arm shields, and do a proper wash to remove all the hard water spots and filth from being out of service so long.