If you saw my last post you know my dog died earlier this year, but I didn't post that our second dog died as well. He never hung out in the garage with us (big chicken), but he was a great dog. He was a Great Pyrenees about a year younger than our Bernese and he died about 2 months after our first one did.
Anyway, enough with life stuff... I finally finished the garage enough so that I could start using it! I still lack a workbench and one overhead light, but it's very usable in its current state. There was one thing I forgot while I was designing the garage... If I'm working on the car in 2nd stalls, having all the tools in the shop about 20 feet away gets old! I'm constantly walking back and forth. Easy problem though. I ordered a service cart that should be here next week.
The car has barely been driven this year. I took it out a couple times in the spring and then it just sat waiting for me to do the first oil change and do a complete fluid flush. I also stopped driving it because I'm having an awful belt squeal that I need to fix.
Sorry, this is a boring post. No pictures... Didn't have time.
So I geared up at the beginning of the summer to do the repairs...
Got new beefy grounding straps (cause for some reason when I did the wiring harnesses I left out the grounding straps, what's that about?).
Electrical contact cleaner to address the radio noise and the blinkers not working when the headlights are on.
A couple door/alarm sensors because I broke one trying to mess with it.
Puller pusher and jaw puller (should have bought this from the get-go).
Digital ignition mounting plate.
And of course a new oil filter and coolant.
I haven't ever installed the new ignition system because I wasn't sure how to mount the digital ignition box in the engine compartment. Hoping I can work something good up using the Summit mounting bracket.
Since the weather got nice on Sunday and we had the kids at their grandparents for a while this weekend I decided it was time to hit the garage.
Started with a simple inspection...
Found that my power system hoses were leaking! (again) I'm not sure which fitting is leaking because it appeared that multiple places were wet with fluid. So I removed the wettest fittings, tightened the connection to the hose, reconnected everything, and then flushed the system with Royal Purple fluid. I found a little fluid on a hose tonight but it looked like the original fluid so I cleaned everything up and we're going to trying again...
Once I had that done, I removed the inline transmission fluid filter. According to BTO, it only had to be on there for so many miles and I was well over that mileage, so I took it off. It was kind of an eye sore and made one of my lines go out of place. To my surprise I didn't lose much fluid in the removal. Still have to recheck once the car is level and running for a little bit.
Next I addressed the power steering pulley. It appeared to be less than a 1/16" off, so I put my new pusher on and tried to align it again. We'll see once I can start the engine again if I got it right this time. I'll probably need to get a new serpentine belt because this one has worn from rubbing the pulley edge.
Moving on, I drained the coolant. I know this isn't REALLY necessary, but since it was a brand new engine I think it doesn't hurt to make sure there was no metal flecks in there. Plus I wanted to swap in a flex stainless steel hose for the lower radiator hose. The flex hose is smaller and there's less area for failure. Unfortunately the end covers wouldn't fit over the ports on the water pump and radiator so I'm going to have to mod them a little. That's sitting to the side for the time being...
So, my last task of the night. Clean up the chassis grounding... I went through every ground in the engine compartment and nose of the car with steal wool, a steel brush, and contact cleaner. I then checked the resistance from each contact to the chassis to make sure it was pretty much non-existent. Once that was done, I replaced the grounding straps in the back under the antenna and in the engine compartment near the proportioning valve. The new straps are considerably larger than the old ones. Makes me feel a little better. So I checked the turn signals... They STILL don't work with the headlights on! It has to be the ground in the passenger compartment. Those are a pain to get to so we'll save that until all my engine servicing is complete.
So what's left to do before driving it again this year?
Install SS lower radiator hose and refill coolant.
Verify power steering leak is gone and fix if necessary.
Change the oil.
Change serpentine belt if it's still noisy.
Replace in-line fuel filter.
I'd also like to get the blinker working with the headlights in case it gets dark while I'm out...
Ok, a couple pictures of the garage before I cleaned up all the boxes and other crap...
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