just about killed the car last week. it was coming up on a valve adjust after the break in period on the engine. decided to take it on the highway for the first time, i've been driving it around town til now to be close to home if trouble started. needed to make a trip 60km away and figured i could to the adjustment after returning.
trip there was mostly uneventful. noticed a little smoke in the engine bay on arrival. have had a small leak from the oil cooler / filter adapter and had parts on order to address it. it lost less than a litre since the build so didn't think too much about it. had extra oil so topped it at the destination.
about 30km in on the way back it started spewing oil like a russian shadow fleet tanker. well shit. i pulled over to check the level and added more. the entire underside of the car and my new headers were soaked. the oil cooler / filter adapter was pouring oil from everything except the filter itself.
topped it again and decided to limp it carefully home. ten minutes after starting out again the temp started to creep. oh goody. didn't get dangerous but it did get over the halfway mark on the gauge. thought to myself, ok, i can scrub some heat off running the heater, so turned it on. a minute later the driver side floor was soaked in coolant. fantastic.
pulled over again and checked the coolant res. it was down but not close to empty. figured i could make it, but now the car was tapping far too loud. just grand. thought maybe i overdid it and dropped a valve, but it didn't seem that bad. just loud. made it home at least.
pulled the filter housing, oil cooler, and lines as a unit. it's easier than trying to work around the ac compressor and headers. added o-rings to the lines which had none from when i tore it apart for the build. checking online resulted in an old post from jlevie (sorely missed) talking about it as maintenance. didn't see any o rings listed on realoem but added my own generic ones. the others went fine except for the copper/alum washer seal for the hollow bolt, which showed up as the wrong size. re-ordered and put it back together temporarily.
hopefully that's issue one solved. should have taken a few pics.
ran a quick compression test which returned happiness, then tore the valve cover off for inspection and a valve adjust. the #5 cyl exhaust valve eccentric had rolled right onto the adjustment hole. i've never seen anything like it. took the cyl to tdc to take the tension off and removed the eccentric.
look at the divot on that thing. it spread the eccentric far enough it would not fit the rocker proper and needed some work to remove. rocker itself seems ok but i won't know if the head needs to come off until i get new hardware and another eccentric installed. the valve wasn't hitting the rocker itself but it must have been close. the old hardware took a beating and i suspect it could have cross threaded.
the adjuster bolt still fits ok with no play in the rocker so i'm hoping i didn't ovalize the holes for the hardware. won't know for sure until i get new stuff in.
turned attention to pulling the heater core, water valve, and pipes.
no obvious leak from anything so decided to replace the core, o rings, and refurbed the water valve. my valve was the spring type and was full of gunk inside. could not get the o ring i wanted for it but the old one had life in it, so i re-used with some sealer i use for this type of an app.
still waiting on the core. removal was awful. one of the water valve bolts was completely captured against the heater box and would not extract far enough for proper removal. took close to the entire day to work the one 8mm bolt out.
since the car was down or possibly crippled anyway i decided to try tackle the sunroof. it's never worked from day one when i bought it. it's a hand crank, and sounds like a blender full of lego when trying to open it. been avoiding touching it as i figured it would take the car off the road until i could diagnose and try to find parts.
at first it wouldn't budge or tilt. working the crank handle carefully got it to tilt and then eventually open partially to assess it. i have spares from another car but had no idea what could be messed up. after careful inspection of the roof we couldn't see the problem. figured it could be a problem in the gearset.
removed the crank cover and was greeted by a mess. the crank handle mechanism was completely chewed and had been crap fixed at some point with wire and a washer forced on the cam to keep it attached.
pulled the pieces out and filed the gearset cam to install a better crank. i have another gearset but it was quicker to clean up the one in the car. if it doesn't hold i can re-do thing is the future. the replacement has a decent working knob.
good news is i have a fully functioning sunroof now.
the fix i thought would be the hardest turned out to be the only full win i got.
it operates smooth too. super happy about that. car is still soaking up the driveway and monopolizing an empty garage until i get parts in.
much more happy. at some point i'll get in front of the curve. i've only gotten 1000km on it since the build a yr ago.
trip there was mostly uneventful. noticed a little smoke in the engine bay on arrival. have had a small leak from the oil cooler / filter adapter and had parts on order to address it. it lost less than a litre since the build so didn't think too much about it. had extra oil so topped it at the destination.
about 30km in on the way back it started spewing oil like a russian shadow fleet tanker. well shit. i pulled over to check the level and added more. the entire underside of the car and my new headers were soaked. the oil cooler / filter adapter was pouring oil from everything except the filter itself.
topped it again and decided to limp it carefully home. ten minutes after starting out again the temp started to creep. oh goody. didn't get dangerous but it did get over the halfway mark on the gauge. thought to myself, ok, i can scrub some heat off running the heater, so turned it on. a minute later the driver side floor was soaked in coolant. fantastic.
pulled over again and checked the coolant res. it was down but not close to empty. figured i could make it, but now the car was tapping far too loud. just grand. thought maybe i overdid it and dropped a valve, but it didn't seem that bad. just loud. made it home at least.
pulled the filter housing, oil cooler, and lines as a unit. it's easier than trying to work around the ac compressor and headers. added o-rings to the lines which had none from when i tore it apart for the build. checking online resulted in an old post from jlevie (sorely missed) talking about it as maintenance. didn't see any o rings listed on realoem but added my own generic ones. the others went fine except for the copper/alum washer seal for the hollow bolt, which showed up as the wrong size. re-ordered and put it back together temporarily.
hopefully that's issue one solved. should have taken a few pics.
ran a quick compression test which returned happiness, then tore the valve cover off for inspection and a valve adjust. the #5 cyl exhaust valve eccentric had rolled right onto the adjustment hole. i've never seen anything like it. took the cyl to tdc to take the tension off and removed the eccentric.
look at the divot on that thing. it spread the eccentric far enough it would not fit the rocker proper and needed some work to remove. rocker itself seems ok but i won't know if the head needs to come off until i get new hardware and another eccentric installed. the valve wasn't hitting the rocker itself but it must have been close. the old hardware took a beating and i suspect it could have cross threaded.
the adjuster bolt still fits ok with no play in the rocker so i'm hoping i didn't ovalize the holes for the hardware. won't know for sure until i get new stuff in.
turned attention to pulling the heater core, water valve, and pipes.
no obvious leak from anything so decided to replace the core, o rings, and refurbed the water valve. my valve was the spring type and was full of gunk inside. could not get the o ring i wanted for it but the old one had life in it, so i re-used with some sealer i use for this type of an app.
still waiting on the core. removal was awful. one of the water valve bolts was completely captured against the heater box and would not extract far enough for proper removal. took close to the entire day to work the one 8mm bolt out.
since the car was down or possibly crippled anyway i decided to try tackle the sunroof. it's never worked from day one when i bought it. it's a hand crank, and sounds like a blender full of lego when trying to open it. been avoiding touching it as i figured it would take the car off the road until i could diagnose and try to find parts.
at first it wouldn't budge or tilt. working the crank handle carefully got it to tilt and then eventually open partially to assess it. i have spares from another car but had no idea what could be messed up. after careful inspection of the roof we couldn't see the problem. figured it could be a problem in the gearset.
removed the crank cover and was greeted by a mess. the crank handle mechanism was completely chewed and had been crap fixed at some point with wire and a washer forced on the cam to keep it attached.
pulled the pieces out and filed the gearset cam to install a better crank. i have another gearset but it was quicker to clean up the one in the car. if it doesn't hold i can re-do thing is the future. the replacement has a decent working knob.
good news is i have a fully functioning sunroof now.
the fix i thought would be the hardest turned out to be the only full win i got.
it operates smooth too. super happy about that. car is still soaking up the driveway and monopolizing an empty garage until i get parts in.
much more happy. at some point i'll get in front of the curve. i've only gotten 1000km on it since the build a yr ago.