Learned'd VIII: Less Bewbs, Same Nonsense

[frapjap]

And being new it didn't smell like old cigarettes and sweat!

Joel- how often do you rotate the tires on the Z when you're actively tracking it? The outside shoulders on the Miata tires were worn, so I just brought them in to the shop to be dismounted and switched to the opposite side to allow the inside to get worn next. That, and at the limit, the slip I was noticing mid-turn was less than inspiring in terms of stability.

[Bubba1]

And being new it didn't smell like old cigarettes and sweat!

Joel- how often do you rotate the tires on the Z when you're actively tracking it? The outside shoulders on the Miata tires were worn, so I just brought them in to the shop to be dismounted and switched to the opposite side to allow the inside to get worn next. That, and at the limit, the slip I was noticing mid-turn was less than inspiring in terms of stability.

I don't rotate the Z's tires. Different sizes front and rear.

[frapjap]

That'll do it. Do you ever go side-to-side?

[Bubba1]

That'll do it. Do you ever go side-to-side?

No, but If I did Lime Rock or NJMP's Thunderbolt more often (which abuses left side tires), I'd consider it.

[numbnuts240]

i want a ride along if you come up to lime rock.

[tigersharkdude]

It's been a LONG time since Ive been here, how is everyone doing?

[sx moneypit]

Mornin' folks!!

[frapjap]

Morning Ben, how've you been? Whatve you been up to? Any 4th of July plans? We're getting rained out here!

[sx moneypit]

Morning Ben, how've you been? Whatve you been up to? Any 4th of July plans? We're getting rained out here!

Mornin' Ray,been doin' pretty good.Busy as s*** right now.No big plans for the 4th,just going to take it easy (broke my left arm a few weeks ago).
Weather is going to be great here.

[Bubba1]

Mornin' Ray,been doin' pretty good.Busy as s*** right now.No big plans for the 4th,just going to take it easy (broke my left arm a few weeks ago).
Weather is going to be great here.

How did you break your arm? Or can we guess?

[numbnuts240]

furious fap? elbow dropping punk kids? bear wrestling? noodling for massive catfish? karate chopping cinder blocks? trying to reach that one dropped bolt between the firewall and cylinder head and losing footing?

narrow down which bone it is.

also good morning. i feel that a lot of nothing is going to happen here at work today.

[sx moneypit]

Mornin' Ray,been doin' pretty good.Busy as s*** right now.No big plans for the 4th,just going to take it easy (broke my left arm a few weeks ago).
Weather is going to be great here.

How did you break your arm? Or can we guess?

Cycling accident.

[Bubba1]

Cycling accident.

Awww. I was hoping for something more unusual like a typo error in a sex manual.

[WDRacing]

Dang Ray! Did you mention that somewhere and I missed it?

[frapjap]

Mention what? The Subaru under construction? Probably bitched about it a couple of times. Mahkey-Mark is going to come by Sunday and help me pull the heads and get them back on. Then its time for reassembly!

Bummer that you broke your arm Ben, thats some s*** there. What have they got you doing for work now?

Tito- excellent thought progression.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Hey everybody!

I had a spectacularly productive holiday weekend. Harvested a MINT '01 LS6 and some late-90s Rams for body and interior parts at the junkyard. The LS6 was actually cleaner than mine, but a lot of interior stuff doesn't transfer from first-gen to 2nd-gen, and the LS6 is a base model so it was missing a lot of features (particularly: heated/cooled seats).

Got a ton done:
Transferred good upholstery from a broken driver seat frame to a good frame with bad upholstery in the Ram (my dad's workhorse).
Replaced some door seals on the Ram

Hybridized a working 1st gen LS power window regulator with my 2nd gen motor and controller (the early/base/LS6 had no one-touch up/down like my later LS8 so the controller and harness connectors are completely different). Unfortunately I can't figure out why the motor now only works in the "up" direction, with no down except auto-recoil after hitting the top. Feels like it's not calibrating the "full up" position but the normal calibration procedure isn't working. I think I might have damaged the control board when I separated it from the original housing in order to transfer it to the working regulator. I would have been happy to lose the one-touch operation but the harnes connectors were incompatible and the motor side connector is built into the regulator housing so it can't be spliced.

Replaced some damaged interior trim on the LS8 (least durable interior I've ever seen--the plastic oxidizes and becomes insanely brittle).

Still to do:
--Figure out WTF is wrong with my window motor/controller.
--Cut and trim the LS6 seatbacks to fit on my forced-air ventilated seats (LS8 uses a dedicated fan and peltier heat pump for each seat's heating and cooling, and the ducting takes up a lot of space in the seatback). My seatbacks are falling off--the plastic trim was removed incorrectly (I assume for some repair) and damaged--now it just falls off. Unfortunately the forced air cooling doesn't do much when the seatback ducting vents to the cabin due to the absence of a trim cover to trap the air. LS6 seatbacks aren't designed for the ducting but I think I can trim them and make them work anyway.
--Replace all my door seals. The LS8 has a weird 3-layer door seal (outer around both doors on each side, inner around each individual door opening, and another inner along the upper window seal on the door itself). The LS6 I harvested had factory-fresh looking rubber seals. I took them all.

I wish the LS6 had had heated/cooled seats. My driver seat leather is TRASHED and the headrest fittings are slightly loose in addition to the seatback falling off, so I'd like to replace the whole damn thing.

[frapjap]

Sounds like some solid project car time.

Was it much cheaper to go with the new seat & retrofit vs having the original seat reupholstered? All those seals must make it a really quiet car at speed on the highway.

Ben might like this!

While working on the Subaru, 3 valve cover bolts were seized in the valve cover. More specifically, the sleeve part on the shoulder bolts were seized in the aluminum valve cover. We used an unorthodox fix of of using a Dremel to cut the valve cover and a portion of the stuck bolt. Once we did that, the threaded part of the bolts came out of the head, easy peasy. (Thankfully!) It burned out my Dremel, so we bought a new one and the old one is going back in the box for a return later on next week. I might have used it only a dozen times for light duty jobs. f***.

One head gasket was definitely failing. I replaced some other gaskets in the intake, they were not looking so hot. As we went to put it all back together, I stripped the threads out of one of the water pump holes. FUUUUUUUUUUUUU. I get the pleasure of helicoiling that one when the kit comes in. Almost there, just re-assembly to do!

[MinisterofDOOM]

Ugh, Subaru headgasket jobs aren't fun.

Randomness: this is one of my FAVORITE things:


Also, awesome plate on a not-remotely-fitting boremobile:

Was it much cheaper to go with the new seat & retrofit vs having the original seat reupholstered? All those seals must make it a really quiet car at speed on the highway.

Vastly so. Two mint wrecking-yard seatbacks in matching color: $12. Reupholstered perforated leather seat: $200+

The car SHOULD be extremely quiet at highway speed, but the seals have deformed due to age/oxidation/heat/cold and the driver door lets in a lot of wind noise. So I'm looking forward to getting back to factory quiet.

This car is a case study in polar design trends. Half of it is overengineered like crazy, and the other half is cheapass laziness of epic scale. So, basically, you can tell which parts Jaguar designed and which parts Ford designed.

[Kompresshun]

Mornin.

Well I just picked the Miata up from getting the new clutch and rear main seal installed. Figures that the rear main seal wasn't leaking after all, so i've still gotta find this stupid leak. My next guess it the CAS, since it's above the transmission and the o-ring in it going bad is fairly common.

[frapjap]

CAS O-ring is pretty common. But at least you have a new clutch and RMS! What did that run you?

Ben- and anyone else who has been a mechanic or may have a mechanic friend to ask-
We learned that my Subaru has an LKQ sourced engine in it, which mans its either re-manufactured or is a replacement engine.

I'd like to find out when/how old the engine is and what it is. I found a short, 5 digit code on one of the valve covers, but they say they need another stock number that begins with a "$" and has an alphanumerical code that follows.

Is anyone familiar enough with LKQ stuff to help me find where they might have put a stock number on the block?

[Kompresshun]

My mechanic charged me $300 to R&R the transmission, replace the clutch, and RMS with me supplying the parts. I didn't think that was too bad.

No idea on tracking an LKQ engine here. I'd be even more curious what they screwed up so bad to have to replace it too.

[frapjap]

WOW! You got a steal. I'd of done it for that price, too. Get that guy a 6 pack.

Those engines had a tendency to eat oil and blow head gaskets- both issues were potentially covered under warranty. It could also be that the previous owner ruined the original engine due to either of those and needed a replacement. I don't particularly care, but the pursuit of the information is fun.

[Kompresshun]

The engine is pristine in this thing. 167k and the internals look nearly new.

It's the CAS that's leaking. Really common oil leak on the 1.6L and I already checked it. If you put your finger under it, it's soaked with oil. I picked up an o-ring out of our o-ring kit here at the shop and i'll replace it this weekend.

[frapjap]

Mine leaks a little, but not like what yours sounds like.
Could you do me a huge favor?
While you've got that part of the engine taken apart, can you look for anything that might make a metallic rattle if it were loose?
I've been chasing down a rattle that only happens at 1800-2100 rpm for weeks now. It DEFINITELY comes from the back of the engine but I can't find it anywhere.

[Kompresshun]

Well i'm probably more paranoid about leaks than you are too. It leaves a small spot on the ground when I park it and that bothers me a lot. Mainly because it's 25 years old and I don't want to run the engine low on oil.

You may have a loose piece of exhaust somewhere, or a heat shield. On the back of the engine, all you really have is the CAS and then where the ignition coil mounts. That's about the only things i'm aware of back there, but i'll double check when i'm in there this weekend.

[frapjap]

Thanks man!
I took a more in depth look yesterday, but still can't pinpoint it. Sometimes it sounds like the rattle is coming from inside the valve cover, but that can't be right since the engine runs without protest at all times.
Mine burns oil like crazy. The leak from the o-ring is minuscule in comparison to the burning.

I dusted a newer Civic SI this morning. b**** thought he was hot s***.

[sx moneypit]

Mornin' Ray!

[Kompresshun]

Mornin' guys!

Ray we put a new o-ring on this morning and there was nothing present back there. You seriously should consider replacing yours though, because it was pissing oil out of mine even though it was leaving a small spot on the ground when it sits. I'm willing to bet you're losing more oil from there than you think you are. It's a REALLY common issue with these cars anyways. It took us like 15min to replace it this morning and the o-ring is less than a dollar.

I'm curious if the sound you're describing though is the actual CAS getting ready to die. It's not so common for it to fail, but it can and considering the mileage you have it may be bad. That or are you sure it's not valvetrain noise? What weight oil do you run in yours?

[frapjap]

You could very well be right about my CAS being ready to fail. Its got 176,000 miles on it. Maybe I'll just do the stupid O ring this weekend then. Did you have to remove the coil packs to get at it? Does the valve cover come off, too? Anything special to do with your timing, or just R&R it?

I run 10w30 in my car, does nothing to silence that noise but does shut up the damned lifter tick.

Morning Ben!

Ben- are you familiar with where LKQ might put a stock number on their engines?

[Kompresshun]

We marked mine, then R&R. That was it. It's a bit of a tight squeeze to get out of there, but the valve cover stays on. Miata.net has an article on it: http://www.miata.net/garage/cas_oring.html

I actually run 5w30 Pennzoil Platinum in mine, but i'm thinking about switching back to 10w30.