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Well, yesterday, I finally got around to pulling the intake manifold so I could replace my spark plugs, wires, PCV, change the trans fluid, etc. I also bled the brakes Saturday. Everything went well. Relatively well, I should say.
Saturday's adventure bleeding the brakes went really well. My total time was about an hour and a half, and it would have only been an hour, but I had to go out and buy more brake fluid. I used a one man bleeder system and Valvoline Synthetic "Synpower" brake fluid. Feels good to me. The old fluid, which I'm sure hasn't been changed in 81K, since the car was originally bought, was brown. Glad that's out of my car. Now all I have is nice, amber colored brake fluid. I'd say ease of this is about a 4/10, with 10 being the hardest.
Sunday, we started out with the intake manifold removal. That was the easy part. Disconnect a bunch of vaccum hoses and fittings, remove a few bolts, etc, take off intake manifold. What sucks is the fact that you need to remove the EGR. I had no clue that I needed to do this, so when I went to pull the manifold off and it wouldn't come, I realized that the EGR was connected to another pipe. Pulled that off, and realize that I'd need gaskets for that. The Autozone near me only had one, and I needed two, so I went to Strauss, another Autozone, and two Pep Boys. Finally, I went to a third Autozone like 20 miles from my house and got one. Only a $2 part, but important. Gapped the plugs, installed the new wires, put in the manifold gaskets (by the way, the PCV valve didn't need to be replaced...it was perfect), and "Installation is reverse of removal." I used Autolite platinum plugs and Bosch 8mm plug wires. Put everything back together and she runs perfectly now. The butt dyno is feeling faster... :lol2:
After that, needed to do the transmission fluid. The trans also hadn't been done in the 81K the car has been alive, I'm sure of that. The fluid was dark, but still the reddish-purple that Mercon V is. I bought a new trans filter kit, including gasket from www.rockauto.com. The gasket was a little different from the stock gasket, as the stock gasket is plastic and the new one is just a regular flexible gasket (not sure of material). Anyway, it fit perfectly, and the fill went fine. Needed 7.5 qts of Castrol Mercon V in the car. On a side note, I went to a small place and bought Castrol Mercon V, and they charged me $4.95 a quart. Got wise to that and went to Autozone a little while later, and got the same exact stuff for only $2.79 a qt. Much better price for the same damn stuff. Whenever I buy stuff, I always try to go to this small place in my town, because they're nice, hardworking guys in there. From now on, though, I refuse to buy fluids there. I'll buy my oil at Costco (Mobil 1 is like $22/6 qts there) and my other stuff at Autozone.
I also cut my tailpipes down to size and put a 45 degree angle on them. I'll try to get some new pictures of them today or tomorrow. They look much better than those long ass pipes I had on there.
Next time I get a free weekend, I'm dropping the y-pipe on the car to replace the oxygen sensors. We took a look at the bank 2 upstream O2 sensor from under the car and decided that there was no way in hell we were going to be able to get a wrench in there to remove it. Off will come the y-pipe and maybe some new high-flow cats will go on. Also, my intake ports were DIRTY! I couldn't believe how much crap and gunk was in there. Again, when I have a free weekend, I'm going to pull off the intake manifold again and pull out the lower intake manifold, then get them all cleaned up. My girlfriend's dad (major gearhead) told me to stop using **** gas. I have always used 87 octane Mobil in this car, so I didn't know what he meant. He told me that the 87 octane is really ****** gas and that I should be putting 89 octane in. He told me to run two or three tanks of premium through to clean some of that up, and then run 89 from now on. I'll take his advice. Maybe it's time for me to get an AMS chip with that better fuel!
JR
Saturday's adventure bleeding the brakes went really well. My total time was about an hour and a half, and it would have only been an hour, but I had to go out and buy more brake fluid. I used a one man bleeder system and Valvoline Synthetic "Synpower" brake fluid. Feels good to me. The old fluid, which I'm sure hasn't been changed in 81K, since the car was originally bought, was brown. Glad that's out of my car. Now all I have is nice, amber colored brake fluid. I'd say ease of this is about a 4/10, with 10 being the hardest.
Sunday, we started out with the intake manifold removal. That was the easy part. Disconnect a bunch of vaccum hoses and fittings, remove a few bolts, etc, take off intake manifold. What sucks is the fact that you need to remove the EGR. I had no clue that I needed to do this, so when I went to pull the manifold off and it wouldn't come, I realized that the EGR was connected to another pipe. Pulled that off, and realize that I'd need gaskets for that. The Autozone near me only had one, and I needed two, so I went to Strauss, another Autozone, and two Pep Boys. Finally, I went to a third Autozone like 20 miles from my house and got one. Only a $2 part, but important. Gapped the plugs, installed the new wires, put in the manifold gaskets (by the way, the PCV valve didn't need to be replaced...it was perfect), and "Installation is reverse of removal." I used Autolite platinum plugs and Bosch 8mm plug wires. Put everything back together and she runs perfectly now. The butt dyno is feeling faster... :lol2:
After that, needed to do the transmission fluid. The trans also hadn't been done in the 81K the car has been alive, I'm sure of that. The fluid was dark, but still the reddish-purple that Mercon V is. I bought a new trans filter kit, including gasket from www.rockauto.com. The gasket was a little different from the stock gasket, as the stock gasket is plastic and the new one is just a regular flexible gasket (not sure of material). Anyway, it fit perfectly, and the fill went fine. Needed 7.5 qts of Castrol Mercon V in the car. On a side note, I went to a small place and bought Castrol Mercon V, and they charged me $4.95 a quart. Got wise to that and went to Autozone a little while later, and got the same exact stuff for only $2.79 a qt. Much better price for the same damn stuff. Whenever I buy stuff, I always try to go to this small place in my town, because they're nice, hardworking guys in there. From now on, though, I refuse to buy fluids there. I'll buy my oil at Costco (Mobil 1 is like $22/6 qts there) and my other stuff at Autozone.
I also cut my tailpipes down to size and put a 45 degree angle on them. I'll try to get some new pictures of them today or tomorrow. They look much better than those long ass pipes I had on there.
Next time I get a free weekend, I'm dropping the y-pipe on the car to replace the oxygen sensors. We took a look at the bank 2 upstream O2 sensor from under the car and decided that there was no way in hell we were going to be able to get a wrench in there to remove it. Off will come the y-pipe and maybe some new high-flow cats will go on. Also, my intake ports were DIRTY! I couldn't believe how much crap and gunk was in there. Again, when I have a free weekend, I'm going to pull off the intake manifold again and pull out the lower intake manifold, then get them all cleaned up. My girlfriend's dad (major gearhead) told me to stop using **** gas. I have always used 87 octane Mobil in this car, so I didn't know what he meant. He told me that the 87 octane is really ****** gas and that I should be putting 89 octane in. He told me to run two or three tanks of premium through to clean some of that up, and then run 89 from now on. I'll take his advice. Maybe it's time for me to get an AMS chip with that better fuel!
JR
