The last I blogged about my Mustang I had finished up the installation of the new dash pad and replaced all the bulbs and cleaned up a few years of dust.
If you recall (well you don’t have to, just go back and read the posts) I talked about planning and how I could have saved time by waiting to put new dash pad on (not cap, pad) until the pillar molding came, but I decided not too. The molding came in today….so out with the old….
Old cracked and broken
And in with the new:
New
Mustang Unlimited
I have pretty good luck with Mustang Unlimted’s parts and service. I recommend them. (No I don’t get paid for plugs or compensated.)
These will have to be painted which is very common with interior parts. I even had to paint the replacement arm rest. I have the paint and I’ll post up the entire process.
I finally got the exhaust manifold taken care of (I didn’t do it). But apparent when I had the custom exhaust with hooker headers created and installed, they didn’t use locketight and they loosed up with the vibration of daily and drag strip racing. The right side had to be replaced and the left side was just tightened. Oh she sounds so much better.
Thanks for reading. I’ll get the pillar molding replacement pretty quick.
Ok..let me finish up blogging to you on this event. I had a read ask if it has really taken this long and the answer is No and Yes. (I’ll explain the YES in a bit..it ain’t pretty!!!!)
After find the correct bolts, wrestling the covers back into place was, I bolted them down. Installed they looked pretty good.
Check it out.
Left side painted and installed. Still missing the emblem..right now
The only difficulty was aligning the holes in the cover and the gasket and the engine. Due to the lack of room to maneuver I wasn’t able to keep the gasket and cover holes aligned while wrestling them into place. I used two (small enough to slide into the threaded holes without damaging) phillips head screw driver to help keep them aligned and put the bolts in.
Errrkk……whatever you do tighten them carefully…..let me spell that for you (Mickey Mouse Club tune playing in my head) C…A….R.(because you care about your car)…E…F….U…L…L…(cause you want to keep the oil full)…..Y…(because if you tighten too much on the 1984 C4 magnesium valve covers you’ll crack them and they can’t be welded, JB or other wise, and then you’ve got to find used ones, because aftermarket aren’t all that great)….Ok…end of Mickey Mouse Club song…and the end of one of the original valve covers….
And in case you didn’t get the between the lines intention of the above Errrkkkk…I broken one.
I wasn’t sure at first, my mind refused to process the sound so that I could be sure..it might have been a crack, or maybe I just crunched one of the plastic tubes covering a bundle of wires. Yeah..that’s it…I sure (it might have been a crack though….crap!!…let me spell that for you…oh…never mind….just invision huge font type all in upper case, bolded and underlined.)
I inspected the cover while it was in place and I couldn’t see anything and said…ok.average guy.. with average skills and average budget..you have above average luck…at least today…at least that’s what I thought…or hoped.
When that happens the only way to tell is to either take the cover back off and inspected…that wasn’t going to happen…or let her run and build up the oil pressure and see what happens….that is what you’d normally do any way after replace the gaskets.
Here she is running: (includes bonus views of the injectors…I think they are pretty cool to watch.)
Covers don’t look to bad…but they aren’t going to stay…because..there really was a crack…but it didn’t show up by leaking on this run…it should up the next day when I took the car to work. I checked it when I arrived (about a 15 minute drive) no leaking…drove it home and she started to run poorly and had no power…yeah….it was leaking…on to a spark splug….got home and a little puddle of oil formed under the car and…well lets just say as I replaced the tightening episode in my head the crunching noise…sounded a lot more like a crack..in fact it was very clear on the replay!!!! The little referee in my head….said ‘After reviewing the play..the ruling in the garage is over turned, and Tim is charged a time out and $400.00 fine for cracking the cover and the vette gets parked until the parts get here!’
Here is the pick where the crack occurred.
Yup...cracked!!!!
That was Monday (4/5/2010) fast forward to today new cover have arrived (chrome) and they’ll be installed today or tomorrow. So Yes it was finished and now No it’s not.
Often if you get the right size radiator or heater hose it will be a tight fit(eerrrkkk….don’t tighten the clamp first!!!!….just kidding…eeerrrkk) getting it over metal fittings. You can buy them bigger but you are asking for leaks!!!! Here are a couple of tips. One I’ve used and the other I haven’t tried yet.
1. I live in Arizona, and it’s hot here and normally if you are going to have problems it will be from over heating in the summer time. I’ll take the hose and leave it on the concrete driveway for a while in the hot sun. That often softens it up enough to slip on.
2. This one I have not tried. If you have clear wire-pulling compound, you can rub a light amount around the inside of the hoses and it will slide right on. Here is a link where you can find some. http://www.twacomm.com/catalog/dept_id_608.htm
Thanks for reading.
Don’t forget our project car contest. $100.00 online shopping gift card to your favorite auto parts web site.
So if UPS has its act together I should be getting a set of valve cover gasket and engine paint to repaint the Valve covers and installing them all on Saturday and part of Sunday if necessary.
I could have got the gaskets locally, but only in cork. What I’ll never understand is the thought behind using cork in cars where the average engine coolant temperature is over 200 degrees. Yeah..really.
The spec book on the 1984 C4 Crossfire engine has the thermostat requirement at 195 (degrees). That means the engine has to reach nearly 200 degrees before the thermostat opens and allows the coolant to flow. What more the Crossfire engine is came equiped with an electronic fan for the radiator and the is factory set to come on when the temp reaches 223 degrees.
Now that’s pretty hot for an engine. Rarely does my corvette digital temp gage find it’s self under 200 degree during while operating, it normally round 210.
So knowing that, Chevy still put cork valve cover gaskets on the car. If you’ve ever worked with those, you know that if the engine runs hot, they will eventually “cook” on and dry out and leak. So I went with…. errrkk…. cut/paste “Ultra-Seal material provides a positive seal through controlled swelling of the gasket once exposed to hot engine oil. The polymers used in Ultra-20 also ensure gaskets will not harden and fall apart like others can. Gaskets are coated with an easy release material which helps prevent tearing when the valve covers are removed.”…end errrk and cut/paste.
The painting shouldn’t be a problem, it’s just to spruce them, but I’ll need to prepare them. They are textured magnesium and can take a lot of heat but they do stain easily. I’ll show close-ups of the before and after.
Actually you can see some of it here.
errrkkk….Normally my engine isn’t this awful looking. But it’s been a wetter than normal winter and I haven’t kept up with it like I should. Plus I haven’t been too worried about, know that I had to do these gaskets and hopefully, soon, I’ll be putting on the newly designed Crossfire intake.
Hey..don’t forget the Project Car Contest $100 online gift car to an auto parts house.
This last is the rest of the removal. I tossed a little humor in there about feed my son Ryan only if we worked for the meal. Not sure he thought that was too humorous..but I’m his Dad..he has to deal with me. 🙂
Many of our cars have worn out emblems that were once painted…Ok..I’m a lucky average guy…the Mustang’s emblems are all chrome and my Corvettes are mostly plastic.
But what about some those that need painting. Look for a flow pencil.
Flow Pencil for paint your emblems.
These are pretty reasonable and make painting small areas a bit easier.
I’ve been think about doing this but the rules seem a bit tough to come up with. But I’ll give this a try.
I’m looking for some project car posts from the readers. Your projects. Anything from a huge wreck of car project to something smaller (bigger then an oil change). It has to be your car and you are doing “some” of the work on it. That the only hard and fast rule.
I’ll need a couple photos and some brief details. You can post them up here or find me on Facebook and post the them up or email them to me (timsweet@cox.net). I’ll post them here and then on my website (www.tucsoncarevents.com) for everyone to look at.
If I get enough entries I’m pick a car of the week the week and then out of the we’ll vote on the car of the month (if I don’t get votes posted up I’ll have one of my regular readers pick it. The winner the car of the month gets a $100.00 online gift card as an auto parts dealer (Summit Racing or even on tailored to your car). Simple as that.
So let’s get started. Remember anything from a total wreck to just a transmission swap, body work, paint, interior upgrade, hood swap. That all works. Sorry Pdawg giving Burt a bath and vac isn’t going to cut it (but he could use one!!!…just kidding). It doesn’t have to be done and I don’t need a before and after, just what you are working on.
I’ll this run until I get at least for to choose from, then we’ll vote.
Note: If you noticed my site is not commercial, there are no ads, no click through links, no pop ups. It’s just me type to hear myself type and a few of you reading it. I like it that way.
Follow the steps and you’ll be able to remove those rusted exhaust bolts and it makes using an easy out on broke bolts…um…well… easier!!!!
1. Heat the bolt or stud with a torch errrkkk….”Yo…us averaged guys don’t have a torch set!!!!” Yeah, I know…I use a regular propane torch from ACE Hardware. ….errkkk Double nut the studs.
2. Once it hot…doesn’t have to be glowing red, touch a candle to it, until there is wax penetrated between the threads.
3. Remove the bold or apply the easy out and you are home free.
I thought I’d take a minute and drop a couple book titles at ya!!!
These books are extremely helpful with average project that you can tackle on your cars. I have complete several of them on my 70 Mustang and my 84 Vette.
The books are from MotorBooks. They are a series called MotorBooks Workshop and they are extremely well written
I currently have the following titles (had I’ve used them!!!!)
101 Projects for Your Corvette 1984 – 1996 (Excellent)
101 Projects for Your Mustang 1964 1/2 – 1973 (Excellent) (Although it says Mustang, many of these projects you’ll be able to do on similar Fords..so no you won’t find one for Mercury Cougar Station wagon (love the car Mr. Sears) but the under-pinnings are very similar.)
How to rebuild and Modify Your Manual Transmission (I haven’t used this one yet…I waiting to buy a test transmission to work on first…but finding one is tough for my 70 Mustang and then there’s $$$$ plus $$$ shipping.) (Excellent)
I just pick up Weekend Projects for your Modern Corvette C4-C5-C6 (not very good – mostly C5 and C6 )
Each one has projects and it includes skill level you need may need (naaah….who needs skill when you have pictures!!!), tools you might need, time it will take and other handy tips.
