Man.....
You know what fixes a persistent squealing serpentine belt?
Exactly one full revolution of the clevis that tensions the belt.
I should be stood up in the center of a circle and repeatedly blasted with a smart ray.
Cause I desperately need it.
So,...I tighten the belt and start the car,....No squeal. No big deal, it routinely started cold with no noise, and only after getting hot would it do it.The plan was to let it get hot. But while it was idling,...I heard something.
The tell tale "bluh-bluh bluh" noise you hear when you have an exhaust leak.
I had one.
Right at the turbo flange. The v band clamp that I was using was the cheapest chinese piece of sht on the planet, and it wasn't properly merging the two flanges when tightened.
So I swapped it out for another one that i was using under the car and restarted it.....No more "Bluh-bluh-bluh", but I could still smell exhaust. So again I shut it off.
The two v band clamps at the merge were loose.
So I fixt that.
And restarted it. This time it's quiet... ( well as quiet as you can expect for such a noisy assed engine) But more importantly, I'm not smelling exhaust.
Yea.
I let it run.
When the fans come on, it's 190 degrees inside the engine.....This is my reference standard for a hot, fully warmed up engine. I shut the thing off, and wait.
I want it to heat soak every piece of steel attached to the engine.
I give it ten minutes.
And then a restart.
No belt squeal.
Let me say it again....
Yea!
So,..we move on to test drive. This time were checking for blowby....The required ingredients for checking blowby is:
One Monster+ One driver (me), and a liberal dosage of right foot.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Several times.
* So I don't forget to say it,..this thing gets into boost stupid quick...way faster than the previous turbo. Whether or not it makes more power I couldn't say, but it is a noisy little wheezer.....and he lets me know that he is honkin well before I feel him...
Good little wheezer....
When I'm not flat footing it, I'm cruisin.....and It's just tooling along in 4th...I'm thinkin' "What the hell am I worried about?" "It runs beautifully."
I return to the garage for the tell tale,..I lift the hood....and look.
Nothin but wet.....under the glass. Where it's sposed to be. No oily fittings,.....no oil covered valve cover....
Anybody up for a third?
Yea.
I look into the little mason jar that is the catch can....there is about 1/4" of water in there...slightly oily...It's what I want to see.
The stupid little oil/water contraption is wicking the water out of the crankcase vapors, and the monster is eating the crankcase vapors minus that moisture.
The hood bubbles are my fault....It probably happened as a result of running an unwrapped hotside within inches of the hood paint..
This is what the bubbles look like..
It's no wonder....
Now that there is a wrapped hotside, and only after running the thing at idle last night,...look at the temp difference.
Hotside,.....
cold side...
I may have to insulate the bottom side of the hood on that side to keep from advancing the problem that has started to show up there...
So,..the take away tonight is that I "think" I've remedied the squeal......I "think" I've fixed the vent issue.....I "think" I'll think about keeping the car for a little while longer.