Progress Thread Therapy Car-- Freshening Up the Lower Intake

[Rdub6]

Here lately it seems like I can only get out and work on the car maybe 30 minutes a day if I'm lucky. I'm making very slow progress, but I am getting a little done. I drained the coolant the other night. It's impossible to drain my radiator without taking a bath and getting coolant everywhere, but I was able to catch most of it to reuse. It barely has any miles on it. If you guys think I should just change it feel free to chime in.

Here is where we are right now.

You can clearly see behind the water pump coolant is pooling on top of the timing chain cover.

What did surprise me was the thermostat housing.

That thing is new as of a little over a year ago. I think. I changed it out, but don't remember exactly when. No matter what it barely has any miles on it. I got it from Rock Auto I believe. I also remember using distilled water to fill the system. At this point I'm debating on ordering a new one and just biting the bullet, paying extra and getting an aluminum one. What do you guys think?

I know the feeling of not enough time. I finally started using time in the morning before work, but I hate only getting at it for short amounts of time. Something better than nothing I guess.
Good luck getting this fixed up. I guess the good thing is you caught it early!!

 

[Olivethefet]

We've had company over every weekend for the last few weeks. This weekend I'm home alone with my 4 year old.

 

[Olivethefet]

Well apparently in a stoke of genius when I installed the timing chain cover I only sealed one side of it. Guess what that doesn't work.

I got it off last night, so now I can clean it up and install the new one right.

 

[Olivethefet]

Stupid is the gift that keeps on giving sometimes. I got everything cleaned up and had my fingers crossed that I could put the cover back on without having to drop the oil pan. I've got a one piece gasket on the pan, so the part of the gasket that goes under the bottom of the cover against the pan is part of the one piece gasket. I'm not going to cut it as that would defeat the purpose of the one piece gasket. The problem that I'm running into is that the gasket is getting pushed back into the pan as I try to install the cover.

At this point I have loosened the motor mounts and I'm using my jack stand to lift the motor up a little. If I can tonight I'll take all the bolts off the oil pan and try to pull it down a little. The kicker is if I do that I need to pull the entire oil pan gasket, clean up the mating surfaces, and reinstall the gasket. I used black RTV to seal the gasket. I was planning on using the red anaerobic gasket maker this time.

I'm open to ideas on how to do this without pulling the pan. I even thought about trying to place fishing string across the gasket so that after I set the cover I could try to use the friction of pulling the string to drag the gasket into place. I'm not very confident that that would work though.

 

[stanglx2002]

You should be able to loosen the front oil pan bolts and then progressively loosen the side oil pan bolts and not loosen the back oil pan bolts keeping the seal in the back. This should give you enough flex to get the timing cover back on.

If not, then you need to drop the whole pan, install the timing cover, then put dabs of sealant on the front and back, and finally reinstall the oil pan again.

 

[Olivethefet]

I took the advice given and got it back on last night without having to pull the pan. At least its on there as long as it doesn't start leaking like a sieve! Now its back to putting everything back together.

With a little luck I might be able to fire this thing up and move it around in a week or so!

 

[Mstng93SSP]

Wrap two pieces of dental floss over the bottom of the gasket on each side right where it "loops down" so someone can hold it forward while you drop the timing cover down in. Then before tightening the bolts slide the floss out then tighten. just a thought. Might work, might not?

Chris

 

[Olivethefet]

One way or another it's on. Lol if I have to do again I think I'll have to pull the pan, but if it ever happens again I'll try that.

 

[General karthief]

I'm thinking about just pulling my engine, I have to take the timing cover off too, and the heads, and, and and.

 

[Olivethefet]

Moving along on putting everything back together at this point. An observation though. I installed a SVE bumpsteer kit a little over a year ago and really haven't driven the car more than 100 miles. I'm sure they are fine as far a function goes, but I'm surprised they oxidized the way they did.

 

[Olivethefet]

At this point it is all back together! I filled the coolant system last night, so I'll check it tonight and make sure it isn't still leaking into the oil pan.

I'm not sure why the previous owner did this, but I'll probably get a new OEM shroud at some point.

Something that I noticed last night while installing all this stuff is the belt goes around my water pump the opposite it would if I had a smog pump. This might be a dumb question, but is my water pump spinning backwards? I did notice when it was running that it didn't cool the best even with a new pump.

 

[General karthief]

It should be a reverse rotation pump.

 

[Olivethefet]

This is the water pump I put on it. I dont think it is reverse rotation.

More Information for GMB 1251560P

If it is not that would explain some things!

 

[7991LXnSHO]

How did you swing that new of a car and the insurance in high school? (Insert a Jealous emoji here) I had a 27 year old car that looked cool but was a slow six cylinder. I did not get a 5.0 Mustang until partway through college, and it was a 12 year old one from one of my dad’s business friends who “upgraded” to a turbo Probe for his traveling sales job.

 

[2Blue2]

Your just lucky they didn't cut the radiator support to pull engine

 

[General karthief]

According to carid.com that is a reverse rotation pump

 

[Rdub6]

Heres the routing. Although it looks different, everything spins the same way.

 

[Olivethefet]

Yeah, I was just looking at drawings online and it appears to me that even though it is routed different it is still spinning to pump in the correct direction. I think I'm making mountains out of mole hills over here again. I just saw it last night and it got me thinking is all. Thanks for the responses.

How did you swing that new of a car and the insurance in high school?

I bought that car when I was a senior in 1999. The car was a 90 so it was already 9 years old or damn close. The car cost me 5K in 99. I grew up on a farm and my parents paid me to work just like they did anyone else that worked on the farm for them. I was lucky in that. I always had an income source. As for the insurance. It ate me alive! I had the Mustang then a 93 300ZX. Both cars were terrible as far as the insurance went. I ended up selling the Z and buying a 93 Altima SE. I put 350k miles on the Altima

 

[2Blue2]

As for the insurance. It ate me alive!

I understand that. At one point it was cheaper to buy my friends bug and pay the registration and insurance on it that just pay insurance on my 65mustang...SR-22 and all for losing my license@19 you know.

 

[Olivethefet]

I didn't have to have SR-22, but I was paying more in insurance than I was in car payments. It was depressing.