Cooling and braking
Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 9:26 am
Well, it's been a while on this post, apologies.
Finally got around to the sea foam tripple threat (1/3 in the oil, 1/3 in the gas and 1/3 inhaled). Honestly, I was a little blown away by how much noxious smoke it created, but it did seem to work a bit. The car starts a little bit easier and idles more smoothly. Strange stuff.
So, my car lost all of its coolant last Thursday coming home across the Bay Bridge. No fun.
Lucky me, my parts car had a brand new radiator, coolant expansion tank, etc. I bought a couple of hoses and a 70deg thermostat. Turns out there were three leaks. The radiator itself was leaking all around the inside edges of the fan shroud (sneaky) and the expansion tank had a hairline crack. I addition to this - and maybe the larger issue - one of the heater hoses running across the back of the engine had a very large hole by the clamp. Why the cabin was NOT full of coolant fumes is a good question. I guess it was cool enough that it ran down the bell housing and burned up on the exhaust. Oddly enough there is little physical evidence of this.
The car runs much much cooler now. This has probably been an issue for a while.
Second on the docket was replacing the rear calipers. I noticed a week ago that I was loosing brake fluid - checked the wheels - lo-and-behold, both rear tires were wet. I pulled the rears on my parts car and rebuilt them. I think the calipers on my car were rebuilt (grease pen marks) - they must have split them and not known what they were doing because they were leaking from the seam and the seals. A BIG mess.
This also gave me the opportunity to swap out the rubber hoses with braided steel
and flush the system with Blue.
Very big improvement.
Nice thing I noticed - one of the POs installed Bilstiens.
The front brakes look larger than normal, too - were the stock rotors vented? I guess they probably were.
Cheers,
Brian
Finally got around to the sea foam tripple threat (1/3 in the oil, 1/3 in the gas and 1/3 inhaled). Honestly, I was a little blown away by how much noxious smoke it created, but it did seem to work a bit. The car starts a little bit easier and idles more smoothly. Strange stuff.
So, my car lost all of its coolant last Thursday coming home across the Bay Bridge. No fun.
Lucky me, my parts car had a brand new radiator, coolant expansion tank, etc. I bought a couple of hoses and a 70deg thermostat. Turns out there were three leaks. The radiator itself was leaking all around the inside edges of the fan shroud (sneaky) and the expansion tank had a hairline crack. I addition to this - and maybe the larger issue - one of the heater hoses running across the back of the engine had a very large hole by the clamp. Why the cabin was NOT full of coolant fumes is a good question. I guess it was cool enough that it ran down the bell housing and burned up on the exhaust. Oddly enough there is little physical evidence of this.
The car runs much much cooler now. This has probably been an issue for a while.
Second on the docket was replacing the rear calipers. I noticed a week ago that I was loosing brake fluid - checked the wheels - lo-and-behold, both rear tires were wet. I pulled the rears on my parts car and rebuilt them. I think the calipers on my car were rebuilt (grease pen marks) - they must have split them and not known what they were doing because they were leaking from the seam and the seals. A BIG mess.
This also gave me the opportunity to swap out the rubber hoses with braided steel
and flush the system with Blue.Very big improvement.
Nice thing I noticed - one of the POs installed Bilstiens.
The front brakes look larger than normal, too - were the stock rotors vented? I guess they probably were.
Cheers,
Brian