Journy to Stage 0.5

Since I am only a month late getting this post started I will just go ahead and combine a couple of weekends work into this post. Since I still need to change the oil I can't say that I am completely at stage 0.

The first work day was dedicated to getting the timing belt, water pump & thermostat replaced. After working on Lael's 242 we started on my car. This was later than it should have been. I cross threaded two of his lug bolts. We had to tap the hub and fix the lug nuts. Since we were doing the water pump we started by draining the radiator. When we were getting everything apart Miah noticed that the serpentine belt was about to go. It took a trip to two different AutoZones to get the belt. I didn't have my keys with me so Miah got the points. It took a while, but we finally got everything buttoned up. In the middle of this we had to replace the upper spring seat on the front passenger strut. Needless to say it was not a simple task to get the spring compressed to get everything back together. Once we got the strut back in the car the handling improved greatly. By the time everything was done it was dark outside. This is the when we realized that the dash lights didn't work. We messed with the dimmer switch and noticed that one of the pink lines that is what carries power for all of the dash lights was broken. We tried to get it temporarily connected, but still no dash. I had to drive the car home by flashlight. I was following Miah back to Megan's so we could all get dinner. He took the most circuitous way home while I am trying to follow using a flashlight to see my dash.

The second work weekend was over the Valentine's Day weekend. This was the most in depth work we have done to date. We planned on replacing the PCV, fuel injectors, spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap, rotor, intercooler piping, throttle body & intake manifold. While we had everything apart we replaced vacuum line with silicone line. More about the throttle body and intake manifold later. We started by pulling the airbox, downpipe, intake manifold & throttle body. From here we pulled all of the parts of the PCV and replaced it with a kit from IPD. This should help stop some of the oil that sprays on the top of the engine. While Lael and I were working on this Miah took care of getting the spark plugs changed out. He also replaced my center caps with new IPD ones and put my good ones on his car. We found that the starter was not

Since we had everything apart I decided to upgrade my throttle body to a larger one from a N/A car. Instead of porting my existing intake manifold I replaced it with one from a N/A also. It took a lot of time, but I pulled both from Pick-N-Pull, cleaned them up & painted them. I added a spacer from Snabb when we put the manifold back on. This keeps the heat soak of the block from heating up the intake manifold. In the process of taking everything apart and putting it back together we lost one of the bolts that holds the manifold on. We seemed to have other bolts extra, but not the one we needed. We decided to pack it in for the night and come back to it Monday morning. Since my car was a no go Miah let me take his home Sunday night. I dropped him off and went to Walgreens to get some cold medicine. I was driving up Woodlawn when I hit a pot hole. This bent the rim and destroyed the tire. I got the tire changed out just in time for Miah to show up to help.

Monday morning we went to Gorges to see about getting the bolt we needed. They said they didn't have any in stock, but I would be surprised that the service area didn't have a stash of them. We got a bolt from Tractor Supply that worked to get me home. We proceeded to get all of the flexible intercooler lines replaces with silicon ones from FCP Groton. We didn't get the fuel injectors replaced since they didn't get delivered to my apartment until Monday. We got everything buttoned up and after a few minutes of rough idle it started to idle pretty well. At this point we tried to troubleshoot the dash lights. All we succeeded to do was blow fuses. We soldered the broken wire back together, but that didn't fix the issue either. So it was a no go driving home Monday night. I was not feeling well anyway, so it really wouldn't have mattered if we had gotten it working.

While I was down I fixed the odometer that was broken. I replaced the gear and reset everything to 000000. I figured since we didn't know the mileage I might as well keep track of everything from the time I got the car.

I drove home Tuesday morning after a drug induced sleep. I stopped at Pick-N-Pull and got the missing bolt that I needed. I then headed home and proceeded to lie on the couch feeling horrible.

Since I got home I have replaced the fuel injectors with the ones I had cleaned. In tightening down the fuel rail I snapped the head off of a bolt. I need to pull the broken bolt out, but it is not a priority until I figure out my dash light issue.