Two year nightmare project

[highup]

I've been having moisture issues in my engine for a couple of years now. First discovery was an intake manifold leak on cylinder 5.
After replacing the gaskets, I thought I had it whooped.
The engine is a 1988 Chevy 4.3 V6.
This was what I couldn't figure out.
These two conditions are related.

 

[highup]

In an effort to reduce those booger substance clumped up on the back side of the throttle body, I installed an oil catch can on the vent side of the rocker arm on the driver side. The other side has a PCV valve which goes from the rocker arm to the lower portion of the throttle body or an older cars to the base of the carburetor. That burns oil vapors that come out of the engine head up into the rocker arm covers.
For a few months, that oil catch can was collecting the moisture and gunk venting up and out of the engine. When the filter media in the catch can got contaminated the catch can needed to be cleaned or this snotty problem would reoccur.
Tho I thought the distributor gunk was unrelated, three times in the past couple years the distributor looked like this inside. Slightly sticky, baked on crud.
The first time I saw it, I removed the distributor and disassembled, cleaned and reassembled it because it was hard to turn. Why would the distributor shaft get gunked up so bad and the inside of the cap get all this residue inside it? The residue was baked on and mostly dry or slightly tacky.
Adding to my confusion of the distributor gunk and the snot on the throttle body was this winters weather..... Consistently 5 to 10 degrees below normal, plus some rain most every day, with a "sort of" dry day once every week or two. Never two dry days in a row, and always below normal temperatures for the past 3 months.
My catch can always had oil and some moisture related goo inside it.
My thermostat was running 180 to 185 during this cool weather.
The snot in the catch can I attributed to the colder temperatures and possibly a head gasket leak.
The reoccurring residue in the distributor cap had me confused. Super excessive blowby
Well, I've been learning as I've watched all this over the past year and a half or two. The catch can worked good to contain the moisture ridden crank case fumes, so it was a band-aid of sorts.
A couple weeks ago, I installed a new thermostat, a new PCV valve, a new, larger catch can. I did one other thing.....
This is strange....
The oil fill tube on the PCV side of the engine always has a little oil leaking from it. I keep rinsing the rocker cover clean, but I finally decided it needed a gasket. I discovered it uses an O-ring.
I installed an O-ring, rinsed off the rocker cover and......

.....and my new oil catch can remained clean inside.
A week later it was still dry and clean .......I mean, spotless.

Was this all because of that O-ring?
I moved the oil catch can from the vent side rocker arm cover on the driver side, over to the passenger side rocker arm that has the PCV valve and oil filler tube on it.
Within two days there was a small amount of oil in the bottom of the catch can, but no moisture, zero moisture.
The rocker arm with the vent tube going to the base of the throttle body has remained totally dry for a couple of weeks now.
The rocker arm with the PCV valve and the oil filler which has the new o-ring on it is now connected to that catch can and I keep getting small amounts of oil residue in it but zero moisture.
My deductions from all this are that the oil filler tube with the non-functioning seal was allowing cold air to go into the rocker arm and straight back up into the PCV system. The other rocker arm that has the vent hose going to the throttle body was not functioning as per design. The PCV valve is supposed to suck vapors out of the engine and the vent tube on the other side is supposed to allow some air back into the engine.
Unbenounced to me, that stupid O-ring on the oil fill tube has been causing most of these problems. The engine should be a somewhat sealed system internally. The O-ring created an air leak in the worst possible location.
The thermostat was running 10 or 15 degrees too cool, and 180 degree oil doesn't vaporize internal engine moisture as well as it does at 195 degrees. That and the cold damp weather further compounded the problem.
Where am I now?
New plugs, new plug wires, new thermostat, PCV valve, new oil catch can, fresh Mobil One and filter and before the new oil, I hosed the cylinders 3 times with an ounce and half of Seafoam. Hoping to get rid of carbon inside the cylinders. Each time, I filled the cylinders, it sat overnight, soaking.
It did a lot. Two cylinders had 170# and 179# compression. The other 4 were 150, about where it should be.
After the Seafoam treatment and running the piss out of the engine, those two high cylinders dropped 20# and 17# respectively. The high pressure was from carbon buildup.
I don't think the engine has ever run better, power wise or smoother.
Now.... If the water level in the radiator overflow reservoir stays steady, that means my head gasket isn't leaking. Got my toes and fingers crossed.
If you made it this far into my personal diary.....
.....you need to get a life

 

[highup]

And now comes replacing sensor connections. Every plastic connector is brittle. I got the important pigtail soldered in tonight. $24 for this plug. The thermostat pigtail is $35...... These are simple two wire plugs. Crazy expensive for what they are.
Here's the new and old, side by side. This tells the computer the engine temperature. Without it, the engine won't start.
I need a replacement pigtail for the coolant sensor and two for the ignition coil. I need to find someone with a parts car instead of buying new. No more wrecking yards here, they are now scrap yards, so you can't get used parts anymore.

 

[highup]

Yeah, my diary here, (diarrhea) was a bit lengthy, even by my standards..... which aren't really all that high
I love fixing what I got. Even better when I figure out the problems.
Say you buy a new to you vehicle. A month later the front brakes start grinding. Ok, gotta have brakes, so you buy em.
Six months later, there is a clunking noise when you shift into reverse.
Oh my God, now a U-joint needs to be replaced.
A year later the radiator and water pump go south.
Might as well sell this POS, right?
......bad brakes, bad U-joints, bad water pump and radiator.
Oh, what a bad buy you got there.
......so now you buy another used rig and lose money on the junker to get rid of that used "lemon"
with the new radiator, new brakes, new u-joints new radiator....
.....................
Now you have another "new to you" vehicle.
6 months later, the power steering goes out need to buy a new pump.
A year later you start hearing a clunking noise and the front shocks need to be replaced.
Three months later after replacing the shocks you still hear some kind of a rattle and discover the ball joints need to be replaced.
If you're going to buy used, why not just keep replacing parts every few years or sometimes every few months. $300 twice a year is a lot better than $800 every month.
Brand new with a warranty is wonderful if you happen to have 500 or 800 dollars a month to throw into this endless hole.

On the first used vehicle you bought, you have no payments.
You spent $1,000 for placing some minor/ major parts that will never be replaced again for 50,000 miles.
You just replace a bunch of parts and know the history record of your old vehicle. You know what's wrong with it and you know what you fixed. Why after fixing a bunch of parts do you decide to buy another mystery vehicle with you know nothing about?
You don't really know the real reason the person sold the vehicle to you in the first place.
Was it simply to get a brand new vehicle they liked? .....or did they pass a lemon to you?
If the cost for parts isn't horrendous, just keep replacing parts when they break or fail. You can get lifetime warrantees on parts at o'reilly's, AutoZone and Napa.
When you fix a part on your car, you now know it's condition. It's brand new. Keep a record of this stuff that you replaced and have comfort knowing those parts will probably never cause a problem again.
That's why I have a $600 pickup and I put $400 into it in just this month. I put $1,600 into it in the S10 this past year. To be fair, $750 was tires. I bought a new oxygen sensor, a new throttle position sensor, a new ignition module, a new ignition coil, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, an idle air sensor, a $24 pigtail to so that my water temperature sending unit sends temperature information to the computer.
That doesn't include the fluids, probably $50 or $60 this month to help free up the piston rings. It was absolutely successful.
After 180 MI the oil on my dipstick is down less than 1/8 of an inch. Prior to me attempting to free up the piston rings, the engine was sucking a quart of oil every 650 miles. My early estimations are now 1000 miles or more before adding oil.
Prior to diving into these recent repairs, I thought the engine would be lucky to last another year. The problems we're getting more and more intense each month. Now that I figured it all out, I'm really hopeful.
Here's the dipstick, oil level after 175 miles. It should be 1/3 of the way down the dipstick by now.
I know that not many people share my enthusiasm for the automobile, especially working on them. I feel as lucky as lucky gets being brought up around a dad that taught me using a wrench and associating with people who did the same. The only person that has ever worked on my rigs for nearly 50 years is me.
Partly because I don't trust the novices that work on cars for a living
I'll report back when my dipstick reading reaches, "add a quart".
I'm hoping for over 1,000 miles instead of 650.
The smoothness and performance is better than anytime since I've owned the truck. I couldn't be happier. It will be interesting seeing the highway mileage compared to what it used to be. I'm hoping for 20.
Driving in town, it even ripped the tires going from first to second gear.
Enjoy the ride...................

 

[C.J.]

That’s about where I’m at with vehicles. I’m just not willing to pay that much for a new vehicle so I keep on keeping on with what I’ve got. Realistically I spend 3k to 4K a year on my van in maintenance and repairs. If I did the work myself I could get that number down but I would rather lay floors or trim a house out for a day or two and let someone else replace the radiator than try and do it myself.

 

[highup]

I don't let anyone touch my vehicles. Exception being, tires, front end alignment or boring the engine block.
Since I was 17 and had my own rig, what I said holds true. I do everything myself.
Ok, about those disc brakes ...I was 20 and thought disk brakes were some sort of rocket science, so I let a shop do them, then soon after, realized that they were so easy to do, that a blind man could do them in half an hour....
...in a parking lot
...during a hurricane
I'm 65 and with these exceptions haven't had a mechanic touch my junk.

No.... No, no people. That's not what I meant!

....I forgot one more. I had a shop rebuild my turbo 350 automatic transmission.
Doing all my own work, I'm under the rig, seeing oil drips and noticing other things that I might need to fix someday. If I let someone do a fix, I won't know what the underside of the car looks like and can't anticipate some repairs.
If I worked full-time 6 days a week and made some decent money I might do things differently but throughout my entire career things have been a bit piecemeal. I never got the full-time work, I got this special jobs that nobody else would or could do. It's nice feather in my hat but it don't pay the bills enough that I can pay somebody $150 an hour to work on my vehicle.
Aside from that is quite rewarding.
Way more than once over the years, I broken down and could easily do the fix myself because I knew what to look for when the problem arose.
I've never hired a plumber electrician or any other trade in my life. Something ain't working, I'm going to figure out how to fix it.

 

[C.J.]

I used to have a ‘76 Ford van. I loved that van. That was the van that got me to start liking Ford vans again after my experience with something from the ‘80’s with a 302 in it. This van had wing windows and a fresh air door flapper thingy down by your feet. No radio, no cruise control, no AC, it was just a van. The worlds most comfortable hoopty minus the pickle in back.

Fuel pump went out. I was excited because a new pump and filter was under $25. Two bolts and two hose clamps and I’m back in business. Easy peasy, right. I didn’t know you were supposed to disconnect the top radiator hose to give you more access to remove the pump. Now I’m laying on the ground with gas dripping on me just cussin up a storm and I told myself, at that moment, I would gladly pay someone $200 to fix this POS. I think the shop woulda charged me maybe $125 or $150 for a small repair like that. Or my buddy woulda done it for a case of beer but then I gotta wait till he’s available blah blah. I kept at it and got the fuel pump and filter replaced but I told myself I was done working on my own vehicles after that.

I figure my van now realistically costs me bout $3600 a year in maintenance and repairs. May have to adjust that number in the future due to inflation but so far that number has been fairly accurate. I don’t sweat it, it’s just another cost of doing business, but I am starting to get a little pissed off at the fact that I am having to pay for a windshield replacement every other year.

 

[highup]

Windshield replacement because of the heat? Do they crack or pop out.

 

[C.J.]

Rocks n whatever else gets picked up and tossed around. It’s really bad in the desert, who knew. I’ve got 4 or 5 rock chips that are just chips for now and one crack that hasn’t grown very fast but it is growing for sure. I feel like taking a sharpie and marking it’s progress.

 

[highup]

Rocks n whatever else gets picked up and tossed around. It’s really bad in the desert, who knew. I’ve got 4 or 5 rock chips that are just chips for now and one crack that hasn’t grown very fast but it is growing for sure. I feel like taking a sharpie and marking it’s progress.

You're a grown up now, use lazers.

 

[Floorist]

I still do some of the stuff on our cars. Our 2000 Chrysler 300 M. Fought it for a year, The battery would be dead in a couple days. Battery was good, starter was good, alternator was good. No battery draw when sitting. Finally found out that the computer on those things malfunction sometimes and the inside lights come on by themselves. They were killing the battery. Took the bulbs out of the inside lights and no more problem.

 

[highup]

I still do some of the stuff on our cars. Our 2000 Chrysler 300 M. Fought it for a year, The battery would be dead in a couple days. Battery was good, starter was good, alternator was good. No battery draw when sitting. Finally found out that the computer on those things malfunction sometimes and the inside lights come on by themselves. They were killing the battery. Took the bulbs out of the inside lights and no more problem.

Don't ya just want to sneak up behind the electrical engineer in charge and give him a 2x4 as a gift?
I love carburetors and points.
........ok, a GM HEI is better than points. They done good.
It shouldn't be so hard to work on a car. Times have changed. It's now a trade-off. Much better fuel mileage and less maintenance with newer cars.
If you have a minor issue, it's now a HUGE issue as far as your bank account is concerned. Sad for us diyers

 

[Floorist]

I don't remember what year it was but one of the Mustang 2s said to loosen the motor mounts and raise the engine to change the oil filter. Engineering at its finest.

 

[highup]

I don't remember what year it was but one of the Mustang 2s said to loosen the motor mounts and raise the engine to change the oil filter. Engineering at its finest.

If there was ever a time for a remote oil filter, that was it. I'm guessing it was when they put a V8 in there. Pretty tight quarters in a small car like that.