November 9th, 2004 (Post #54)

November 9th, 2004
Head liner, oil change, noisy lifters, head gasket failure, leaking seal, console back in

The hur-rah for good weather seems to have been this weekend. It was perfect weather on Sunday so I took advantage to wrap up a few jobs.

Headliner
The head liner on the moon roof/sun roof cover came off today. I decided to close it before I got to work and it fell right off. I managed this summer to get it wet when I forgot to close the sun roof. As usual one of the very frequent rain showers broke out and got it really wet. That was it I guess and it decided to come off today. So I guess it’s time to revisit the liner project and try to match with the liner I replace sometime ago. Which means taking it all out AGAIN!

Lifters noisy, change oil
I have been noticing for a few thousand miles that I have a very noisy engine sound. I couldn’t decide whether it was an exhaust leak again or if a valve was sticking or if I was having some other engine related problem. It is time to change the oil and I have noticed since using the Castrol Extended Life oil sometime ago that the oil seems to fail a little faster than before. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find that flavor of oil any longer. Either they don’t stock it any more or Castrol quit making it. Either way the good ole fashioned Castrol 20w50 I use seems a little too thin at the end of it’s 3000 mile life in my engine. To kill one bird with two
stones I bought a bottle of Chevron TECHRON® Concentrate Fuel System Cleaner and put it in and I changed the oil.

The noise is, I am glad to say, no longer there. I’m not sure which of the solutions solved the problem. But my engine is nice and quiet again. Well relatively quiet.

Head gasket leak
As I have been reporting for I don’t know how many years the head gasket has been pushing fluid out of the system. In a desperate attempt to put off the obvious top end engine repair I tried some “horse pills” which sadly have failed to stem the tide. Good news is another engine is in the works. But it will be after Christmas before we get started. So I’m hoping I’ll make it through the winter like last with not too many problems. The price of coolant/antifreeze is too high to pour it on the ground like this.

Leaky seal
My swivel joint seal on the right side had a nice big blob of grease on it this weekend. So I will eventually have to replace it. I have the seal in the garage, but not the place to work on it right now. I’m not really looking foward to removing the CV joint again. But it will give me a chance to document in pictures the procedure again. This time hopefully everyone will heed my advice and replace EVERYTHING that could fail when you tear something down.

Console back in
I have the center console back in. It was more challenging getting it back in than it was to take out. I’m guessing they assemble it in two parts and attach the two pieces afterwards. I had to loosen the emergency brake bracket, pull the big screws and hold my mouth just right for an extended time to get it back in, in one piece.

But I have it all hooked back up and it looks great. I got a little to carried away with the dremel and had to correct with a couple of washers. Which made the window switch panel screws a close fit. I’ll write it up when I get the pictures off the camera tonight probably.