Unplanned Problems Solved

In my post Unplanned Problems I talked about a missing exhaust gasket and a broken bolt. Both problems were more or less easy to solve. I had to wait for Mrs. Okierover to return to the house with the CR-V so I could fetch the parts I needed. The weather turned cold and I had to bundle up to finish up the jobs.

The exhaust gasket was, as I predicted, unavailable in the Oklahoma City metro area. I’ll have to order it from one of the vendors. I talked to JagGuy and bought some High Temp RTV.

I smeared it on the one gasket I did have.

It was looking pretty knackered. I smeared some on the exhaust surfaces on both sides. I probably used a bit too much.

I took the picture of the left side, you can see it below.

I cleaned up the exhaust nuts and bolts and smeared some copper anti-seize on them. My biggest fear was breaking one off when I was tightening it up.

I was very pleased that the high temp RTV cooperated and made a good seal. The tell-tale tick, tick, tick, of an exhaust leak is gone. I hope this solution will hold until I can get the gaskets in the mail.

The broken bolt on the transmission pan required a trip to the hardware store. I like Ace Hardware for bolts. On a whim I stopped at Home Depot. The last time I stopped at Home Depot and Lowe’s for bolts the aisle looked liked it hadn’t be stocked in months. This time I was lucky and there were bolts that matched, Class 8.8. I bought three just in case I broke another one.

I had to modify the bold with the grinder.

I ground it down to match the others. The broken bolt went into the one hole that was not a pass through. Meaning, a hole machined all the way through the transmission. The bold that broke was in the one hole that did not pass through. I used one of the original bolts for that hole. It’s my guess that the last shop that worked on the transmission, torqued it down too much.

I got the transmission pan all bolted on and filled her with fresh fluid. I got the exhaust bolted up and it hasn’t leaked yet. Now that I typed that last statement it will probably blow out tomorrow.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.