348 Engine Out!!

Yeah -I know what you mean on the hose. I'm going to set up some kind of platform access to allow me to crawl up there without laying on the induction system.

 

Well, we all have to scratch out a living somehow! I sure can't justify having taken this long, but I did take things easy and enjoyed myself. Also spent some time waiting for parts, and I did more than just the basic 30k, worked slowly and carefully... at least I tried. I also found myself often working on one thing, and then stopping and thinking/dreaming about what I was going to do on another thing that I happened to see.

Actually, yesterday was kind of a microcosm of why this has taken me fairly long... I reinstalled the vapor canister, and noticed that it was loose in it's mounting bracket. Rather than have it bounce around and get damaged, I took it off, found a piece of padding, and installed it around the bracket so that the canister fits tightly.

Also, as I recall reading, some have had problems with grounding of lube tank sensors causing gauge problems. My car had an ugly yellow ground wire retrofitted from the tank to the transaxle, which hung down and was visible underneath. I decided to change this yesterday, but didn't have the connectors and black wire, so will finish that today. Having done all this once, I'm sure the next one will be much, much quicker!!

Short of any weird and hard-to-diagnose electrical gremlins, you can count on seeing me & the car in March (with new Goth Exhaust)!!

 

Decided to pass to have another full day to work on the car!

 

Hey Troy - I also had a really difficult time getting that heater hose in. The other ones only took me about 20min to get on and tightened down at front. I installed a "knee-board" in the engine compt. as shown in the pic. This allowed me lean over, without leaning on, the induction system. Worked very well! Also installed a 2X4 over a couple of the crossmembers over the clutch, with a hole in it that fit over one of the heat shield studs to keep it in place. This allowed me to step into the compartment.
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Hello Brothers!

Some may think I'm dragging my feet on getting my car on the road. But I actually had my first startup last Saturday, 2/21, and it lives!!! However, it ran pretty rough. Good news was NO slowdown or warning lights at all.

I was thinking that since my oxygenated gasoline (ethanol) had been in the fuel tank for almost a year, that I should probably drain it and put in fresh. I decided to try to just turn the ignition on for an hour or so, and hope the fuel pumps would circulate and mix the fuel... but I haven't looked at the fuel system close enough to see if that would actually happen.

Since the car was obviously not running on all cylinders, I decided to use my trusty old timing light to check and see if I had spark on all cylinders, and I did ... at least enough to run the timing light. I doublechecked to make sure that the plug wires went to the correct plug, and they all did. Of course, length of the plug wires is a pretty good guide... provided you haven't removed them from the ignition system and then mixed them up on that end. Anyway... no problems.

I don't have any experience with true fuel injection systems, but after talking with my friend Steve, he was pretty sure it was just gummed up or stuck injectors. I didn't do any service on the induction or injection systems in this major. So I picked up a bottle of Techron on Monday, and ran the engine some to get it into the injectors. BTW - I did turn off the battery disconnect to recycle the ECUs after each rough run... figured if the problem cleared, having the bad runtime stored in the ECU could not help things.

I restarted the next day, and it seemed to run somewhat better, but since I had some other misc. stuff to finish up, I shut it down to let the Techron soak in longer. I then finally decided on Wed that I should drain the fuel tank, and did that yesterday, and added 5gal of fresh Mobil Premium +, and more Techron. Started it up, and it ran a LOT better. Seemed to be running very good, with exception that the idle seemed to cycle up and down some and changed character/sound a bit.

Everything pretty good though, So today I put the wheels on, cleaned her up some, and took her out! Drive around the neighborhood was good, so on to the street and freeway frontage roads. Ran great... total about 4 miles. I think the idle is better too, although I didn't take a lot of time to listen to that when back home. But I'm much happier now than I was last Saturday!! No dash lights, drives straight, and true. May have to do a little shift cable adjustment... 5th was just a bit balky... we'll see. I"m running Redline 75/90 NS,and no chatter!

I still have to drain water and add antifreeze, since I'm running pure distilled water at the moment, and a couple other things (fog light covers ), plus more in depth cleanup. But I"m basically set!!!

Oh .... another point.... I'm now running the Gothspeed Stage 2 Exhaust!! I kept Goth up-to-date on my startup status this week, since he was really interested in how his new Stage 2 worked out! I plan to have the car at our Cars & Coffee next Saturday, and want to try to get some better audio clips than I can get with my camera, and also have a friend drive it so I can hear what it sounds like compared with standard 348s exhaust or Tubi that I'm sure will be at C&C. I will be posting another thread with Gothspeed exhaust installation and pics feedback. I want to wait until after the C&C next Sat. before giving a final overview of the Stage 2, but overall, I'm pretty impressed so far. Well Done Goth!!

 

I'm planning to have the car there next Saturday, so be sure to say Hi! BTW- Now that I have this one under my belt, and some minor restoration and upgrades also completed, I think the next one will probably only take me a couple months, unless I have to wait a long time on some part for some reason. See you Saturday!

 

John's there each time I make it, so I"m sure I'll see him! I can say the idle on the Gothspeed Stage 2 is louder than a Tubi, and I'm pretty sure louder under load too! I plan to have a couple pics, and will be wearing some 348 "Bush-wear" so will post pics for you

 

Thanks Troy I used a Motive pressure bleeder, and actually used that to blow out the lines first, and then bleed the system. I think I used about 1.5 liters before having it done, but it wasn't too hard. The standard way on brakes is to start with the wheel that is furthest from the master (RR) and then work closer... LR, RF and LF. I kept the reservoir really full all the time to avoid running dry!

 

Yes, the Hill tool is the best way to go. It slides over the nut to prevent the socket from tilting or slipping, which happened with the tool I made up. Someone here (Pap?) did post pics of a homemade one with square bars welded on the ID of the socket, which basically worked the same as the Hill one, but you can't get a better one for the job than the Hill socket.