First Timer takes on '86 GTB

Actually, what he wants is for me to sit on the ground so he can sit in my lap. He thinks he's "helping".

 

To pick up where I left of....I need to tension the belts. I used the method Birdman gave in his write-up. I locked the cams in place. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to lock one or both at the same time, so I went ahead and made a second cam lock and locked both down. I then used my 36mm socket with a socket wrench and put some pressure on the crack in the clockwise direction. While I had pressure on the crank, I tightened the tensioners. This is much easier to do with two people and I forgot to get pics when my wife was assisting.

Most of the coolant hoses have been replaced on the car, but as far as I knew, the two short hoses under the intake plenum were original. One hose also had a small leak at one of the hose clamps. This was discovered prior to taking the car apart with the cooling system under pressure. Now is a good time to address them. At this point, the water pump has already been removed. Now all you need to do is pull the thermostat housing. The hoses I wanted to replace are the only things holding it in place.

Loosen the hose camps on the hoses circled in red and pull the thermostat housing free. The bottom hose has already been removed in this picture.

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And removed. The housing is upside down in this picture.

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Go ahead and clean the gasket that was between the water pump and the housing and the rubber o-ring that was between the housing and the motor. Both will need to be replaced prior to reinstalling.

When replacing the hoses under the plenum, I would highly suggest rotating the hose clamps where you can tighten them once the car is back together. While I was at it, I also replaced the hose running from the expansion tank to under the plenum. All 5 of these hose clamps can be positioned so that they can be reached from the rear of the motor through the intake runners using either a wobble extension or a universal swivel socket. I imagine all of these clamps will need to be snugged down after several heat cycles. Spend the extra time now to position them correctly instead of kicking yourself in a couple of weeks trying to figure out how to access them.

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I am hoping that I will have some quality bonding time tomorrow and can get this project close to completion.

 

I've made a little progress since the last post. Actually, if I weren't digging into the AC, it would already be back together.

So...to catch things up.

I had some weeping from the water pump when the system was pressurized, so I sent the pump off to the Flying Dutchman for a rebuild. It's all pretty now!

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I then reinstalled the thermostat housing (along with a new o-ring) to the motor and attached the water pump with a new gasket.

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Putting things back together is always much easier.

 

The bearings on both the water pump and compressor tensioners didn't sound good, so I went ahead and replaced them. First you will need to remove the pully from the bracket. My small impact wrench made this job easy.

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The bearings in this pulley are actually two bearings stacked on each other with a C clip between them. You can't just press them out. I heated the pulled with my small torch.

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After some brief heating, I was able to use a pick and pop one of the bearings out. Once that one side was out, I shook the pulley and the other side fell out. I would suggest sneaking an oven mitt out of the kitchen when no one is looking so you don't burn yourself.

I then used a press to press the new bearings into place. I was just being lazy and could have probably just headed the pulley back up and dropped it in place. If I had thought ahead and put the new bearings in the freezer overnight, I am sure they would have just dropped in place.

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There is a washer between the two bearings, so make sure you have that in place before you install the second bearing.

 

Next you need to install the belts and tension them. I struggled with this one. For the water pump, I just pushed the tensioner applying as much tension as I could to the belt and had my wife tighten the bolt. This seems to have gotten it pretty tight.

The alternator was another issue. You have several issues here. The first is that you have to pry the alternator against the bracket to try to get the belt tight. This takes one hand. The second is that you have to hold the bolt on the back side of the bracket while you tighten the nut to hold the alternator in place. This takes two hands. Last I checked, Hunley wasn't able to lend a third hand, so I was of luck. Actually, even with the wife's help, I wasn't able to get the belt very tight.

This little contraption allows one person to tension the belts appropriately without struggling. I can't take credit for it since I found it on this forum.

I cut two small blocks of wood and drilled holes in them. I then but a piece of all-thread and added two nuts and two washers.

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You then put the all-thread in the holes like so
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and place it between the crank and the alternator.

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You then tighten one of the nuts and it spreads the blocks apart. Magically, the belt tightens. Once you get it to the appropriate tension, you have two free hands to tighten the nut to secure the alternator. It is well worth the 10 minutes it takes to make the blocks.

I have also ordered the Stage 8 bolt that will allow me to make this a one handed task. Why make life harder than it should be.

At this point, the AC needs to be reinstalled. The AC didn't work, so I am taking the time to sort it while the compressor is sitting on the bench. If I don't do it now, who knows when it will get done. It does get hot in Coastal SC, so it is worth my time.

More to come.......I ordered AC parts last night.

 

I've gotten all my AC parts and was going to dig in this weekend, but I got distracted on some house projects. Oh well, at least the house projects were productive.

Two positive notes to report. First is I ran a compression and leak down test while I had everything apart. I am one of the many who has had an issue with the car spitting coolant out the expansion tank. My fear is a head gasket issue, but so far, nothing is jumping out at me. On a cold engine, all cylinders were 175-180 psi on a compression test and the worst cylinder on a leak down test was 6%. I'm still not 100% saying that there isn't a head gasket issue, but at least the results didn't raise a red flag.

The second positive is that after running the leak down test, I put the plugs back in the car to see if it would fire up. My heart sank a little when I first hit the key. The motor just spun and spun, but no fire. I then looked over to the passenger seat and saw the fuse panel cover sitting on the floor. I had forgotten that I pulled the fuel pump fuse for the compression test. Duh! I put the fuse back in and it fired right up! It's alive again!!!! I only let it run for a minute since there is no coolant in the system, but it did feel good to know that the timing belt replacement must have been done correctly.

 

I've been making some slow steady progress on the AC this week. I reinstalled the compressor and replaced the dryer and expansion valve. I also installed new o-rings with these two parts and new o-rings at the connections to the compressor. I pressurized the system with nitrogen last night and it still had the ~100psi this morning. At this point, I think the AC is ready to be evacuated and refilled.

My plan now is to finish up the couple of loose ends related to the timing belts, refill with coolant and get this thing back on the road. I need to get some refrigerant and refill, but my main goal is to drive the car! I wanted to make sure the AC system wasn't leaking before re-installing the coolant pipe and refilling with coolant. I can refill the AC system anytime now that I have confirmed that it is holding pressure.

Unfortunately, it looks like an unplanned out of town trip this weekend will post pone getting the car off jackstands.