Picking up my Dirtbag 2000 SLE this weekend

[DCJREDLINE]

Looks great man!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats

[redfury]

Started the lower intake manifold ( LIM ) gasket replacement last night. As expected, the plastic elbows broke. I had actually though I had gotten them out clean until I realized that I was missing O rings. Fortunately my replacement aluminum elbows showed up in the mail today...couldn't be happier with that!

And there they are! A little screw driver manipulation and a pick got them out.

After looking at the design, it's not really much of a surprise to me that they break off when removing the tensioner bracket.

So, in order to not screw up any injector wiring, I used mini ties and used the same sequence in front and back for the wiring and made a "key" on the fuel rail.

Filthy, but not unexpected from an intake that uses EGR. Got some scrubbing to do! The only thing that had me concerned was the small pool of oil in the intake at the top left. I'm assuming that I had oil sucking into the intake past the gaskets.

Varnished but not sludged up, this makes me happy.

Hopefully I can clean out the intakes and keep them from getting nasty like this again. If I had the resources, I'd probably just pull the heads and have everything power cleaned. I'm not.

[redfury]

Still working on it and taking pics as I go along. Stay tuned!

[redfury]

So, these showed up in the mail today...perfect. I will be installing them tomorrow. I'm thinking that perhaps I will try to shoot video of installing the tensioner with the elbows...not sure if I can get the angle to do it, but we'll see.

Everything is out and ready for cleaning.

With everything out, I did run across this behind the coolant bottle. This has got to be the dumbest places to find rust. This gets attention right away.

How is it that they can have all these years of looking into reducing/eliminating corrosion and they still find ways to screw it up? Both sides? That's a design defect.

Part of this was to replace the leaky valve cover gasket in front. Don't need a fire, and it was smoking pretty good when I first ran the motor. Both sides got done and cleaned up. I was almost tempted to see how much new valve covers would cost, but that's something for a replacement engine if the need arises.

Sand and oil make for a nasty mess, but other than a light oil staining, they cleaned up really well. The rear cover was the cleaner of the two.

Halfway through cleaning the intake. I sprayed the intake runners down with brake clean and scrubbed with purple power cleaner with a toothbrush until I got it as clean as I was able to.

Short of hot tanking it, I'm happy with the end result. I took the dremel to it and cleaned up the flashing from casting and other bits to dress it up slightly.

I made sure the EGR passage was clean to avoid future issues.

[redfury]

ready for gaskets and reinstallation of the intake.

Felpro metal gaskets. I have to say that I really like the fit of this set, especially the valley gaskets ( blue and black ) I literally only needed a dab of RTV in each corner to ensure a good seal. To be honest, I don't even know if it was necessary. Make sure you put the valley gasket on first, then the intake gaskets.

Manifold is set and the first round of tightening begins. 15ft. lbs is the goal. I started with 25 in. lbs and worked my way up to 150 in. lbs and switched to my ft. lbs torque wrench ( bar style ) I had to run to the store for supplies, so I let it sit for a good hour before I gave it the last nudge to 15 ft. lbs, which is 180 in. lbs, but my in.lbs wrench only went to 150. I'm content with the fitment. Now, the plenum, that's another story. I've set it and pulled it 3 times already due to various reasons. I may have to pull it again because of all the things I forgot to reinstall was the EGR pipe. I might be able to install it without removing the plenum, but I may have to. It's not the end of the world...It dawned on me that the PO had broken a plenum bolt because I was short one bolt. I gave the stub a few good whacks with a drift and clamped on with a good vice grips and it loosened right up and out, but I'm short a bolt still....if I don't have one lying around, I'll have to make a trip to the bone yard...oh darn, I hate going there...

[Luxrain]

those spots of rust are from the inner fender wells. underneath the plastic rots out due to the plastic rubbing at it. ive seen many a bonneville at the JY with those issues

[nos4blood70]

Looking good!

Most 2000+ have that rust. Some worse, some not. Mine has a little bit starting too. You can see more of it if you remove the plastic fenderwells up front. I slathered mine up in POR15 to stop the rust, at least for a little bit.

[redfury]

Yeah, once I get the motor stuff going and the car is running, I'll be taking all 4 tires off and working each corner methodically. Need to inspect all the brake lines and brakes in general as well as axles, bushings, wheel bearings and ball joints.

Got my push on connectors, but when I went to patch the line, I realized that the cut was too close to the fitting to use it as is. So, off to the JY to snag a length of line to replace the end with. It's a tight fit in there though...took a bit to snip the line back and clean enough for the fitting to work properly. That end is done, all I have to do is get the line cut to length and snap it all back together and see if it leaks or not. I was hoping to fire it up, move it to a better spot in the driveway and do the oil change on it. Guess that will have to wait for a day or so. Hopefully that SSEi is still in the yard...there's an A pillar panel I want to snag out of it...

[redfury]

IT'S A RUNNER! Got the fuel union on, had a bit of a leak, took it off and squared off the end on the car since it was crooked and resolved the return line leak. The car stumbled a bit at idle on occasion, so I let it run up to operating temp and watched the fuel trims. They looked really good, but I had a spike under load while driving and had a few hard hiccups like a bad misfire..was thinking a weak coil until the check engine light came on....MAF circuit A too low. Methinks I got a bum MAF that needs a replacement. I took the MAF out and cleaned the snot out of it with CRC MAF cleaner, but it really didn't look like it changed much, and I can see a dark spot on one of the resistors...I'm replacing it.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to see if I can still snag some sweet drilled and slotted rotors ( front and back ) off a 2001 Monte Carlo at U Pull( I am going to double check that they will fit, but I can't see a reason they wouldn't. ) There was a Grand Prix that had them, but the rears were normal and the front right was worn to nothing...the Monte look like they have less than 10,000 on them.

[redfury]

SCORE! Drilled and slotted rotors with pads for 40 bucks! These are still new enough that the sticky coating is still on the hubs of the rotors. I did not clean these up at all, this is how they came off the car. I was looking at the rear rotors on mine and noticed a lot of pitting and checking and happened to find these yesterday when I was in getting a new section of fuel line, a missing plenum bolt and a replacement A pillar molding. I had to stop back this morning on the way to work and grab them. I did some research and found conflicting information...it showed that even the SE Bonneville has different rotors and bolt pattern ( same as the grand am ) and the SLE and SSEi have more robust rims and brakes. These came off of a Monte Carlo, so the concern was that they might be too small. Well, the SSEi is still in the yard, so I used it as a test to see if the rotors would work and they appear to be perfect. Talk about a nice little upgrade and saving some greenbacks!



I also snagged a MAF out of the SSEi to verify my thoughts that the MAF was bad in my car...it was, the JY MAF didn't cause any hiccups while driving, though I'm getting instances of subtracting up to 13% fuel, so I'm thinking of buying a new MAF for $83 shipped from Amazon ( OEM hitachi ) just because 16 year old electronics that heat up and cool down a lot can break down over time. I'll probably replace a few sensors along the way. But for now, it runs fairly well and doesn't blow smoke or smell of anything when I drive it hard. I need to get a new gasket for my fuel pressure tester so I can see if I'm getting any leak down...maybe I have a leaky injector. It started up and had a little stumble initially. I want to get this all nailed down before I put it on the road.

A/C is working great though, a recharge got the dash temps down to 40F yesterday in the 85F heat, and I got instant cold air when I started it up today with the high heat and additional humidity.

The Dorman quick disconnect is holding nicely. No fuel leaks from out back either. I do think I'll be changing that front motor mount with the boat trailer roller in the near future as well. My $400 car is turning out to be a good find so far.

My only complaint at this point is that I'm not used to having a vehicle so low to the ground. Up to this point, all we've had were SUV's and the Van. Last car we owned was a 96 Grand Am 9 years ago. I need a taller set of car ramps..lol.

[redfury]

Well, she's officially road worthy. Insurance, tabs...full tank of gas and shakedown run complete. I was getting 30 mpg on the highway cruising, the computer is still adapting for around town. My average mpg is sitting at 9 mpg right now....I'll give it a couple of tanks of gas. Fuel system seems to be holding pressure very well. I started it up today in 91 degree heat and it fired off with a flick of the switch from the first start to the last when I parked it for the night. I'm SOO happy with it right now, though I think I need to either get the tires balanced or start thinking about new control arm bushings. She's got a mild vibration at 65 mph. Could be from sitting for so long in the dirt. The tires were about 10 lbs low when I aired them up before I took it out for a drive. Tire pressure low light is on...I'm assuming that the TPMS are either missing or the batteries in them are dead. Not sure how I feel about putting new ones in or not.

[maxi426]

There aren't any sensors in the wheels. The system uses the ABS wheel speed sensors to detect low pressure. After you set the pressures, use the info center to reset message.

[nos4blood70]

You can reset your average fuel economy if you hold the reset button on the DIC for about 5 seconds. Who knows when it was reset the last time! Might take forever for it to climb back up. As for the TPMS, as Maxi said above, the hub measures the pressure by calculating the circumference of the tire based on its rotation speed versus the other wheels. Gotta reset it every time it pops up.

[Luxrain]

looks like a good car! as everyone said just make sure to check the air pressures 1st then just reset it. my rims slowly leak and i just ignore that its low

[redfury]

Well, thank god for that. I didn't want to have to deal with expensive TPMS sensors. That makes a lot of sense though...thanks for explaining it. With a dead battery for over a year, I think everything got reset. Looked a little strange the other day in the parking lot driving in about 4 or 5 tight circles calibrating the compass. Everything is looking good on the DIM front.

Car runs great...Shot from 60-90mph without much effort. Next up is getting stereo installed, degreasing and cleaning the engine/bay and doing a transmission fluid/filter change.

Love the sound of the 3800...though I'm leaving it be as is for now..no intake or exhaust nonsense right now. The biggest focus right now is the rear tail lights and center reflector. I managed to remove the acrylic lense from the donor, but not without it taking some damage. I dunno. I'll keep my eye out for a better one, but in the mean time, I'll fart around with what I have and see if I can't get seomething serviceable out if the 2 garbage ones that I have. I'll have to just keep my eyes open on CL and my local JY's.

[redfury]

Well, I got hooked up with a full set of decent tail lights and center reflector from a guy named Bob in East Bethel who is slowly working towards being the Anoka county Bonneville connection..lol. He only has a couple of Bonnevilles, but you have to start somewhere, right? Sold me the full set for $60. They aren't perfect...a bit of delam, but nothing like what I had...no cracks in the acrylic.

In the mean time though, I'm still working on this center reflector..getting to know it better to see what I can and cannot accomplish with it. Back to factory look, no...heavily modified, yes. I'm going to do my best to document what I do and I will post the results, good or bad in a separate post so it's more easily found...so keep your eye out for it in the next week or so.

[MKMike]

Looks great!
Very nice sheen you've given her.
Did you do a full detailing with a polisher or did a simple wash and wax do the trick?

[redfury]

actually, all that is is a wash. I've yet to give her a wax due to all the rain we've been having and the mosquito's after work are out working for the local red cross when I get home, so I'm behind on that...

[MKMike]

actually, all that is is a wash. I've yet to give her a wax due to all the rain we've been having and the mosquito's after work are out working for the local red cross when I get home, so I'm behind on that...

Wow! That's pretty spiffy for just a washing.

As for the blasted mosquitos...
I'm in an area where the Asian Tiger Mosquito has set up camp.
Unlike normal skeeters, they're much harder to swat in flight AND they're out biting all day long.

One way to get revenge is to use one of these http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cordless-Rechar ... 0229.m3211

It's a moment of joy every time one of those nasty little flying phlebotomists gets sizzled!

[redfury]

So, I installed a crappy 20 dollar media player XD Vision stereo I bought last winter at Walmart in those Christmas ideas displays for my 200 mile round trip ride to my Family reunion today..had everything working and sounding decent...start up the car, put it into reverse...no stereo. Pulled the stereo out quick to see if there was something wrong, checked for a bad fuse. Nope, nothing. Got home and pulled the stereo completely out and checked for voltage, that was good. Put the stereo back in...it works just fine...WTF! So, I zip tied it in place, buttoned it up and called it good...for now. Definitely need a better stereo. However, for a cheapo radio, it's actually quite competent.

In other news, the car performed flawlessly on the drive out and back. MPG stayed high, everything hummed along nicely. Got to hit a spot of perfectly new pavement on the highway and did a high speed rattle test. Tires are fine and everything else was good, so any problems with shakes or rattles is going to be bushings or shocks or just the darn road. It tracked straight as an arrow too. Got onto a normal road and it wanted to pull slightly to the left. Meh, whatever.

One fairly major bump in the road was the large amount of water I found in the trunk and some seepage underneath the rear seat. So, I bought a firehose style end for my hose and I'm going to pull everything out of the trunk and see if I can find the source of the leaking. That was a bit of a bummer, but then again...there was a fair amount of water in the trunk when I bought it, which would seemingly be a lot to come from a slightly loose connection out of the rear fenders for the sunroof drains. I might take a little video for your amusement when I attempt to figure this out...might be good for a laugh or three.

I may just have to start my own Chapters of hunting down problems and their solutions....lol.

All in all though, I'm quite pleased with my $400 car.