We're going to try and get as many years out of this car as we can. I had a Blackstone oil analysis done at 97k and 103k at a 3k change interval. Both reports were good. That doesn't mean the engine won't STB out of nowhere but it's better than no metric to me. The transmission also only has about 70k on it now.

The near term things I had planned are driveshaft support bearing replacement, suspension replacement and Krown Rust Protection. The driveshaft support bearing started talking a week or so ago and I quieted it down with some white lithium for now. I hope to tackle that in the next couple months. Luckily, my wife's commute is short. I thought about knocking the suspension out over the winter but it didn't make sense to me to put brand new parts through an additional salt/snow season for no reason. That will likely happen in the spring/summer. The Krown treatment I had done today. The lack of rust on my Krown coated Cobalt is what sold me on it. That car should not be in the shape it's in and the Krown treatment is the only thing I can attribute it to. The Jag isn't So-Cal pristine underneath but great for having survived 18 years in the northeast. This certainly won't hurt and it's relatively inexpensive to try ($130).

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

That is an interesting lift situation they have there.

_________________

Resident Tightwad

Screw you, Photobucket.

I agree, first I've seen like it.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

I have also never seen a lift like that.
Myself I have been using Fluid Film for a while now.
It was developed in the 1940s to protect against rust in the ballast tanks of the thousands of the Navy's vessels.
Of course were I live (Southeast Wisconsin) the best rust preventive is not to drive in Winter.
My 1975 Monte Carlo (originally from Arizona) is spotless underneath the car.
I now had the car for 30 years and it has never seen winter.
They are using magnesium chloride besides calcium chloride on the roads around here.
Read what magnesium chloride does to metal.
I understand why they have to use these materials because the drivers get worse and worse every year.
I now know why they are working driverless cars.

^^ I did not know about that on the Navy origin, that's pretty cool. I wonder if that would fly now with OPA restrictions.

Lately the fans on this car have been on full tilt after the car gets up to temp for a while but it's not overheating. It sounds like a jet pulling up to the house. The only thing according to the google machine it could really be is the fan control module. Luckily for the earlier x-types your only new options are a $500 OEM part or cut and splice in aftermarket unit that doesn't fit in the stock location. I decided to try a used one. After I replaced it I made sure the fans come on low when the a/c is turned on at least and my wife is going to keep an eye on the temp. Hopefully it works out.

Old left, New old right




The Krown treatment makes under the hood filthy but it defeats the purpose to clean it.. So I'll have to live with my wife's 20 year old +100k daily having a dirty engine bay.

I also swapped the carquest coil I put in back in December for a used OEM one. Worst case I have a 'tested' aftermarket coil in a pinch.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

Anddd the A/C compressor that's been very slowly leaking oil for the past 4 years finally gave up the ghost. The clutch was engaging but the pressure(s) barely changed. I'm happy to have gotten a few more years out of it.

My attempt to go cheap on an AC compressor in the 528 a few years ago didn't go so well. This time I wasn't going to risk it in the primary kid hauler. So I paid up for an OE replacement from FCP (lifetime warranty). The orifice tube was skipped.. mainly because it's a pita on this car. The other day I had the system evac'd via a buddy at a dealership. I swapped out the compressor this morning and went back to the same dealership to vac test and recharge at lunch. While the compressor was out I took a long hard look at the alternator, which requires the compressor to be out to replace.. Future me is not going to enjoy that job.

I also replaced the cabin filter.. which may be the original at 106k/20 years old.. 40k of that is my fault. In my defense, the cars I've put the most miles on didn't have a cabin air filter.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

Hopefully time machines aren't invented in the next 6 months or so, because if that alternator checks out in 7 months you know future you is going to come back and kick current you's a$$.

_________________

Resident Tightwad

Screw you, Photobucket.

Hahaha. I'll keep my guard up!

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

Well, I this A/C fix turned into an unwanted saga mainly because I didn't do things right the first time.

The car started to lose A/C on the highway or after the car has been running for a while. With gauges on while hot, it looked like it was hitting the high pressure switch. My buddy that charged it said after they used the machine on this car they had a couple cars that had funky issues. When they used a different machine the issues went away. I went back to get the system evac'd and recharged with a different machine but that actually made the a/c run worse. It was only cold on the driver's side. (This car does not have dual climate control) So we decided it was time to do what I should have done, and knew to do, replace the orifice tube and drier/accumulator. Another evac, and off to replace those parts when they came in.

The drier/accumulator is in the passenger side wheel well and somewhat of a PITA to do. The orifice tube is buried under wiring but I found that if I remove the engine harness bulkhead connector it was actually pretty easy. That happened to be a 5 point tamer proof torx.. But! I own those bits from messing with the Bosch BMW MAFs. The orifice tube ended up being the smokiest gun I've ever seen. It caught a good bit of that old compressor.







With the new parts, I went back to my buddies for a vac and charge. Then it only blew cold on the passenger side.. But the line after the orifice tube was ice cold. From here, we decided it was either a clogged condenser or the mixing valve motors. The evaporator lines are huge in comparison to the condenser so they're unlikely to clog. Luckily all the mixing motors were accessible with the glove box out. They all tested fine via the HVAC controls. There was a TSB on one of the motor to valve connections where you use adhesive. I couldn't get that one apart so looks like the TSB repair was already done. So then it was onto the condenser.. I also ordered another orifice tube considering the state of the first one.

The bumper has to come off for the condenser. I was not looking forward to this but it was actually pretty easy. It was only 3 torx bolts for the lower air dam, 3 per wheel well, and 8 10mms. I did the condenser first then the orifice tube. When I pulled the orifice tube out, it came apart in a few pieces and I started questioning if I put in in backwards.. And I did.. Mistake #2 and smoking gun #2. I doubt I needed the condenser after I realized that but I wasn't going to rip it back out.





Finally, after a 4th vac/charge and some lessons re-learned, it was fixed.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

I hate learning things the hard way. LOL.

_________________

Resident Tightwad

Screw you, Photobucket.

This car had a knock sensor code intermittently but more consistently popping up. The sensor is buried under a water neck in the valley below the lower intake manifold.. I've read about others having trouble getting to one of the water neck bolts but figured I knew something they didn't. That wasn't really the case.. A normal socket won't fit, a crows foot won't fit, a torched and bent open ended wrench will strip the head and a torched and bent closed end wrench didn't have the torque to break it loose without twisting the wrench. I saw someone unbolt the one side and rotate the neck out of the way of the sensor with a pry bar. I couldn't do just that since you're dragging a 20 year old o-ring back and forth over who knows what. I decided to unbolt the one end then walk the neck back and forth while holding the obstructed bolt head with a torched wrench every time I rotated the neck clockwise. That eventually got the job done. That allowed clear access to the knock sensor and the chance to change all the associated coolant o-rings.

Since I had the lower intake off a couple years ago, all the seals LIM up were still good and not compressed. I added the injector o-rings to the replace list since those weren't changed before and decided with the engine torn down that far, I should replace the seeping valve cover gaskets. I ended up doing the plugs again even though they only had 20k on them. They all looked good.

Everything went back together fairly easy. Outside of that one bolt mentioned above, cleaning everything probably ate up the most time. The coolant system is a self-bleed type, which makes that easy.

I did pull the parts cannon trigger on an entire suspension for this car. That install will hopefully happen this fall.








I didn't take a good before pic before this job but for comparison here's a pic from a few posts ago, back in April:

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

Wow! That looks so much better! What did you use to clean stuff like the intake manifold?

_________________
-Car Guy Carl
"Penelope" - 2003 SLE - 247k Miles
"Sydney" - 2000 Honda S2000 - 98k miles

Thanks!

On the intake manifold I started with brake clean but ran out since it was near the end of the job then switched to acetone. For the plastics and jambs I just used some wheel and tire cleaner I had laying around. The bay has been extra gross due to the Krown treatment oil and it'll likely get that again. I just couldn't leave it like that after so much work.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

This car got some more love this week.

At 109k, we would like to get another 30-40k out of it but the suspension was getting pretty tired. Everything was still tight when you test at the wheels for play. It was just starting to get some rattles and that hollow blown strut sound. For the mileage we're looking to get, it made sense to refresh nearly everything. Well, it made sense to me at least.

The only suspension components that weren't replaced were the springs, rear trailing arms/bushings, sway bars and some of the rubber spring protectors. The struts/shocks were replaced with OE standard Bilsteins. The remainder of the replaced parts were mostly Moog with some Monroe, Delphi, Dorman and OEM. These were strut top hats, strut bellows, all sway bar bushings, all end links, front and rear LCAs, tie rode ends, all 4 rear links, rear lower spring protectors, driveshaft center support bearing, front rotors/pads and the brake fluid was flushed. The springs and rear sway bar were sanded to remove rust and coated with VHT black epoxy paint.

I didn't get front bump stops hoping I could reuse them but they were toasted. I was unaware that the bump stops hold the bellow to the top hat also.. I was actually able to press the rear bump stop into the top of the front strut bellow then press the bump stop onto the strut shaft. It's an interference fit on the shaft, so it stays in place up top and the bellow presses up from the strut. I'll need to get another set of rear bump stops to actually use in the rear. I also didn't get the rubbers for the front spring but used epoxy lined shrink tubing instead. R&Ring the rear trailing arms to do the bushings was possible but I wasn't up for the additional work. I've owned 2 cars with stock trailing arm bushings that had over 220k and I'm just shooting for 150k. The good news is the rear bushings appeared to be in good shape.

I did have to torch a few bolts with the worst being the eccentric LCA bolts. The bolts fused to the center collar of the bushings and the bushings easily tore when rotating the bolts. I torched the bushing out to heat up the collar and to get more room for vice grips to hold the collar.

The driveshaft center support bearing starts to complain as it gets colder. It's not sold separate from the driveshaft from the factory but you can get an aftermarket part. You have to take the one stub off the one driveshaft end then pull the bearing off in that direction. I ended up cutting the assembly down to the inner race with the intent of grinding a slit and cracking the inner race but ultimately ended tapping it off.

The front brakes were about due. I found that out when I started the suspension refresh and was able to get them from Rock Auto in 2 days. I replaced the old Powerstop Z23 kit with the same kit. I've been eyeballing the fluid for a while and was happy to get that flushed at the same time.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

How does it drive now?

_________________

Resident Tightwad

Screw you, Photobucket.

Like new. It's real nice. My wife really can't tell but I can. It's even better with the front brakes done at the same time.

The alignment rack I used to use at the shop where I did all the work isn't in operation any more so I took it to a buddy's dealership for an alignment today. While on the rack, he saw that one of the rear MOOG end links came apart already.. I pulled the rear sway for now and it still rides nicer than before the refresh. R&R of the rear sway is like 10 mins. TRW links are in the mail now.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

That Moog end link that let go could have been a defect or an issue from the sway bar missing the factory collars that center the sway bar. I broke one thinking they were removable then removed the other. I didn't think much of it since none of my other cars had collars on the sway before. I ordered Delphi end links just in case there was an issue with the Moogs and I also spec'd 2 pc collars from McMaster to install back in the stock locations. While I was in there I got the rear bump stops installed. 

The front strut top mounts seem to have some intermittent bearing noise at hard stops and take off. I know I torqued the top nut prior to installation but when I checked today they were barely snugged. We'll see if that fixes the noise or if the bearings are damaged. 

Other than that, the car rides really nice, like it's brand new. 

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

I noticed the torque limiting drive train mount under the car was pretty beat during the suspension/drive shaft overhaul. The large end was ripped and the small end was collapsed. This past weekend I got it swapped out with another OEM part.

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

The car started getting some noise from the water pump/starter area on initial start up. It sounded like a bearing or maybe even a belt squeal. The water pump being 20 years and 111k old is always in the back of my mind.. So I shotgunned a water pump, tensioner/pulley and belt. The tensioner pulley bearing was toast but that did not fix the sound. At least the cooling system monkey is off my back though. Many of the hoses are replaced, thermostat, rad and now water pump.







The relatively new Bosch starter has been having a lazy solenoid very intermittently when warm and more recently this potential noise on startup. Since I bought this from FCP Euro, I bought a replacement and plan on warrantying it out. Sure enough the new starter fixed the noise.





Here's the noise
Noise gone

_________________

95 SLE... a keeper. 241k miles. Low and Slow.
97 BMW 528i
98 Infiniti vq35'd i30: 13.3@104mph, 30MPG Hwy (RIP)
02 Jag X-type
03 BMW M5
05 Chevy Cobalt LS
07 Infiniti G35s 6MT (Sold)
07 Ducati Monster S2R 800 with DS1000 swap
83 Yamaha IT175K
72 Yamaha DS7: '74 RD250 swap, JL chambers

Info on dropping a 92-99: Here.

I am not worthy of your awesomeness.

_________________

Resident Tightwad

Screw you, Photobucket.