The TSTE rebuild topic (56k get cable)

[GutlessSupreme]

hey greg, quick q - was there any reason you had two wires shorted across the DIC module over the glovebox? I looked them up and they were supposed to be for the lowbeams.. well I unshorted them and check the headlights, they still worked fine, but then last night I tried them and the lows' didn't come on at all.

[no1kicker]

I ran the wire because the low beams wouldn't come on otherwise.

[GutlessSupreme]

alright, thanks. gonna have to look into that. the DIC also doesn't report lights that are out, there's a diagnostic section in the FSM that covered that though, I just have to look at it again.

 

So I came out today and instead of high idle I got nothing - just crank. I dunno what I did but I came back a little while later and it fired right up, but again at 2k+ idle. I started futzin around and low and behold, when my TPS was disconnected, idle DROPPED to 900-1000, right where it's supposed to be. I couldn't really figure out why this was but I spent an hour looking for a spare throttle I thought I had (must have thrown it out) before I finally got pissed off and stole the one from the Cutlass.

 

Screwed it in, plugged it in, turned the car on - FUCK! same 2k idle! It wasn't looking like the sensor itself. I did a short to ground test on all 3 TPS wires and all came back negative, so that wasn't it. I finally got fed up and decided to take the 5 minutes it takes to swap the ECM. PERFECT IDLE! well, good enough, it still needed to relearn. but I'm happy. Who knows, it'll probably show up tomorrow again and it'll turn out to be some kind of wiring short. But the TGP ECM's out, the original TSTE ECM's back in, same chip from Davis, and it seems to run good. Unfortunately didn't get a chance to leave the driveway, hopefully I can take it for a spin after work tomorrow and get some good datalogging in. I did some today but only at idle.

 

One thing - with the motor off, the O2 reading is right around 450mV. Isn't it supposed to be lower than this? Also, when I turn my A/F gauge on, it goes up to almost 510mV. Hmm. It was jumping over 100mV previously. With the motor idling, it made a continuous sin curve between 2xx-6xx, but I guess that sounds normal. that was in closed loop (heated O2 at 2k rpms heats up fast).

[GutlessSupreme]

woot! got a few pics today. NEW STUFF!!! (and new camera, if you count a free 8 year old 2.1 MP Nikon E800 as new )

 

my brand new McLaren keychain just got here from GB today. postal strikes FTL

 

 

my switch thingys! Primary fan (always hot), Secondary Fan, DIC, A/F Gauge (all hot with ignition). now you see them:

 

 

now you don't

 

 

my recently expanded tire collection

 

 

winter tires, fresh off the UPS truck

 

 

that is all

[19Cutlass94]

 

You plan on doing some burnout cmpetitions with all those tires!

 

 

[ns87]

I didnt read everything, but as for the high idle did you check the ECM's coolnt temperature sender? I'm 99% sure thats whats causing my exact high idle in the Supreme. I've replaced TPS,MAP sensor, vacuum lines, IAC..... Its next one my list and worth looking into

[GutlessSupreme]

 

You plan on doing some burnout cmpetitions with all those tires!

 

 

 

shit! not a bad idea

 

I didnt read everything, but as for the high idle did you check the ECM's coolnt temperature sender? I'm 99% sure thats whats causing my exact high idle in the Supreme. I've replaced TPS,MAP sensor, vacuum lines, IAC..... Its next one my list and worth looking into

 

my coolant temp sensor was new, so no worries. but I ended up swapping the ECM and all seems good now, I hope. but thanks for the tips

[Euro]

NIce!!!

[5speedz34]

Your driving this in the winter?!

 

PLEASE CHANGE THE DILDO OF POWER SHIFTER!

[GutlessSupreme]

Your driving this in the winter?!

 

PLEASE CHANGE THE DILDO OF POWER SHIFTER!

 

NO!

 

and I have to, I can't afford to have two cars at once going. Once the Cutlass is back on 4 wheels it's going up for sale, I need the money from it. The truck I've been driving needs to be sold as well, or will be driven by my stepdad if he can sell his Dakota. It's really my only choice.

[Bake82]

That sucks big time!!! It's too bad you couldn't keep them both, but understandable....just sucks with all the work you've done, you have to drive it in the winter....Are they that bad in RI?

[no1kicker]

I originally bought that car for a winter car.

[5speedz34]

Your driving this in the winter?!

 

PLEASE CHANGE THE DILDO OF POWER SHIFTER!

 

NO!

 

and I have to, I can't afford to have two cars at once going. Once the Cutlass is back on 4 wheels it's going up for sale, I need the money from it. The truck I've been driving needs to be sold as well, or will be driven by my stepdad if he can sell his Dakota. It's really my only choice.

 

WOW!

 

HOW?!

 

WHY?!

 

NOOOOOO!

[slick]

Not everyone has the luxury of having multiple cars to drive. Or being able to park one during winter months.

[5speedz34]

Not everyone has the luxury of having multiple cars to drive. Or being able to park one during winter months.

 

Great post Debbie Downer.

 

I know that, all I'm saying is for the amount of work he put in I'm sure he can pull something off.

[GutlessSupreme]

*sigh*

 

sucks but it is what it is.

 

RI winters are so weird lately that it'll probably be 60* through december, then we'll get two blizzards and it'll be 20* until april.

 

well, with any luck we'll have a warm day here and there so I can break out the power washer and give everything a good spray-down, anyway.

[GutlessSupreme]

Well I almost got to the point of having no choice but to park it and pull the Cutlass out of hibrenation.

 

I had gotten a letter from RIDMV's department of emssions ans inspections a few weeks back. Apparently when you register a car, they now actually check the computer to make sure the car's inspected never used to do that. anyway. The letter from the DMV said I had until 11/19 to have the car inspected, else face registration suspension, and possible license suspension and $500 fine (this would be on my mom, since the car is registered to her).

 

Well, I have quite the list of annoying/sometimes expensive things that need to be taken care of before it will pass. I had initially decided I was going to just cram and much repair time/squander as much cash as I could to get it ready in time. Then last Friday, the damn thing starts leaving piss puddles of oil wherever I park/slow to a stop. I was pissed. PISSED.

 

I knew I was leaking a little transmission/ps fluid, but not much. I saw the puddle when I went to leave work one day and decided, shit, this time it's oil. Took me a min cause I'm used to looking at synthetic lol. this shit was BLACK though. It's about time for the third oil change of the break-in anyway (I've put almost 250-300 miles on it already. I think. who knows how correct the odometer and my percent error calculations are ).

 

When I got home and jacked up the car to try and find a source. I have no idea. I know it's dripping out of the tranny bellhousing, only near the starter though. I have to recheck the turbo lines too. There's too much shit on the front of the block, until I pull the ICM/starter I'm just not going to have a good view of the situation there.

 

Unfortunetly it looks like I'm going to have to pull the tranny to get one of the leaks. I know it's not from the distributor o-ring. That leaves the oil pan gasket, the rear main, and that damned retarded cap at the end of the cam gallery. I'm placing money on that one being my problem. My felpro gasket kit came with a cork gasket for that one.. I hate cork. So I RTV'd the shit out of it I don't think it's holding up to the pressure there, since that is pretty much a 1/2" from the oil pump channel into the block. hopefully I can just squeek the tranny out a few inches and cut a gasket to fit there. then use a better sealant lol. I'd rather deal with that one vs. the main or oil pan. I'll be pissed it it's the main, since the shop installed that one. The oil pan gasket is oily on the dip below the crank output, but that could just be spray. I don't have a guard plate for the 282 so it could easily be spraying wherever it wants.

 

I also found red fluid on my driver's side PS rack boot, which I hadn't known about before. I forget what color syncromesh is, but I'm hoping it's just spray from the tranny. (the rack itself is pretty much the only thing I didn't replace. The tierods are new, the boots are new, all PS lines are new). I knew the pump was leaking (it seams that the cover keeps getting soaked? ), but I hope I don't have to tear the tie rods off to attempt to replace the rack seals too. I didn't want to get a rebuilt rack because I didn't want to lose my steering ratio.

 

Also found, which freaked me out, milky color fluid dripping through the subframe at the lower motor mount. I think I've decided that this is not a coolant/oil mix. I think my brand new NAPA motor mount asploded so kinda pissed about that, but better than alternative. besides, the dipstick looks clean, and it actually looked overfilled but I don't think it is. Could just be the result of a driver trying to get used to driving a stick while the car was running shitty anyway lol.

 

So anyway, the fact that it's getting cold/miserable out and that my car was suddenly dumping fluids during my most hectic week of the semester so far made me want to give up and just deal with it in the spring. Then the windshield guys came yesterday and replaced my 3-foot-crack-right-across-my-line-of-sight windshiled and it made me feel better and I wanted to get it fixed sooner again lol.

 

There's still no way I can get it ready and inspected this week, so I called the DMV to ask if an extension was possible. The girl tells me "there's no fine, no license action, you don't have to send the plates in, they just get suspended and don't drive the car. When the car's ready, give us a call and go get it inspected." So pretty much the exact opposite of what the generic letter said I think I'm gonna call back tomorrow to try and get someone else to make sure I get the same answer. But knowing our system of government branches in this state, it kind of makes sense

 

List of items needed for inspection

 

-Windshield DONE!

-Exhaust - big time

-high beam swtich only works half the time and sometimes neither my lo or hi lights come on unless I fiddle with it again. So I'm just not touching it for now. I first noticed the switch problem the night the motor started making weird noises, a week before I figured out lobe 9 was gone I also need to aim the headlights

-short in my drv side plate light. not the bulb, other side works fine.

-PISSING FLUIDS

-driver side wheel bearing - brand new, tire has 3/4" or so of play when off the ground bought the fronts as a pair from ebay, so I wasn't expecting much, but I only drove it a week. I never got an alignment but I know it wasn't that far off. I'm glad it's that though, I thought my rack and pinion gears were causing that knocking noise when parked/turning wheel.

-parking brake - pedal needs to be relubed, cables are kinda installed, not quite attached

-lower motor mount

-install wash fluid tank

-more coolant

-pull ABS bulb (I don't think they can fail me for ABS light, just brake light, but reguardless)

 

Couple of questions, and I know this varies state to state

-Is there any reason I would fail for not having coolant overflow tank installed?

-Will I fail if I have any external exhaust repairs? e.g. wrap or some similar hack repair. reason being, my current exhaust was hacked out of a '95 SE. I had to cut the cat off and it left very little material left on end, but I have a size adaptor clamped over the end which seems to be holding it to the pipe well (it's strapped up well too, not going anywhere). My other problem is that it's a dual exhaust but has only one muffler on it. I was going to just slice the Y in half so it only runs to one muffler, then maybe put one of those flexable repair pipes clamped over it, but I don't know how that will work/pass. It'll be done right soon, I swear I just need it to last a couple of weeks.

 

sorry for the book

 

oh, on another note I swapped out my 24lb Ford injectors for the stock ones and it runs a lot better lol.

On cold weather startup though, it BUCKS like CRAZY for at least a minute. I haven't had much time to diagnose, but it didn't seem to make a difference how long I let the engine warm up before driving. If it does, could be a manifold leak I'm missing (seals when warm?), other than that I can other thing of some kind of tuning/sensor issue, or maybe the Spec stage 3 doesn't like to be used when it's cold maybe it was just getting covered in oil, I don't know. This problem only exists when the car is in gear.

 

Another thing; ocassionally, when not in gear the when coming to a stop the revs shoot up to ~3 grand. other times it'll stall (was doing this a lot when going from reverse to drive once it stopped getting inertia from the wheels). Pretty sure that's a tuning bug, but the really high revving thing is quite annoying.

[Euro]

Damn that sucks ass. Isn't there some kind of way you can get an extension? Just say you just got it rebuilt, and registered it to start breaking it in, then you found new things you need to have done.

[pwmin]

just register it at my parents' house: no emissions or inspections

[GutlessSupreme]

brief update:

 

so I finally fit it into our garage (I haven't been driving it at all) and got over my laziness and started working on it. So the Getrag is leaking from at least 3 different places, the PS pump is leaking (from the cover? ), the rack is leaking (MF!), and oil is leaking, I think from the cover at the end of the cam gallery.

 

So right now I'm in the process of pulling the tranny to get at least half of them sorted out. Axle seals are getting replaced. I pulled the intermediate shaft cover, and where there's supposed to be an o-ring, SURPRISE! there's nothing. So that's probably a good reason why it was leaking like a sieve. Hopefully this weekend I can finish pulling the tranny and get the oil leak sorted out. I can't even tell if if it's leaking anywhere else because the PS pump leaked all over EVERYTHING. One thing I can't figure out, and it looked like this long before I took it apart too, is everything on the bottom of the block is covered in what looks like specs of copper. I have no idea what this is or where it's coming from.

 

But yea. school starts wednesday so hopefully it's resonably sorted out by then and I can get an exhaust put on within the next few weeks and start driving it again.

[Euro]

Damn still a few bugs to work out.....

 

Glad to hear you're crackin on it again!

[ns87]

Bump. I'm borrowing these pictures on another forum to show where the motor mount bracket is for the 3.1

 

Thank you

 

 

http://www.a-body.net/forums/showthread.php?p=5266#post5266

[GutlessSupreme]

okie dokie, thanks for letting me know

 

just a quick note to add to that thread - if he can't get that bracket off, it is possible to remove the mount without removing the whole bracket. You need a 15mm (13mm? can't remember) boxed offset wrench to get the top nuts. I was able to use the offset wrench to reach down into the top of the bracket from the oil pan side.

 

it's kinda slow going, but probably less work than removing the whole bracket, especially with the a/c compressor and front dogbone/compressor bracket installed and getting in the way.

 

Also, you may have to slowly jack the motor as you go. as the nuts thread up the studs on the top of the mount, they eventually will block the wrench against the oilpan and you won't be able to get it off. just work both nuts a little at a time so that they come up evenly. This it what I did on my Cutlass.

 

and of course, getting the new mount studs back into the subframe is a bitch. That was the single hardest part of getting my TSTE's motor back in; matching the lower motor and tranny mount studs back up to the subframe. After fucking with hoists and jacks and crowbars for 2 hours, I gave it a few kicks and eventually it fell into place

[ns87]

I hear that. It was like this for two days for me:

 

[R Dubya]

when installing my engine, I simply set it in there, got it close enough to start the bolts on the trans, tightened them all in sequence WITHOUT overtightening so I didn't break the housing. Once it was close to being totally set, I just grabbed the timing cover and slipped it backwards (obviously still under light tension from the hoist) and the lower motor mount on the passenger side dropped right in. It did take me a while too, and it was probably the most difficult part of the job, aside from the waiting.