Thread: What else to do?

The background of the car is that is a 2006 GP 3.8 NA that was my fathers until he bought a new vehicle. It has been sitting for over a year and he gave it me for my son who will be 16 in Feb. I just moved it from his house to mine and realize it will need a few things. I knew it needed some work and will use this as a teaching opportunity for my son.
When we opened the hood, mice had begun nesting under the engine cover near the front valve cover. It was damp there and I hope it was just urine. After jump starting it, oil smoke was billowing off the manifolds. I can only assume the valve covers did not deal well with sitting. The power steering pump had a slow leak while my dad was still driving it, but the pump now whines so that will need replacing.
The car has 217K miles but does run smoothly other than the above mentioned issues.

My intentions are to do the following-

• Replace PS pump (and hoses if necessary)
• Replace valve cover gaskets
• Replace water pump and coolant elbows as preventive maintenance
• Replace tensioner as preventive maintenance
• Replace EVAP canister (Dad had part on hand and engine light would trip with code for it)

Is there anything else I should consider replacing while I dig into some of these other tasks or other known issues I should be sure to inspect?

Thanks for reading!

I recommend the Fel-Pro valve cover gaskets/grommets. They should be blue in color. Never had an issue with those on any 3.8 that I've put them on and they fit well.

Sat for a year? I'd personally add brake fluid flush, coolant flush/fill, oil change, air filter, MAF and throttle body cleaning to the list. And ditch the stupid engine cover. No need for it and it just traps heat.

If the plugs/wires haven't been changed recently then I'd do those too. If it still has the stupid metal heat shields around the plug end of the boot then ditch those too. I've been running w/o those for over 300K miles and had no issues. Typically I get about 90K out of factory iridium plugs. Usually change the wires twice before the plugs. I just use whatever the cheapest set of wires the local parts store has and let it run. No need to spend the extra coin on fancy wires.

The last set of plugs I took out of my 00 GT had about 100K on them and were a bit gapped but still showed even burning. I picked up 80 mpg per full tank just swapping in fresh plugs and wires.

You could likely get most of the hard parts from RockAuto and save some money. There is always a discount code out there that basically covers the shipping cost.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

I wouldn't do water pump/elbows unless they are leaking, likely they are seeping.

When you do valve covers, ensure you replace the valve cover grommets. They put pressure on the valve cover gaskets, if you don't do them....you won't get a good seal.

You may want to add on a trans filter/pan drop service. It's good preventive on these transmissions.

There is a small coolant leak that is believed to be at the elbows (will confirm when I start digging). Would you still recommend leaving the water pump alone if it is not leaking? It has 217,000 miles on the original, are these known to last the life of the motor?