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Luke's GTP

Just dropped her off at the welder... With ten minutes left in the drive, I felt a POP! from under the floorboard. Kept driving. Noticeable clunking and rattling now when going over stuff. Ok.... I pull over. Thinking it's the sway bar end, maybe broken subframe bolt. Don't see anything obvious so I get back in and finish the drive. Clunking the whole way. Still don't know what it was but thinking the subframe bolt broke. Maybe from over tightening it. Asked the guy to check it out when he has it on jack stands.

*my own quote above from back in October*

I had a chance to check out the bolts when I was over there on Tuesday. That POP and then clunking was a caliper bolt that backed out on me. Just like @wowitsfast said. God damn. Never had that happen to me. Heard stories about it happening, happened to guys on here I know. In 17 years of changing brakes, first time I've experienced it. Amateurs mistake like no other.

Picking it up tomorrow (Saturday). Just confirmed that over the phone. WOOT WOOT. Fukkin awesome. Now just 100 more things to do and..... DONE. Back on the road.

First item on the list is a brake line. The front passenger side brake line sprung a leak at one of the unions. That union is right over by the brake module and inside that armpit by the driver strut tower... So yeah. SHYTTY to the max. Getting my hands and wrench in there is not gonna happen. Will need to unscrew that entire line, and who knows what else to get to it. pshhhh. I will need to make a complete list of what's left to do.

Just got these photos from the welder. Rockers mounted on, with some spot welding, panel bond, and fiberglass. He said it was near impossible to weld them correctly the entire length because of all the rust.... SMH.


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Alil cut and patch would be good for that last photos gaping hole.

All those late nights and long days working on your car, I'm suprised your screws didn't come loose. Lol

When my caliper bolt came out I had my man card reinstated and said never again

Your new rockers are perdy tho.. hey try galvanizing those things befor you go to paint.. idk if you can or if it will work but it just popped in my head

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Just gonna leave them bare metal? Worst case get some plasti dip and triple coat that **** for the time being.

Whats in the detail of this stage 1.... I know its a factory respray but what else
 
He said he was going to pretreat the rockers. Not sure what ended up happening. And they did get painted while on the car.... looks like. Not sure about the order of operations there but Ehhh. I'm fine with the quality being just OK. That's the route we took when talking it over. Rust has damaged this car too much for top notch repair. Truth.

I'll find about the details of stage 1. Gonna see him in a little bit. On the train right now headed to pick up the car.

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Wow man, she looks great after a bath. Tip top showroom condition isn't always needed, a lot of times "good enough" is just that.....good enough!
 


With the car back, that means back to work. God Bless my sister for letting me use her garage for the next 10 days while she’s on vacation. Real life saver that sister of mine.
First on the list is that damn brake fluid leak. The union that’s leaking is in the armpit behind the EBCM and Master Cylinder. No easy way to get to that spot. My plan is to take off all those parts, thus giving me the space I need to comfortable tighten the unions. I say “unions” plural, because it might be more than one. Hard to tell. Brake fluid is pissing all over the place in there.

I pondered and pondered easier ways of getting to that spot, and this I think will be the least stressful. Messing with these lines under the car is a huge pain in the ass. No doing it. Like I said in an earlier post, the fuel and brake lines were the worst parts to replace on this car. Took years off my life. Lol

In the garage:
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Now turn and lift.... good girl:
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Need to remove most of these things:
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I need unscrew the brake line fittings from the EBCM, and the Master Cylinder. Fearing a huge mess of spilled brake fluid, and working without a turkey baster, I decided to just bleed the fluid out. Wasn’t much in there anyway. Bleeding on all four corners:
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When studying the EBCM bracket, looks like one of the mounting point on the strut tower is actually a rivet? Not sure what I’m gonna do here, probably just use a metal saw and cut it off. Then use some fake steel epoxy when re-installing:
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Ohhh…. Rounded Lug Nut. That’s cool. Someone took to the impact like Arnold Schwarzenegger. FML. Not what? Drill it out, right?
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lowering the sub frame some can add some room there in the fender well where all the lines route through to under the car.

they sell nut crackers, but im not sure it will fit in the lug hole there. drilling might be best. then you can punch it out and replace it, if thats a front you need to cut one side of the backing flair of the new stud off to get it back in place. you'll see once you try to get it back in.
 
Drilling might be best. then you can punch it out and replace it, if thats a front you need to cut one side of the backing flair of the new stud off to get it back in place. you'll see once you try to get it back in.

Its the rear wheel, drivers side. I'm thinking to just drill it out. Research tells me that the bolt should just snap after that... Hope it's that easy.
 


The smaller socket trick has worked for me in the past... but none of 18-19mm or 3/4" I have had the right cut or bite to them. Gonna have to re-visit this tonight.

Another thought I had was to sacrifice a 19mm, coat the inside with JB Weld, put it on the nut and let is set for 24hrs. I'm thinking that will do the trick. Test their claim that their putty can withstand some 2000psi of pressure. The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. And if that doesn't work, then I will drill it out.
 
Took the day off yesterday to work on the GTP. I was able to get at the brake line unions. Fixed the leak and bled the brakes. All is well now. Also tackled replacing the ICM harness and lower radiator hose. This will be the last coolant hose to be replaced. All new hoses all around now.


Pounded in a 18mm instead of the 19mm. Worked great. Really soft metal on this lug nut. Hmmm.
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Master cylinder, cruise control module and EBCM removed. Unions are easy to get to now:
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Everything back together in terms of brake lines. Now onto replacing the ICM harness and lower radiator hose:
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Current harness. Bare wire showing through. Nicht gut:
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New (used) harness:
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Pulleys and things coming off. Coolant pissing everywhere:
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thats a fun harness to change for how short it is. bet your glad they put a hole in the crank sensor cover to un clip the plug lol
 
I'll be un-clipping the old harness tonight. The sensor behind the crank looks real easy. Its like right there. And the other sensor is cam shaft sensor...? I think that one should be pretty easy too though.

The worst part was removing the idler pulley. Pulley #9 on the common diagrams, the 3.5" smooth idler. Getting the pulley and the mount off was super easy. But I forgot that one of those bolts pierces the water jacket. Despite having pulled the lower radiator hose, there was still SO much coolant in the block. Dude, that coolant started pissing out everywhere onto the garage floor. Sent me scrambling for towels and whatever I could find. F'in sucked. It was getting close to midnight and I was gassed. Only to have to clean up puddles of green coolant, wipe everything down... damn it
 


yeah crank and cam. make sure you get the new one tucked in good under the water pump, dont want it falling out of place and rubbing a belt or pulley.

also watch you dont pinch the harness between the coil bracket and head, it goes through the 1/2 circle.

and put some thread sealant on the bolt that leaked coolant on ya. dont want that leaking later on.
 
Harness and lower hose installed. Pretty easy. Thread sealant was used. After putting everything back on, filling with coolant, bleeding, coolant, bleeding,... I flipped the car around and installed the rear control arms. Bad news is that my sister came back so I'm out of the garage. With all the cold and snow in the forecast, the interior will need to wait a couple weeks. Good news is, I'm moving on to the the interior. Then emissions and plate sticker and I'm set.

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I replaced all 4 arms. Only took a photo of these two though. So rusty.
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