Fairly big update
Skrivet av NEO 23 juni 2004, 06:09.
Denna artikel finns endast på engelska!
Over the last two weeks a lot have happened to the car. It wasn't without a struggle but now it's parked out on the driveway and awaits some more parts. After I got home to the woods from Gävle it took a good two to three days to tidy up and assemble the brakes. The Porsche calipers were a story in its own and it wasn't easy to find the parts I needed for them. Porsche does not sell the dust seals as a spare part to this specific model. You have to buy a whole kit with pistons, dust boots and gaskets. A kit like that costs 300-400SEK per piston, which I guess you’ve figured isn’t an option since there's four pistons per caliper. For the pistons where the dusts seals were completely broken I used the same pressure seal that's normally seated in the piston housing. It's tightly seated under the old dust seal metal ring. It for sure looks like it might work but I don't know for sure since I haven't driven the car so far yet. =)
When I was done with the calipers I mounted them on the car. I had some brake fluid out in the garage that I used and I started to bleed the brakes. Unfortunately I didn't have enough fluid so I had to stop halfway. I ordered new fluid on the Friday and I was promised to have it by Monday. But in some Irry-ish mysterious way they manage to loose my order, so in panic I had to search in every corner of the city for some more. Luckily I finally managed to find some fluid, phew!
During the bleeding of the brakes the damn car overheated. Later I found out that the connectors for the thermal sensor at the bottom of the large radiator had totally tarnished to death. So the fan which is supposed to start at its highest speed at 144 degrees Celsius (or something like that) never started. And so the car overheated... Once the heat issue was under control we noticed a rather large pool of oil under the front of the engine. A moment of anger, but maybe foremost panic aroused. I have replaced everything that possibly could leak oil in the front of the engine to get rid of the leak. And the weird thing in the crow song is that it has never leaked that much when I've started it before. So I got a bit nervous over that the cylinder head gasket might have blown when the car overheated. But to blow a multi layer steel head gasket? Doesn't sound so likely. Another theory was that the valve cover gasket wasn't seated properly since I the night before had taken the valve cover off to check the cylinder head bolts.
In anger and frustration I once again removed everything in the front of the car so I could wipe it clean. I also removed the valve cover and used some Loctite gasket sealant at the front of the gasket where I suspected it was leaking. And once that was done I reassembled the damn car, mounted the wheels and lowered it down on the ground. I also cleaned up in the garage and prepared so I could drive it up on the ramps the day after. I had to make a rough wheel alignment. Oh yeah, I also mounted the tail lights. =)
The day after a friend and I was in the garage cleaning the RS2 mirror glasses. The guy I bought the mirrors from had them painted with the glasses mounted so the glass had a lot of red paint on them. =( While standing there, thinking about life in general and polishing the glasses the lights went out. A couple of seconds later, while we was trying to figure out what was going on, there was a huge bang that made the glasses in the garage to rattle and my friend an I was scared shitless. After a while my mom opened the door and asked if we still were alive. The lightning must have gone down not far from the garage. Life in the countryside! The power came back pretty fast and I continued to clean the mirror glasses so we could get over to the other garage where the car was. When we got to that garage it turned out that the power was out there too. =/ So I started with some simpler operations, like mounting the door interiors. When the power came back I drove the car up on the ramps. I removed the connector for the thermal sensor, or rather it fell of the car. It was totally decayed and temporarily replaced with regular blade connectors. After that it was time to check the wheel alignment. After a half brave attempt I gave up and tightened the nuts. And it actually didn't turn out that bad. Also aligned the steering wheel that was a bit off. It’s still a bit off though but that will be fixed when they do the proper wheel alignment.
Now the next adventure started... To get the car out of the garage. First we had to move a shitload of crap that was in the way. Amongst other a damn Opel/Vauxhall with a not fastened drivers’ chair. Unfortunately this was noticed first when the car was backed out of the garage and I came to the slope outside the garage... The chair tipped over and I ended up in the backseat. Luckily it all went fine, but it was a couple of nervous seconds. =) Once the Opel was out of the way we started to back my car out from the cramped garage. Once we got it out from my spot we started to plan how we should get it out down the slope. It's pretty steep and uneven and always somewhat of a pain. We used some planks to even it out. I slowly drove forward while my pal was on all four on the ground keeping an eye on the chassis and the ground level. Didn't go all too good. The car got stuck hanging on the threshold halfway out. =/ There was a moment of panic and a few ideas on how to unstuck the car was bounced around quickly. There was no way to get a jack in behind the front wheels, but we managed to get one under the front subframe, though that jack sank down in the gravel. But we got the car up high enough to get the other jack in behind the front wheel. Once the wheels were in the air we slid some planks in under them. This was enough to get the car a bit further out. When the rear wheels reached the threshold I had to steer fully to the left so I wouldn't get hanging on the uneven road outside. More planks was used under the rear wheels so they wouldn't come crashing down from the threshold. And now the front spoiler was in danger so some planks was moved and put under the front wheels. It took a while but we got it out without breaking anything. =) Though the brakes were making one heck of a noise, probably because it's been standing still for so long. We took the car for a little test drive. I started slowly to see that everything worked. Damn it was nice to drive the car again! The short shift felt really good. We drove back to the garage and stopped. Suddenly there was a lot of smoke coming out from under the hood! Gaaargh! We popped the hood open and I ran for the fire extinguisher. Fortunately it was only the heat insulation under the turbo that didn't want to live any longer. Once we calmed down I started to drive the car up on the ramps again. My friend, who was in front of the car guiding me up, started to scream like a constipated koala bear. Now glycol was pissing down under the car. Gaaa! What on earth have I done to upset God!? We found the problem pretty fast. It was a 1000SEK hose that had cracked open. Not much we could do about it other then letting the car cool down and then drive it home, to get it back into that garage was out of the question.
Today I've ordered the water hose and the broken connector and after some bribes I was promised to have the parts by tomorrow. Also ordered the connecting hose for the throttle body, it had a nasty crack in it. =/ I also removed the water hose and the burnt heat isolation. Booked time for wheel alignment and the annual MOT! To be continued...