Installment 6 - Engine Bay: Round 1.
With the interior pretty much done, it's time to move onto the engine and engine bay stuff. My power steering pump leaked like mad, which is not suprising considering the shape of everything else on the car, so I started resealing it. Like my brother always says, "you can't put dirty parts back on a car," so step 1, clean the hell out of it. I found a good how-to on www.924board.org, so I followed those instrucions; I haven't tried it yet, but it sure looks better! With the power steering pump out of the way, the AC components had to go. The condensor came out fairly easily, but then again I wasn't reusing it, so I could be as rough as I wanted to be with it. Thankfully my POS didn't have a pound of pressure in the AC system, so no worries there. The dryer (I think that's what it is called) came out next, with the associated lines. Two lines still remain, that run to the compressor and the dryer, that run into the cabin. When I have the engine out one of these days, I'll yank those too. Although I love cruise control, I don't even know if this unit works. Out it comes. I'm sure there is a 'official' way to remove the throttle cable to the cruise control unit, but I found that wire cutters work just fine. If I have to crawl under the dash one more time, I'm going to scream. With the AC compressor gone, I thought I would try to fabricate an inexpensive AC delete pulley to get the accessory belt back on. While I think this option 'looks' good, it doesn't function for shit. The first time I fired the engine up, the belt flew off and onto the ground. Imagine my suprise when I looked under the hood to check the tension and the entire belt was gone. Plan B at this point is purchase an actual AC delete bracket and stop being such a cheapskate. I was able to save a little more weight though, which was the highlight of this segment. The charcoal canister comes out with a few bolts, or nuts, I can't remember, to expose the power antenna. I was more than happy to remove that POS, which probably didn't work anyway. It really didn't work after I cut the power and signal line to it. Since I have 4 gauges, I thought I'd actually hook the senders up to something. Here is the oil temp sender in the oil drain plug. Me likes data. Now after many moons, I finally received my 951 oil cooler parts. Installation went about as smooth as 80 grit sandpaper, but I finally got it in and mounted. With the lines hooked up and the cooler mocked up, I fired the beast up. It leaked at the oil cooler seal, at one of the lines and best of all I didn't plug one of the galleys and it puked oil all over my garage floor. Oh, did I mention the oil and water mixed, and I probably gacked up my newish rad? I lost the will to live at this point and gave up on the car. Don't worry though, my will to live has been restored. Turns out I just need to throw more money at it... It's a shame really, considering how good the newish rad looked (old one on right, obviously). The factory 924S oil cooler is going back in. The rad is getting flushed. Rod bearings are getting replaced. Stay tuned.
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