Long weekend...car problems

[silver_pilate]

Well, it's funny how things work....you know, when you start out to complete a project that should be straight forward and simple, and it turns out to be a big mess.

This weekend I installed underdrive pullies and the Lentech valve body.

The underdrive pullies went on without a hitch. With a new stock belt and the alternator moved as far outboard as it would move on its supports, the belt tensioner reads well within range.

Next, we jack the car up and put it on stands and begin taking out the valve body. We basically got to the point where we had the pan off when we had to double time it back to the house (we were at a neighbors barn about 5 miles down the road) in order to take shelter from some wicked storms that blew up. We had a about 5 reported tornados within a 40 mile radius and a crap-load of hail in places. I've got some pics of the cloud base that parked itself directly over the barn where my car was, but luckily nothing made it all the way to the ground.

Anyway, we go back out that night and end up getting the suburban buried in a ditch running full of water...filled up the drivers side to the level of the seat with water...so we walked the half mile left to the barn and worked on the car (we pulled the suburban out about 10:30 that night with my neighbors tractor).

Everything went smoothly. We got the holes drilled and everything wired up, and the valve body bolted up nicely. There is a torque sequence for the valve body bolts, so I pulled out the torque wrench and started tightening them down. I kept going, and all of the sudden I felt the bolt give. I immediately got out from under the car and put the torque wrench in a vise to test it. Guess what. Yep, you guessed it. The torque wrench wasn't breaking. So, I had partially stripped one of the bolt holes. It still held torque, however, so I completed tightening all of the bolts with a wregular ratchet.

As I was double checking all 25 bolts, I happened to place the ratchet on one of the bolts I had tightened with the torque wrench. I gave it a simply turn to make sure it was tigh, and SNAP. I broke the damned thing in half. I was pretty disgusted now, so I bolted everything back up so I could drive it out the next day when the roads dried up. I leveled the fluids and we went home.

Sunday afternoon, I go back to get my car out of Michael's barn, and as I walk through the door, the floor of the barn is covered in a nice shiney puddle of transmission fluid. ****#$&!*!!! As I had to pull the pan again to strighten a kink in the gasket, I decided to go ahead and fix the problems I had created Saturday. I went to town to get a new bolt to replace the broken one, and then I went to work. We got everything torqued up fine, and on the stripped bolt, I used a little silicone just to make sure the bolt didn't back out. All the bolts held torque, and I put the pan on and filled her up.

The test drive went fine; all the air worked out of the valve body and it was shifting nicely. I made 5-6 hard runs to 100+ mph. Hey, if it's going to break, might as well break it now. Everything was fine other than my radiator boiling over. Anyway, I drive back up to Amarillo. The temperature is fine. No problems in town. No drips from the transmission. So I park the car, and started talking to my neighbor in her Explorer which was parked next to me. We had been talking for a while when I look over and notice a nice big puddle of transmission fluid slowly spreading from under my car. ***@&%@#$((!!!! I crawled under and it was leaking from the gasket again. I got my ratchet and tightened it down as best I could. I think I slowed the leak, but I don't know how much fluid I lost over night.

I just got through taking a test that I didn't study for, and I've got three assignments due tomorrow which I haven't started yet, and my parents are coming up tonight....oy...what-a freaking weekend.

Since I can't work on my car at my appartments, I'm just gonna take the thing to a shop and have them put it on a lift and fix the gasket and fill it back up. Should be loads of fun. Good thing my guns are at home, cause if anybody pissed me off today, it would be very tempting to, pardon my ebonics, bust a cap in their ***.

--nathan