LIM gasket replacement: Cost for shop vs do it myself?

Wow, good on you for finding the wires. Now imagine what a shop would have charged you for that job when they came across those. Plus, doing it yourself is always a good excuse to buy much needed tools :)

Don't forget to drain and refill your oil right after. You'll most likely spill some coolant in the valley when you take off the LIM. If you stick in the coolant elbow and turn it so its facing up it will be much less spilt. Still good insurance to change oil, even dump a quart across the engine to flush out any contaminants.

When you pull the lower rad hose to drain the coolant, take off the tstat housing and pull the tstat out. Put a hose in there and flush it until you see it coming out clear from the lower rad hose. If you have a shop vac, set it to blow, and put it over the tstat inlet and hold it until the water stops coming out of the rad hose. Doing that, you shouldn't get a drop of anything into the lifter valley, and if anything does drip in, it's just water instead of coolant. Water is much better to have in your oil than coolant.

Stop rubbing peanut butter on the wiring and you won't have that mouse issue!?!!

Lolz...

always amazes me me as to what may be so enticing for those lil suckers to chew away on that stuff... Crazy!

LIM off... What a mess! And BTW, who decided to put the power steering fluid reservoir THERE?!?

You know you drive a GP when......

Welcome to the 3.8 SC fun.

my latest mod......

http://www.grandprixforums.net/attac...id=14346&stc=1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wmorrison65

LIM off... What a mess! And BTW, who decided to put the power steering fluid reservoir THERE?!?

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Whenever doing a LIM, I check the ps fluid level. Add a little. It's all good.

How can you tell if the surfaces the gasket is going to seal are ready? The outlines of the old gasket aren't going away, right? Just dry, grease-free, and feels smooth?

Anybody in New Britain CT area that could take a look at things today (Sunday) before I start putting it back together? I just don't want to have to do this again later because I didn't know to check for some small thing.

If you can, PM me and we'll exchange contact info.

just run a new razor over any outlines left, what ever stays can stay, as long as its smooth and clean.

Well, it took a while, but I finished yesterday, just in time for the differential bearing to go out on my other car. :P Drove the GP about 100 miles or so yesterday, no problems, no visible leaks.

Yes, it took too long, but my time is limited, and this was my first time working on one of these cars. So a lot of time was spent googling how to disconnect this or that plastic part without breaking it, finding other stuff that needed doing while it was off, ordering parts and waiting for them, driving around to find tools and other parts, all while trying to keep my job/girlfriend/kids from feeling neglected.

So the "extra" stuff I did, as best as I can remember...

- In general, lots of cleaning up of parts, cleaning gasket surfaces, etc., maybe more than necessary but I had time

- Repaired exposed wires in the harness to the PCM in the airbox (spliced/soldered/heatshrinked individual wires and re-wrapped whole thing in electrical tape)

- Modded the LIM, hogged out the side coolant passage, blocked TB coolant ports, per BillBoost37's howto (Fastenal had the plugs locally, if anybody needs a source.)

- Disassembled supercharger/throttle body, inspected/cleaned, regreased needle bearings, replaced coupler, TB gasket (spent a bit of time playing with this stuff to understand how the SC works)

- Finding valve covers were leaking, finding inner lip of one was chewed up, eventually just used a little extra sealant in that area, no leaks but I have replacement covers now if it starts again

- Cleaned up fuel injectors, replaced filters and o-rings

- Trying to repair crumbled vacuum harness tee, got engine running with standard vac line/fittings, but next day bit the bullet and bought the expensive dealer part to avoid future headaches

- After it was all together, finding the one fuel injector I'd been getting codes for, still got codes on the adjacent cylinder I'd swapped it to, so ordering replacements and swapping one in

I don't know how long this whole job would take me now that I'm basically familiar with all the parts, but replacing the bad injector took probably under an hour (didn't time it.)

Thanks for all the help along the way! Next comes the transmission (4th gear clutch hub) but I'm gonna drive a while before I get to that. Most of my driving is under 45mph anyway.

as long as its running well, who cares how long it took. either way you saved yourself a easy 500 bucks if not more.

Good work man! Now I bet you get a little smile every time you start it up knowing you did it all yourself, and knowing it was done right. Feelsgoodman :)