BAWC Forums

I think I understand well enough what to do now, question is will I have the balls and time to undertake it myself. I dont have any "real" friends so most everything I do in life is done by me. I have people who say they are my friends when I am showing up at their beckon call to help them with something but when I need help they really wish they had time... Oh well... Its just my car, whats the worst that could happen.

Plans....
Buy parts to make tool
Attempt to make tool
Prep car for surgery
Prep parts for surgery
Make sure I fully understand how to remove and reinstall what I remove by looking at the engine and mentally breaking down the process
Start with the hardest part first (im sick like that) I plan to start with the back.
Remove plenum, intake, plug wires, plugs, valve cover (mark wires according to location).... Remove Cams (its all down hill from here), remove rockers.
Feed rope into spark plug cylinder hole
crank piston to TDC
Use tool to press spring and use magnet to remove keepers
remove springs and remove old VSS
slide on new VSS
replace spring
replace keeper (screwdriver with a touch of grease or lube I read works well)
Crank piston down
remove rope
replace lifter with new 99 style

Repeat... then reverse starting steps and put it all back together... oh minus the part of the cam installation. For that I will need to bring cylinder 1 to TDC and then align the timing points on the engine and cams (not 100% on the process but I am still reading up on it).

NOTE: If this ends up being too much of a PITA I will own a Mitsu spring compressor tool no matter the cost.

[quote=""EvilNCarnate""] I dont have any "real" friends so most everything I do in life is done by me. I have people who say they are my friends when I am showing up at their beckon call to help them with something but when I need help they really wish they had time.[/quote]You too huh? Thats why all my friends are women now. Even though they cant help me fix a car or a toilet.

NOTE: If this ends up being too much of a PITA I will own a Mitsu spring compressor tool no matter the cost.

Last i checked, it was no longer avail. because it was deemed 'not the right way to do it'

[quote=""jackhammer""]You too huh? Thats why all my friends are women now. Even though they cant help me fix a car or a toilet.




Last i checked, it was no longer avail. because it was deemed 'not the right way to do it'[/quote]

No joke, Danyel tries to help (fiance) but she isnt much real help, its best when someone knows what you are talking about. She tried to help me when I was putting in my new clutch. I had not help so I just benched the tranny up, but the input shaft wasnt pulled out of the way and I am sitting there holding the tranny up while laying on the ground and trying to explain what an input shaft is so she can move it. I said Drive shaft, large green thing, the steel round tubular item extending from the wheel... Finally my arms gave out.

Well that sucks. So how does mitsu compress the springs now on a motor like ours?

[quote=""EvilNCarnate""]Well that sucks. So how does mitsu compress the springs now on a motor like ours?[/quote]They remove the heads if they listen to mitsu corporate

Here's the VSS removal tool. Many thanks to Wayne Kassel for loaning it to us.



Basic parts are a length of pipe, a piece of flat bar stock that will slide inside the pipe, a threaded rod bent into a hook, and a handful of nuts, bolts and washers.



Close up of the business end of the tool. Generally, you'll attach the hook to one of the oil galleries in the head, set the notched piece of tube over the valve, set your leverage, and then compress the valve spring. Once the valve keepers have been exposed, pull them out with a magnet. You'll want a fairly strong magnet as the keepers are slightly magnetized, and the oil adds an extra level of adhesion to the valve stem. Make sure to add a few washers to the bolt that locates the notched tube. This will keep the tool from slipping off the tube.



Close up of the notched tube. This can be cut from your handle stock. It needs to be somewhat beefy, but still give you enough room to remove and reinstall the keepers. Keep the thin end on the top of the valve.



Cut a handful of holes in the flat bar stock. This will let you swap the position of the hook and the tube for going between the front and rear heads, and also to adjust your leverage point.

Jeff, I could really use your expertise on my current issue. I have another post in this subforum detailing the issue. I made a tool and have been moving along slowly until now...

NOTE: your tool looks a TON better than mine. But I did do multiple holes, as well I made multiple length bars so if I couldnt get a good angle I had other bars.... anyway help me out if you are online.

Good god my hands hurt.... Well as some know http://www.bawcforums.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=2779 I had an issue with a dropped keeper down the heads oil galley. I finally go to work finishing my car up this weekend. Finishing putting it back together. Had my friend torquing the caps for the cams and he snapped off 5 bolts in the head. We cut a drill bit in reverse and backed out 2, the others ended up being tapped and re-threaded with my newly purchased tap and die. No one had a good set of reverse bits for backing out bolts, no kits, nothing. SUCKED ASS

So, retapped those, went and picked up some grade 8 bolts, then sunday morning some 10's. I decided that I will be getting new heads and probably new cams as I will not trust the current set for much more since we had to tap new holes and some were not very well on the mark. We did the drilling with the caps on (except one where both bolts sheared off) and used the holes in the caps as a guide for the new holes. Prepped the whole head so only the drill areas were showing. Used a magnet, air, wipes, wd-40 to clean up as we drilled. All but one went well. We had nearly 0 aluminum from 3 of the 4. The 4th one went off course and the hole went out the back of the head. The cap was still aligned. Tried to JB Weld the whole and after 15hrs still went out the back. Tapped it, thread locked the bolt, rtv in the hole... curse like a mother.

So putting the caps back in, using grade 10 on the back, dropped one down the oil galley. Why the hell did I remove the rags I had stuffed in after dropping that keeper... because after 16 hours of work on it one day, 4 hours of sleep, another 12 hours of work I wasnt thinking clearly. So finish up top and prep to drop the oil pan.

When I did my clutch I spent hours breaking the exhaust bolts loose, I put anti sieze on the front bolts for the downpipe but it appears i forgot to on the bolts for the main cat. So I dropped the pipe as much as possible. Removed the driveshaft, pulled the starter, dust shield, bracket, drivers side brace, turbo oil return lines and the 15 or so small bolts in the pan. Had my buddy working up top on the vac line reduction while I did this. I couldnt get the pan to pop loose so I went up top to help him.

First he confused the fuel filter with the evap canister.... Good thing I got up there before any lines got touched. Redirected him to the evap and he got that out. He didnt get the idea that the rest of the stuff just needed to be ripped out. I showed him what I meant. Pulled all the hoses and tossed them over my shoulder. Removed the turbo intake pipes, removed the bolts on the hard line.... Finally got all the crap yanked out and grabbed my line and started making new connections. Even relocated the line for the clutch vac assist. I somehow lost the small t for the turbo timer vac line and need to figure out how to remedy that.

About 11:00pm I got tired of working up top, my buddy had went home... So i went back below and finally figured out how to break the oil pan loose. Sure as shit it worked, no damage to the pan. Got it to pop, pulled it out and put the magnet in the pan. Out came the bolt and the keeper. Took a look at my oil pickup and it had some hard little plastic pieces stuck to the bottom.... They fell off but I decided to remove the pickup and clean it and blow some air through it and blew some junk out that was stuck in the screen. Midnight I went in and showered as Danyel woke up and came and told me to.

So the plans for tonight, make gaskets for the pickup and the turbo oil returns. Clean the pan out, clean the old gasket off. Thinking about replacing the fuel filter as it seems my battery leaked at some point and acid etched the filter. However I am also inclined to just take it to a shop and have them fix it because if the shop breaks something they will replace it and not charge me. Then put it all back together (buddy is coming over again, good thing he lives across the street) and fire that bad boy back up and see if she smokes.

This has to be the worlds most fucked up VSS and Lifter replacement ever. However I now know on top of my 25 spline tcase and tranny that I do for sure have a 4 bolt engine. As well I feel much more comfortable with timing the car as a whole and will definitely be doing the 120k myself.

[quote=""EvilNCarnate""] Had my friend torquing the caps for the cams and he snapped off 5 bolts in the head.[/quote] 10ft-lbs snapped bolts, but didnt strip alum threads???

[quote=""jackhammer""] 10ft-lbs snapped bolts, but didnt strip alum threads???[/quote]

I know, we were flipping, even double checked the torque wrench by tightening a bolt on the shrouds for the wheel well... clicked out really light. In fact after the first one broke going in I told him to take the others out and thats when the rest snapped. They all look like stock bolts, they all snapped right where it goes from threaded to solid. I think the bolts were just shitty to begin with. Not the first time I have broken these damn stock bolts on this car. Had the same thing happen with the clutch but those backed out. Thankfully the local hardware place carries metric grade 10 carbide steel bolts.

Well at Midnight last night she sprang to life. We got everything reconnected (except the IAC/ISC) topped off the fluids, gave her a few short cranks, ran her a minute, retopped the fluids. Then took her for a drive. Noticed a 2000rpm idle and no data for the IAC/ISC on the logger. Knew at that point it was probably disconnected as this was a brand new one. Boost controller wasnt holding boost and I assumed it just needs resetup as we did a vac line reduction on the car.

After the test spin we remembered that we only hand tightened the plug for the oil pan. Tightened that, checked the IAC/ISC and sure enough she was unplugged. Looked for the wire and finally saw it sitting on the tranny. Fished that up and plugged it in. Check the fluids again. Started her up and she purred to 750rpms. Checked all the other fittings and all were tight. Took her for another spin and let my buddy drive this time.

He loves my car... Wanted to see what it had so even though it was at wastegate pressure we headed for a bypass. He let two cars go by and took off... he was amazed that it took only seconds to be right on them ready to pass. Then hooked back on the roads and took her through some twisties. At first he was cutting corners but then on my demand he held them tight and was shocked at the grip as we sailed around the turns marked at 30 doing 55.

She idles great, she doesnt smoke, she is as quiet as a mouse (minus that rattling throw out bearing) and I set a rough boost setup this morning and she moves better than she has in years. So much smoother, I am sure the vac reduction, egr, evap crap helped the fact. I noticed while removing the setup that Mitsu plumbed so much air bleed back into the system it was insane. Definitely the reason it was such a PITA to initially get my boost controller set up to see 14psi.

Cool. It's good to see you got it running after your setbacks.

[quote=""Gatecrasher""]Cool. It's good to see you got it running after your setbacks. [/quote]

Perseverance. I may not have had as many issues as some people but the one thing that kept me going this whole time was the thought of turning that key and hearing her roar to life. So glad I put in all those hours. All told it took close to 100 hours to get her back up and running again. 3 day weekend with 12 - 16 hours a day... 5 days with 2-4 hours then another weekend with 16+ hour days then another 6 hours last night.

So glad she is running.