Sunday, September 07, 2014

To whoever the asshole was that did the last timing belt replacement on this car: I hope you rot in hell

There's a certain amount of, for lack of a better word, forensics that goes on whenever we work on this car. It's over twenty years old and it's not exactly low maintenance. It has had four or five previous owners, at least some of whom did their own work, and it's not an easy car to work on by any stretch. So every time we open the hood, we play a game well known to software engineers called "Where are the bodies buried?"

Yesterday there were a lot of them.

We decided to replace the timing belt after we tried to do compression test and discovered that not only was the timing horrifically misadjusted, we couldn't correct it. We would get close, and then cogs would slip because there was so much slack in the belt. We never bothered to put the engine back together after the first compression test so we figured it wouldn't be too hard to continue taking pieces off, get to the timing belt, and put it all back together.

Well, I didn't think it would be that hard. If the BF had other thoughts, he kept them to himself.

1991 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 Timing Belt Change Statistics
Start time2:00 PM
Stop time4:00 AM
Belts replacedTiming, Power Steering, Alternator
Weight Shed.5 lb - part of the air conditioning pulley
Fluids ReplacedCoolant
Fluids spilled all over the engine, the engine jack, the drop cloth, the floor, the people doing the workCoolant
New spider webs built from car to ground during work, total1
Mosquitoes squished, total10, approx.
List of atrocities committed by previous owners and/or mechanicsSee list, below
engine bracket bolts not tightened
engine mount bolts not tightened
existing timing tensioner not adjusted
existing timing belt not tight
Front Bank PSI before timing belt change, average181
Rear Bank PSI before timing belt change, average90
Front Bank PSI after timing belt change, average165
Rear Bank PSI after timing belt change, average163
PSI range across all cylinders before timing belt change 90
PSI range across all cylinders after timing belt change10

We spent fourteen hours yesterday to get to this point. That's not a typo. The car was already partially apart for previous compression tests and we still have four to six hours of work left to get it back together. I took a bath in coolant. For a while it was looking like I'd have to Gojo my hair. 

This is what I looked like after about six hours:

If you are guests of ours and you always wondered why we send you to the bathroom at the end of the hall rather than the close one right next to the front door, this is why. We use the close one to clean up messes like the one in this photo.

But this is the only photo that matters:

Compression test results: EXCELLENT. Conclusion: ENGINE NOT AT ALL RUINED.


P.S. That bottle of Pink Soap in the first photo is for cleaning oil painting brushes. I use it to clean myself up after car work because it's not full of grit and it's a lot gentler and more effective than Gojo. And it doesn't smell like oranges. Yesterday I showered with it. I was that dirty.



1 comment:

Carla said...

We keep a bottle of blue Dawn in our shower for the inevitable bike grease. If it works for oil soaked penguins, it must be safe for us.