Finished upper 60k! (dial-up warning)

[rendyx]

Scot Hewitt and I finished my SHO's upper 60k today! It worked out quite well, the motor seems rather clean, especially considering the mileage (118k), and the oil originally in the car. Another thing we determines is that the 60k at 60k was never performed! Still, the valves were suprisingly within spec. We did the valve lash, cleaned the intake, changes the plugs, wires and t-stat. Here's some pictures:

We had to test first and see how much oil was in the rear plug wells! Wow! that would explain the recent misfires I had:

And here's one of the rear plugs. Never been changed, as it was not an AGSP32PP, but rather the really old AGSP32P+! And no, the Autolite plug was going out, not in!

We then began working on cleaning the intake out. Not an easy job, very messy, and uses lots of B12!

Here's inside one of the tanks:

Now what you've probably been looking for! How did it look under the valve cover? Actually, not half bad. A little nasty in a couple spots, but all in all, pretty clean. This is the result of Castrol oil:

Now here's something of interest. It appears that the cam lobes have worn a bit on the tips.

More pictures!

Finally, we put it all back together! It looks cleaner (although I lost a small amount of paint on the intake), and runs much smoother. I started it up, and right away noticed it was very quiet compared to before. After a little sitting, I noticed it was able to warm up (the hour drive to Scot's house didn't even warm it up at all according to the gauge!), thanks to the new t-stat. So we went for a ride. Very nice improvement, not so much in power as in overall running performance. I'm very pleased with the results. We then did a quick Gtech test, and obtained 177HP, which may increase later as I did not adjust the weight to compensate for my parts, and for having Scot in the car too, and I did not take the car to redline.

Thanks for your help in this stuff people (and especially to Scot too)! Now to the timing belt... thumbs_u

<small>[ February 15, 2003, 11:10 PM: Message edited by: rendyx ]</small>

 

[sdpatt]

Great job. I don't think you can attribute the orange coloration of the valve gallery to Castrol. That is all I have used and I have seen nothing like that in mine. A light honey color, but no orange. Must have been from an earlier oil.

Look at the size of the gap on that spark plug! That is what happens with no platinum on the cathode. Also what happens when you leave plugs in too long.

Once again, I am sad to see the rusty orange on the steel parts and chalky white oxidation on the aluminum parts on the components subject to the salt belt. That is so ******* cars.

 

[Yamaha V6]

Yeah, I agree, not a typical castrol color, but probably would have been much worse.

I pulled the plugs from a 3.2L yesterday and sure enough, "rookie" owner: 5 Champions & 1 AGSP32PP.

Congrats!

 

[rendyx]

I suspect the Castrol did improve the valve gallery a bit, as before it may have been much darker. I do remember the pictures you posted of the results of different oils, including the all-Castrol one, Scott. It was a honey color, and looked very clean. The Castrol seems to clean it up well, and seal things up a bit.

Those plugs definately humor me(and scare me!). If the previous owners didn't even bother to touch the rear plugs, did they think they'd last forever? It is still amazing how the engine runs as well as it does with components that old. But with new ones... thumbs_u thumbs_u

 

[shojuan]

rendyx:
I suspect the Castrol did improve the valve gallery a bit, as before it may have been much darker. I do remember the pictures you posted of the results of different oils, including the all-Castrol one, Scott. It was a honey color, and looked very clean. The Castrol seems to clean it up well, and seal things up a bit.

Those plugs definately humor me(and scare me!). If the previous owners didn't even bother to touch the rear plugs, did they think they'd last forever? It is still amazing how the engine runs as well as it does with components that old. But with new ones... thumbs_u thumbs_u

My gaps were even bigger than that when I did my 60K at 14X,000 miles. It is pretty amazing though, the engine still ran smoothly without misfires. Original wires too. Of course after the 60K I experienced power levels that the car hadn't seen since before 40,000 miles or so (mom was original owner. I drove the car for the first 1500 miles or so and remember exactly what the car could do at WOT while passing tourists down highway 1 towards Big Sur).

 

[Modemagic]

LIke I told you before Pat... now that your 60k is done... my SHO is on the way to ya! thumbs_u

 

[jelloslug]

When I did my 60k after I got my car (did not trust the PO) I found that the rear plugs had not been changed eather. All of the had a gap of around .090" or more. eek!