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So I thought I’d share an amusing story of my day. Since I thoroughly enjoy social distancing (I am seriously introverted) I decided the next project to start upon will be plugs/clean throttle bodies, belts, replace/flush all the fluids. I am also in the process of figuring out a effective but hopefully not overly complicated mean of tucking all visible wires in the engine bay.
My G has just a shade over 71k, and is a 2013 so by age I might has well get on most of the projects, especially because I work two jobs and until recently worked M-F from about 7a-11p. Both jobs are essential but one of them I get to work remotely.
Ok enough back story.... so my plan for today was to knock out plugs and clean the throttle bodies. I got started and realized how dirty my engine was below all the plastics which I keep pretty well detailed, as you can see from the surface it looks clean.
So I started one at a time with the plugs, unbolting things and moving wires to clean out all the dirt, a strange amount of sand, and oily crud. I got the throttle bodies all cleaned, there was some carbon build up but not terrible, and old plugs were still pretty solid. Here’s where things start to go sideways.... I have small detail attachments to my shop vac (do you know where this is headed yet?) I sucked out some of the crud and sand from the hard to reach places and then....the tip of the detail attachment fell down through the center hole of the upper intake plenum down into the “V” of the engine. If I had a really long set of thing pliers I might have been able to get at it but I don’t and despite all “creative” attempts to retrieve it, I was doomed to pull apart everything.
Apparently Fate knew that my good intentions for maintaining my car were good but not good enough. My injectors were really sandy...I live in PA and the G has been to the beach twice in the last 4 years and 50k miles.... I’ll have to go back and look to see where it lived before me. So I cleaned the injectors and since the upper and lower manifold was off I cleaned them too.
I put everything back together and fired her up and have to say I’m pleased with the idle. I’ve owned and worked on the car long enough to notice the subtle difference. I also like the piece of mind of knowing things are clean.
So that’s the stupid story of how I ended up cleaning and detailing way more of my engine than I intended. On to the next piece of the project...
Great write up. Reminds me of the story when I changed the tranny oil in a 79 RX-7 back in the day. After draining the gear oil out, I grab the bottle of tranny oil to squeeze the oil into the transmission and briefly just noticed the tiny plastic cap was still on there just as I squeezed the bottle, damn, that little cap went right into the transmission. LOL I thought crap, I'll never get that sucker out. So I stopped, opened the drain plug praying that sucker comes out. After squeezing some oil into the trans, watching that fresh new oil come out, the cap come floating out.Dodged a bullet on tat one.
you were just a few hours away from free power. While all that was off you should have port and polished the upper and lower manifolds. Also the lower manifolds aren't reusable. So if you do get a leak somewhere look there. There is also a 2 part torqe sequence.
Great write up. Reminds me of the story when I changed the tranny oil in a 79 RX-7 back in the day. After draining the gear oil out, I grab the bottle of tranny oil to squeeze the oil into the transmission and briefly just noticed the tiny plastic cap was still on there just as I squeezed the bottle, damn, that little cap went right into the transmission. LOL I thought crap, I'll never get that sucker out. So I stopped, opened the drain plug praying that sucker comes out. After squeezing some oil into the trans, watching that fresh new oil come out, the cap come floating out.Dodged a bullet on tat one.
Nice save! Always good when you can get lucky when something stupid happens.
Originally Posted by PNW_IPL
you were just a few hours away from free power. While all that was off you should have port and polished the upper and lower manifolds. Also the lower manifolds aren't reusable. So if you do get a leak somewhere look there. There is also a 2 part torqe sequence.
Yeah the lower gasket will likely need changed, I cleaned it off so things were as smooth as possible, but I didnt readily have access to a new one on Easter, so I let it go for now, especially since I realized how easy it was to pull everything apart. I did contemplate port and polishing and still may do it, I need to do some research to see how to do it properly. I didnt have the time as I was already getting enough grief from my wife for spending more time than I intended. I did follow the 2 part torque sequences. I have the FSM saved on my iPad and always keep it close by for such instances. I am kind of **** about following the torque specs when I am doing things to the G.
I did follow the 2 part torque sequences. I have the FSM saved on my iPad and always keep it close by for such instances. I am kind of **** about following the torque specs when I am doing things to the G.
