[nils302]

My first go at a 3D printed boost leak checker worked for the most part, but I noticed it start to slip around 10psi... I didn't print a big enough lip for the MAF's band clamp to grab onto.

I changed up the design and have a new one printing, should be good to go by morning.

My rear turbo IC pipe seal arrived from 3SX, so I'll get that installed and see how I'm doing on leaks after that.

 

[nils302]

The car is showing up on jack stands in Street View… I think that means I’m taking too long. It’s about time for another update (almost a year later).

I printed a more robust leak checker and replaced my rear turbo IC pipe seal. Seems like the remaining leaks after that were from the throttle body shaft seals and fuel injector seals.

Fixing those leaks alone wouldn’t have knocked the car out for the past 11 months, but troubleshooting the fuel pump got me sufficiently side-tracked with engine bay wiring issues. I hooked up a direct reading gauge to the fuel rail so that I could watch pressure while driving to see if the 0/1 bit switching I was seeing in my logs was messing with my line pressure. What I found right away that tripped me up was a pressure response I was seeing in conjunction with some erroneous electrical loads. The biggest being the turn signals and brake lights: with the car idling I would have rock solid fuel pressure at 43-44 psi. Put the turn signal on and I’d get a 3-4 psi drop in sequence with the blinking of the signal (or a solid drop with the application of the brake pedal). This is also consistent with a dimming of all the interior lights when these loads are activated, which I think I’ve mentioned before in this thread.

To keep chugging along, I could have hotwired the pump directly to isolate it from the rest of the car. But with the poor condition of a lot of the weatherproof connectors in the engine bay, I thought it best to try and get them all sorted out. Hopefully this will get to the root of the problem -or problems likely- instead of just putting a band aid over the fuel pump system alone.

Oil Pressure Sender.

 

[nils302]

Knock Sensor -This one was completely cracked away on the sensor side. That’s all supposed to be shielded.

The harness side, down into the loom a bit, showed some insulation splitting too (the white wire):

I found the same stuff in the Rear O2 Sensor harness-side:

 

[nils302]

The injectors and throttle body got their service too. Here’s the report back from the injector cleaner. They weren’t too bad I don’t think, considering their age and mileage (212K).

I disassembled and cleaned the throttle body, and replaced the shaft seals and the coolant gasket. There was lots of good advice here that made this pretty painless, such as remembering to strike a line across your springs so you can wind them back the correct amount, and to grind down the peened-over throttle plate screws to help with removal.

Throttle Body Seal.

Throttle Body Coolant Gasket.

 

[nils302]

On to the re-wiring:
First off, a huge thanks to Brad at Sheridan Engineering for kitting together all of the OEM style connectors. He was great to deal with, offered me tons of advice and help, and is very reasonable on the cost for everything. Apart from the connector kit, I scrounged up 18 and 16 AWG stranded TEFZEL wire, open barrel splices, heat shrink tubing, loom, high temp electrical tape, and slowly started plugging away one connector at a time.

I pulled out the solenoid rack and started working on that first. It was nice beginning with this small harness as I was able to get familiar with the crimp connectors and re-pinning each terminal while being able to work comfortably at the bench. I was also able to eliminate the solenoid and wiring for the EGR system at the same time (Brad’s kit included pin plugs for empty terminals in the OEM connectors).

Next I moved on to the MAF connector. Once I started de-pinning this one, I was surprised to find that the wire and terminals were still in real good shape. The crimped ends of the wires had nice shiny copper with no signs of corrosion, and the insulation was still colorful and flexible under the loom. The only real bad part was the connector itself, which had a broken lock tab and wire boot retainer. So I decided to replace the connector only on this one and just moved the original wires over.

After that I replaced the old knock sensor with an OEM unit that I got from 3SX.

 

[nils302]

Then on to the real fun stuff: making pigtails out of my new connectors and splicing them into the engine harness. I started with the end of the line that runs across the forward cylinder bank. This part contains the cam and crank sensors, the front three injectors, and an O2 sensor connector. Most of them are straight forward, I clip off the old connector, and progressively cut back along the wire until I find supple insulation and clean copper. I’m crimping all my junctions with open barrel splices, so I strip away about an 1/8th of an inch from each wire, dab it in dielectric grease, then crimp it and heat shrink it.

The O2 sensor was a pain in the ass because two of the four wires are a shielded pair. It wasn’t hard finding the replacement wire, but pulling back the shielding braid, crimping, shrinking, re-meshing the braids, and shrinking again made for a lot of layers. It all managed to remain nice and flexible though, so hopefully it won’t give me any problems down the road.

Which is where I stand today. The front portion of the harness is complete with tape and loom, ready to go back in the harness holder –after I 3D print a new one.

I still have to do the rest of the connectors hanging on the bracket near the thermostat housing, along with the TPS connector, and the rear fuel injector connector and sub-harness. After that, I’ll have a boost gauge and fuel pressure gauge that I need to run to the cabin so I can monitor those once I finally get the car off the stands and start driving again. Fingers-crossed that’ll happen before the Street View car comes through my neighborhood again.

 

[w1pebphavvr4]

Great inspiration and perseverance on the vehicle. It's great to still see people heavily involved in these cars and its even better for newer guys like me who is starting to jump into to see stuff like this. Can't wait for the day you finish!

 

[Noobi]

Well done, nice to see!
I noticed that you labeled the white wires with the color they replaced. Just a heads up to make sure that label does not fade with time/heat/oil

 

[nils302]

Great inspiration and perseverance on the vehicle. It's great to still see people heavily involved in these cars and its even better for newer guys like me who is starting to jump into to see stuff like this. Can't wait for the day you finish!

Thanks man. I can't wait either. There's a lot of competing priorities going on, but there's also a lot of laziness on my part. I shouldn't be going to bed before 10pm on a Saturday while there's still work to be done

Well done, nice to see!
I noticed that you labeled the white wires with the color they replaced. Just a heads up to make sure that label does not fade with time/heat/oil

Yeah I was sure to make all my labels on a laser printer, that should keep it from fading over time. I actually have a big sheet of them I made in Excel, I use an exacto knife to cut them out one at a time as needed. We'll see if the clear tubing I picked stands the test of time. I was sure to buy Raychem for the black stuff that is actually supporting the wire spices, but the clear that I found was just the Chinese Special on Amazon.

 

[Warzone]

Great work so far. keep it up

 

[familyMAN]

Impressive!

 

[nils302]

I kept clipping back a bunch of the oil pressure switch wire to find un-corroded copper. Which means I had to tear into the intake and coolant lines so I could access more of the main harness. Removed pre-turbo pipes, rear turbo intercooler pipe/hose, radiator lines, coils, front bank plug wires, and the PTU.

After that I was able to get all three wires for connector B-06, which has the oil pressure switch wire, oil pressure gauge unit wire, and power steering pressure switch wire.

Lots of cleaning followed as well. It looks like all of the camshaft endcap seals are bad, so it’ll only be a matter of time before it gets all dirty again. I’ll live with those until it’s time to do the timing belt next.

While I have all these parts out, I’ll rerun all the vacuum lines as well since a bunch of them are still the originals.

 

[nils302]

Messing around with the vacuum lines and I came across an open port on the gearbox. Does anyone know if I'm missing a plug here? Is this just an inspection port for the clutch?

 

[familyMAN]

Looks like fun. Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mdcrose]

There is normally a breather boot/grommet that goes in that hole.

Tranny Breather OEM New Bell Housing Clutch Vent 3000GT Stealth

The world's oldest and largest 3000GT and Dodge Stealth Source for Performance, Maintenance, and Service

www.3sx.com

 

[nils302]

There is normally a breather boot/grommet that goes in that hole.

Tranny Breather OEM New Bell Housing Clutch Vent 3000GT Stealth

The world's oldest and largest 3000GT and Dodge Stealth Source for Performance, Maintenance, and Service

www.3sx.com

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. I dismissed it because I saw that I had that breather installed in the forward port. I didn't realize there was more than one.

 

[nils302]

Wiring just won't quit! So many connections...
Rear fuel injector harness.

Main harness.

Finally completed this one. That's is all the sensors/injectors running across the front cylinder bank, all the sensors up around the throttle body, on the gearbox, and up to the solenoid rack. I still have a few more to do along the firewall, but almost there. Then I can start putting everything back together!

She's daddy's little helper now. Pretty sure she couldn't walk when I put the car up on stands for the re-wire

 

[nils302]

There’s a few connectors left in the kit that are not installed, but the original factory ones still look like they’re in good shape, so I figure it’s best to leave them at this point. Which means I’m finally turning the corner on this maintenance “session” and actually putting parts back into the car. I rerouted the main harness and attached it to its keepers on the gearbox so it’ll remain clear of the shift linkages. I also took this opportunity to install the PTU and coil pack, since I remember how much of a pain those are once you have all the air and coolant lines in place on that side of the motor.

Before it got too crowded with bigger pipes and tubes, I also replaced the four vacuum lines that lead to the front turbo wastegate and all the EVAP equipment. I’m using some thick-wall, high-temp silicon tubing from Amazon. Hopefully it’ll last another 25+ years. I was actually surprised, all of the original tubing in this region was still nice and supple and without any apparent cracks.

I was able to get a good look and feel on the impeller of the forward turbo as well. Looks to be in real good shape. No oil, no shaft play at all, and no FOD hits on any of the blades.

To wrap things up in this corner of the engine bay, I attached the new connectors to the plugs on the PTU, coil pack, and coolant sensors in the fill tube body. Made sure all my blue rags were pulled from each air/coolant line, cleaned up the incoming lines, and brought in the upper and lower radiator lines, and the cross tube from the driver’s side intercooler.

That’s it for now. Pretty happy about bringing parts back in. Next is to setup the parts washer so I can get cleaning on the upper and lower intake manifold. I want to place the upper manifold with the throttle body into position so I can do a one-for-one replacement of all of those vacuum lines next. I won’t be installing it permanently at this point as I’m going to want to run the motor over a bit with all six plugs out so I can get the oil system primed up before the initial start. Will be a good time for a compression check as well.