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Looks like i missed alot already today. Glad to see you got most sorted. Would definitely check your grounds first, 2nd check to make sure your connections are dry. Coolant can be worse than water. Takes much longer to dry out. If you find a connection saturated would recommend cleaning it with electrical contact cleaner since coolant has oil in it.
Tried cleaning up the ground wire and worked my way around the harness. It’s Sunday and I am going to relax and watch some football. Cleaned up the garage, put away the tools and the car ran just well enough to get it back into its spot in the garage so my wife can get her car back in there. Happy wife, happy life. The plugs were wet in the back for sure, but I can’t get to them without removing the intake again. Given tomorrow I am working, I will just let it sit a day or two and try it one more time. It is a long shot, but certainly possible.
I did find two youtube video's tonight that clearly show the order on the coil pack connections and I had it right. Of course, I changed it to make it wrong when I went in there this morning. This at least eliminates this as the issue. I am more of the thinking that it's the electrical plugs shorting out from the radiator fluid spraying all over them. I am going to get electrical contact cleaner, as suggested. Let it sit another day and then go in there and clean the contacts on the connectors and re-inspect everything on the driver side. I am getting pretty efficient at this now. LOL. Just happy the valve covers are looking good as that was a lot of work.
Last edited by Jim Stephens; 12-30-2019 at 05:40 AM.
I cleaned up everything on the driver side today. Very slow and meticulous with contact cleaner on all the electrical connections and ensuring they were all dry. I then rechecked the plugs and coil packs. Put it all back together, started up, no luck. I finally decided to break down and set up an appointment for a tow truck to take the car to the Z shop next Monday to look at it and went to dinner. When I came back and I just kept googling and looking up error codes etc. One of the codes was P0300 which is misfiring. Who needs a code for that? Pretty obvious raw fuel dieseling motor..LOL I found a guy with a video where he had just done a valve cover replacement and was experiencing the same code and problem. He had wrapped shrink wrap around the plenum seal between the upper and the lower and then showed that a vacuum leak can cause the motor to misfire badly. Makes sense, to much air getting into the mixture. Hmmm. So, off to the kitchen and some shrink wrap. My wife thinks I am crazy at this point. I put it all around the plenum, hopped in and started the motor. Sure enough, the motor was running great!!!! I called my son down and walked him through it and said I thought I had heard a hissing noise like he described in his video at the front of the plenum. So, I took off the left side and then the right. Motor still running good. I take off the front and then I hear the hissing and by chance(pretty dark even in the garage) I bump my finger near the noise and....ready for this....the vacuum hose on the passenger side of the front plenum is not attached!!! Victory!!! It is fixed!! I now get how sensitive and big a deal this is! OK, a bit embarrassing, but I don't care, it works! Awesome. I was so focused on the electrical because of some of the other codes it was throwing and the water issue, I did not consider other possibilities and frankly have no experience with vacuum hoses and how they affect the car. Now I do. By the way, my OBDII does not even mention vacuum leaks as a possible cause(see previous post with picture).
Here is the video that got me thinking about vacuum leaks...
I am taking the car tomorrow for a road test to be sure. My son, says he wants to see it start again tomorrow to declare victory! LOL. I have not told him, but we have one more "small" project to do which is our first oil change since we were in the engine with these valve covers.
Last edited by Jim Stephens; 12-30-2019 at 05:38 PM.
Don't tell my wife, but my next project is putting on some Bilstein or Kona shocks and upgraded sway bars..… Thinking at least a two to six week pause before I go after that. Work gets super busy after the holidays. Brakes are still on the list, but probably will come after the suspension. They are good enough for the street at the moment.
Many codes that come up are easier to diagnose with experience. Most of the probable fixes that we were told to tell the customer when i worked for autozone were usually not the fix. Fortunately most of the time i would have the customer look for certain things first before buying a part and depending on the code give them a printout of the part and price of what i figured it would be. Many random misfires and lean codes are vacuum derived.
Very glad you were able to get it solved and a major victory to put in your book.
Many codes that come up are easier to diagnose with experience. Most of the probable fixes that we were told to tell the customer when i worked for autozone were usually not the fix. Fortunately most of the time i would have the customer look for certain things first before buying a part and depending on the code give them a printout of the part and price of what i figured it would be. Many random misfires and lean codes are vacuum derived.
Very glad you were able to get it solved and a major victory to put in your book.
Yeah, I now have to call the Z store and take back my appointment to go see them, without offending them, as I really do want to maintain a good relationship with the shop. Also, it is worth noting, as I am certain you know very well, I learned there is like a laundry list of things that can cause misfires, from like coils, sparkplugs, vacuum and many other things! I almost went with the Coil idea and went out and bought new coils just to give it a try. I think it is funny that the problem was solved with about 1 penny of cost with saran wrap. LOL.
Last edited by Jim Stephens; 12-31-2019 at 06:40 AM.
Happy New Years!! My son and I took out the car today for its first test run. The car ran great! He spent a long time in the parking lot learning how to drive that stick. Fun time!! We also got some seat covers that we put in. Pretty nice for.the money.
Another beautiful day here in Texas. Winter time here produces some really perfect cool clear days. My son and I went out to a SCCA event where you run against the clock and was hosted at the Police Academy. This looks like a great starting point for my son and I. The good news is that the car can have two people in it and the even better news, not confirmed, but it looks like he can drive the car with his learners permit, so long as I am in the car with him. If that isn't the case, at least he can ride along with me in the event and they for sure will let him drive the car when he is 16. Some of the other events I have been checking out require you to be at least 18 years old to run. So, I am going to need two drivers helmets and to pay some fees to join. We will shoot to do this next month weather and car permitting. Should be a good way to start out. Looks like a blast!
Spokes Car Club in Austin and the Texas A&M Sports Car Club are some other venues for Autocross. We used to live in Cypress and would autocross two to three times a month, back in the day.
Where did you get the seat covers? Was thinking about something similar but with a blue stripe. My seats are in pretty good shape but I leave the top down on my Z Roadster and leather gets damn hot in the Georgia Sun.
Spokes Car Club in Austin and the Texas A&M Sports Car Club are some other venues for Autocross. We used to live in Cypress and would autocross two to three times a month, back in the day.
Where did you get the seat covers? Was thinking about something similar but with a blue stripe. My seats are in pretty good shape but I leave the top down on my Z Roadster and leather gets damn hot in the Georgia Sun.
I hear ya on the heat. Thanks for the tip on the other clubs, I will check them out. The seats are from CoverKing.com. They sell them through numerous websites. I happened to check on the Costco website and they sell the exact ones I wanted. They definitely have blue. Coverking has two less expensive brands you can pick from. They have Neoprene and NeoSupreme. Neoprene(what I bought) is a wetsuit material and is of much higher quality than NeoSupreme. Yeah, counter intuitive. Marketing. Costco has by far the cheapest place to buy Neoprene seat covers.. Hope that helps out.
My only hesitation is the seats felt a bit warm on a recent drive and it is winter. Hmm. The wetsuit material neoprene is used to keep surfers warm. I used to surf in my younger years on the West Coast. So while durable and nice looking at a great price, I am questioning how well these covers will breathe in the summer. Time will tell.
Last edited by Jim Stephens; 01-06-2020 at 05:18 PM.
I've been busy on Stitch as well. Brake parts are ordered. Sway bar will have to wait until later., Got another set of stock 17's - going to run a 245/45/17 square setup.
I've been busy on Stitch as well. Brake parts are ordered. Sway bar will have to wait until later., Got another set of stock 17's - going to run a 245/45/17 square setup.
12-29-2019, 09:27 AM
