LOL - tks Carl! I do have the manual but have been forgetting to read it! Plus I hate the way it's laid out. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me and I end up clicking around not finding what I need. I just need to buy the hardcover and be done with it.
My oil pressure has always been fine. I suspect this may have happened before I bought the car and I just aggravated the damage with boost. I'm a real freak about watching my gauges and have never lost pressure since day 1 of post-install.
Well today was a full day of wrenching. One thing I've noticed is that I'm too damn nice. My "help" showed up at about 3:30 in time to hold the pry bar while I re-torqued the flywheel and pressure plate and "helped" me get the tranny back into the bay. However he couldn't stick around long enough to help me get the tranny mated back up to the block. Fucker. I can't tell you how many full days I've put in on his projects at the expense of side-lining my own. Big props to my wife Mindy for helping get the tranny lined up and bolted in. I gotta quit helping folks for free and start charging. /rant
Anyway, let's rewind to about 1000 this morning. Had a peek inside my oil pickup.
Hmmmm.... What's that mess?
Looks like I found where my leak gremlin keeps his collection of random shit that tries to flow through my oil pump.
Blech. This looks like little black fish eggs.
Look at all the bearing crap in the bottom of my pan. Thank God I caught this in time. It could have really been more disastrous than it already is.
Tranny is about ready to come out. Note that in order to get it out of the top, you have to remove the water neck, like so. I rigged a little siphon up to get the coolant out of the back line so it wouldn't keep dripping down on to the tranny as well. You also have to remove the pressure plate (FW can stay on) and detach the passenger tranny mount from the frame rail to have enough room to lift it out.
I was on the phone, cradling it in my shoulder, when I pulled the tranny out of the top of the car. It only weighs about 40 pounds so it's not that bad.
Like I said before, you don't have to pull the tranny to get the bearing codes off the block, they're visible from the starter hole. Mine are CBCBC in case you're curious. But since I was almost there anyway, I took the tranny off because I wanted to do a poor man's re-surface on the flywheel and pressure plate to get rid of those hot spots. Here are some before and afters.
I love my die grinder. It's bliss. It should be fine as I barely put any pressure on the grinder to resurface them. I doubt it will cause me any problems and if it does, they can be replaced.
My axle is so long.
I attacked the tranny with a drill-powered wire brush, and like I mentioned before, had my wife work the jack while I got the input shaft lined up and the tranny bolted in.
And then I simply ran out of time to keep going. I pulled the codes off the crank to order the new bearings, greased everything up and picked some of my tools up. I leave for Germany for a week tomorrow so it will sit like this until I get back.
What a mess!
