OK it is in but not without me making two critical dumba$$ mistakes , I will say the job was about what I expected minus the dumba$$ mistakes. I have a scissor lift so for you guys doing this on ramps I salute you
. OK so to start I put the top in service mode, remove engine cover and marvel for a moment looking at " the beast "
So now I proceed to dumba$$ mistake number one and that happened when I went to remove the top accordian hose from the AOS . I thought ( not much thinking took place ) that these fittings unscrewed ! Quickly learned that is not the case as I twisted the one end of the accordian hose right off of the elbow
So for you first timers the clamps squeeze and pull straight back.
I paused for a moment and I think I heard laughing from the north........probably Jake laughing at me for the dumba$$ move
Not much I can do so I proceeded to removing the AOS . As others have said I removed the rear passenger side tire and while access is tight if you scrape enough layers of skin off your arms fit just fine
Removed the AOS, looked it over for a minute, cussed a few words at it then proceeded to installing the new one . I put some oil on the o-ring on the block fitting and some oil on the bellows and proceeded to install it . Some more arm scraping and I had everything lined up and started installing the mounting screws. Got them both started and slowly tightened them while " gently " prying the AOS tube into the block. Voila she's in !!! I had made sure the bellows was lined up and now jambed my hand up there, and started working the bellows over the block nipple and got it done. I thought to myself well that wasn't too bad..........and then it hit me........dumba$$ mistake number two .
My shiny new S.S. clamp for the bellows was on the ground next to my foot
Yep I forgot to loosely install the clamp onto the bellows before installing the AOS . So I examined it for a few minutes , briefly had thoughts of putting a rag in the gas cap and lighting it but quickly came to my senses.
So for aprox. one hour I tried to get that friggen clamp started and FINALLY it started........yeah buddy !!!! Tightened it down and all is good . So now the AOS is 98 % installed but I have to figure out something for that top hose. I milled around my stash-o-crap and found some shrink tubing that was just large enough to slide over the accordian tubing and the elbow . I place a small bead of high temp O2 sensor safe silicone on the two butt joints of the tubing AND on the outside of the tubing and elbow. Made sure the " clocking " was correct and fired up the heat gun . Two minutes later the repair was done . I was careful not to overheat and it shrunk down nicely. Got a nice bead of squeeze out this baby should not leak . Cleaned up the squeeze out and then grabbed some electrical tape . Went from one end to the other three times making sure good overlap on each wrap . Finished it off with three zip ties to make sure nothing unravels .
She is now 100 % done. To be extra safe I am waiting the full 24 hour cure time before firing her up . I'll let you know the results tomorrow .
Start to finish it took me 4 hours but without the two mistakes probably could do it again in 2.5 hours or so . Jake has told me he's had AOS failures right out of the box !