My Red '97

[BruceH]

Huge difference

[78F350]

The Dansk muffler is going to go on this car, but first I want to fix the basic problems. It looks like the oil leaks are fixed, but there's still some coolant getting away.

I had thought that the problem was related to the oil cooler and hoses to the coolant tank. I finally got the kinked coolant hose replaced. That part of the system looked good. I could have replaced all of the clamps and hoses while I was there, but the others don't seem to be having a problem.


When all the parts were back together, I went to a car wash to rinse the underside of the engine and transmission. With most of the residual oil cleaned off I drove the car for about 30 miles; carefully at first keeping it to about 3K rpm, then doing some good runs up to 6k rpm after I gained confidence in it.


All was going great until the coolant temp light started blinking, indicating a low coolant level. Only about a mile from home, I continued - keeping an eye on the temp to make sure it didn't rise. Back at the garage, I found that the tank and associated hoses looked good, but coolant was on the plastic 'belly panels' forward of the engine. There's probably a bad hose going to the radiators or heater core. I plan to address that later this week. ...and that's a great opportunity to replace the fuel filter.

[78F350]

I think the leaks are fixed now. One of the main coolant hoses from the engine to the radiators had a hole that leaked under pressure. The fuel filter is tucked in where the coolant hoses go forward, so it was easy to replace while I was there. I drained some fuel into a jar to see how dirty it was. Glad I replaced it.


I drove it around town and took it to work tonight. No sign of leaks; oil or coolant. Looking down from my office... That's a lot of red.


There's plenty of things to take care of next. Too much to list to make the car 'right', but for now the only thing I feel urgency about is replacing the rear tires. I kind of like the 16" wheels on it and will probably keep them. Most likely I'll find some inexpensive daily-driver tires to make it safe and swap a set of 17s on if I ever feel the need to 'drive beyond' the cheap 16s.