frag

One other solution I tried last summer. Drill holes into the sheilds near the junctions. Screw in metal screws (the point of which I had previously dulled on my bench grinder) till they exert some pressure on the exhaust (inside) pipe. When you buy the metal screws the appropriate size hole to be drilled is written on the package. Pipes had been silent for months but part of the noise came back recently. Had a look and a couple of screws seem to have loosened and fell off cause of the vibrations. I think the absolute fix would be those screws + a dab of high temp epoxy or + a spot weld to freeze them in place.

Come on! Dont be scared to be scared!

I woud'nt hurt to have a look at the coolant in the overflow reservoir. In case there is already some oil in there...

Thanks, I'll try the pop it out route.

Street parking is a jungle. This morning my car front bumper had been bashed in on the driver's side corner. There was a round hollow about 5 inches across and 2-3 inches deep. Noting apparently broken ( no cracks) Is this repairable (can it pop out) or am I looking at a new or used bumper skin?

Since I have a manual, i put some in the rear diff four years ago. All I can say is it does'nt leak. Does it perform better? I have no way of knowing. I put synt everywhere I can (engine, trans, power steering, diff). Makes be feel good.

Look on the fornt of the driver's side strut tower. I think their might be a pressure sensor there with a wire and vac hose connected to it. Maybe you disconnected something there while playing with the air box. Just a hunch.

Welcome to the board and please keep in touch. There are at least a couple of people here extremely competent in car audio. They should answer your post soon. Take care.

Cookie, I had'nt seen your post. Sorry for the repetition.

You might be right but maybe, with the thermostat out, your engine never reaches temperatures able to make the head gaskets leak. These kind of leaks happen only when the engine reaches a certain level of temperature. It's still cold outside right now in Nova Scotia, but when summer comes maybe things will be different. Good luck and hope you're right.

And there are some vac hoses around the filter box. Maybe one of them got disconnected in the process.

Look at the hatch hinges where the wires going to the hatch pass. My guess is that some of those wires are broken. Look closely cause sometimes it's hard to tell cause the wires insulation hides part of the damage.

I know it's too late for you now fJ but for others, like me, who read all the posts, one tool that's very good to remove stubborn phillips head screws is a manual impact driver. It's about six or seven inches long, heavy, takes all kinds of screwdriver bits and is operated by striking it's butt with a hammer. Striking it while holding firmly in hands makes it turn a fraction of a revolution while preventing the bit from getting of the screw head's indentation and rounding it off. I think you can get such a tool in most tool stores.

Edit: A quick once over of the site seems to show that they have nothing for the Mac (only Windows and Palm). But you might give it a closer look. Good luck.

You might find what you're looking for here : http://www.ghg.net/dharrison/obdscan.html

Moreover, the beauty of this test is that it's a real world test: it takes into account the weight of the car, and the relative pressures of front and rear tires. It tells you what really happens when you car is moving.

If you want to assess if the viscous coupling (man trans) or clutch pack (AT) has been abused, there's an easy way if you can bring the car on an empty or partly empty parking lot or on a small stretch of calm street : put a chalk mark on the side of a front anr rear tire where they contact the ground. Drive the car forward in a straight line for approx 40 revolutions of the wheels. If the tires circumferences are close to 1/4 of an inch apart, the two marks will be 10 inches apart, very easy to see.

He he... no I have'nt found the time to do it yet. But soon...

You dont have to replace the flywheel unless you wore the clutch plate to the rivets. You could have it resurfaced though.

The pressure generated by exhaust gas getting into the cooling system could be responsible for that leak. Maybe there was already a small crack that got bigger and/or wider Exhaust gas gets into the cooling system and push the coolant out into the overflow reservoir.

I'm not absolutely sure but i think those marks are only relative. They help to put back things together without altering the camber adjustment. I dont think each mark refers to a precise camber angle.

Man or AT?

I think this adjustment was made at the factory and must no be tampered with.

Thanks a million to both of you. Feel more confident now. Will report back when done.

My hypotheses: 1) the car was hard to start cause excess fuel (present at startup: choke effect) was still present in the cylinder (mild flooded condition) because of the brief time the engine had been running previously. 2) the slapping noise was due to part of this excess fuel running down the cylinder walls and removing the oil that usually sticks there until next startup.