This weekend, I finally got tired of tripping over shit in my garage. I hadn’t planned on actually living up to my agreement with Vanessa about making room for her Amigo in there next to 195, but it ended up being the case. The garage organization details are over on the other site, however, as this site is all about the Galants. A clean garage is a place in which you enjoy spending time and what better way to spend time in your garage than tinkering on your Galant VR4?
195/2000 Update.
Last time anything really happened on 195, I was swapping the wagon wheels back onto it with a set of lightly used Hankooks. The battery was dead and wouldn’t take a jump, so I had to push it back into its spot when I was done swapping tires around with my beloved ccordless impact gun. This weekend, I took that battery to Autozone and let them charge it for me. Dropped it in and, wouldn’t ya know it, 195 fired right up. Idle is a bit nasty since there’s no intake plumbing between the MAF, turbo and throttle body at the moment (also no intercooler), but it still runs well enough to sneak in a couple trips around the block when nobody’s looking. I even shot a very poor quality video with the Blackberry (as the battery was dying) of 195 idling away in the garage and put it up on YouTube.
Remember Engine No. 2?
I bought 195/2000 with a siezed engine in it. Upon pulling that engine out and running a Carfax on the VIN, I found that it had originally been installed in a 92 Eclipse GSX (about which Carfax was kind enough to try and warn me). I called this “Engine No. 2” as I hoped that there hadn’t been another engine replacement prior to this one being driven into the ground. Anyway, that engine has been in my way (and in the way of others kind enough to sort of store it for me from time to time) and it’s not responded well to any method I’ve tried to un-sieze it. I’ve tried soaking the pistons in PB’laster, I’ve unbolted the rod caps and beat the shit out of the pistons from above with a 5lb sledge, I’ve slipped a pry bar under the pistons and beat on that with my 5lb sledge and nothing has worked. Guess the engine really did sit with coolant in the cylinders for two years before I bought the car!
Are those the nastiest set of main bearings you’ve seen in a long time or what?
Let me start by saying, I have never had an engine block smell so foul in all my life. This engine cooked real good before it finally locked up on the dumb shit who drove it into the ground. Then it sat for years on end before I yanked it out, then it sat a few more years before this weekend, when I finally decided to try and remove the crankshaft from it. I figured, if the pistons are junk and the cylinders are too far gone to be bored out, maybe the crank will still be salvageable, leaving me with something I might be able to use one day as something more than an obstacle in the course that is often my garage.
With the girdle out, it was time to finally remove that crankshaft!
Well, almost. I forgot there’s a piece that holds what might have been a rear main seal at some point on one end and that you also have to remove the crank sprocket from the other before you can lose the front case and lift out the crankshaft, but those shouldn’t be too hard, right? After all, these bits are just bolted to the ends of the block and have nothing to do with the rotating assembly being locked up. The marvelous cordless impact gun made short work of the two balance shaft sprockets on the front case, but that single bolt holding the crank sprocket in place held its ground and, despite much sweating, grunting, twenty minutes under a torch, and no small amount of swear words, stayed securely in place, leaving me fed up and moving the entire lump of likely worthless boat anchor candidacy to the bottom shelf of the TV cart I keep in the garage under the bench for working on the mower and other things of that size.
Even so, progress was made this weekend!
With the garage all cleaned up and organized, I was able to park 195 out on the street for most of Saturday afternoon while I finally got around to replacing some blown speakers in 464! Between various parts cars I’ve had over the years, I’ve managed to amass a decent little collection of aftermarket speakers, so I thought this would be the perfect time to yank those blown wizzer cones in the daily driver. Too bad I managed to lose two somewhere along the way, resulting in my actually installing two different speakers in the front doors of 464. I know I’ll find the others eventually, so I’ll just match up the first set I can complete. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with the two pairs of 6X9s I have left from Daisy. Maybe I’ll have to modify the rear deck to accept that size. Hmmm… stock or better speakers. This will take some thought.
Speaking of 464/1000, we had a special occasion recently…
On May 26th, 464/1000 finally rolled over 150,000 miles. Not bad for a 17 year old car, eh? We celebrated by tripping the check engine light for an EGR malfunction. I replaced the vacuum line that came loose on the EGR valve, but didn’t disconnect the battery to reset it yet. Meh. I’ll get around to it one of these days. Maybe I’ll troubleshoot/bleed the ABS system while I’m at it.
A successful weekend, imo.
With the fort all cleaned up, it was nice to drive the cars in (under their own power, all of them, for once) and do a little tinkering with Pandora playing and the fan blowing the cool breeze where it was needed. 464 got some new speakers, which means I’ll no longer have to grit my teeth when old factory speakers crack and pop during my favorite tunes, and 195 got a freshly charged battery, a buddy to keep it company at night, and even a bath!
So what’s next?
I’m thinking I’d like to pull the engine and transmission back out of 195 so I can better reinforce the joints where the new radiator support was grafted on last summer. I also need to graft in the lower crossmember mounting boxes that are missing on the support since it came off a FWD Galant. With the engine out, it will be easier for me to re-do the wiring harness to be ready for the auxillary lighting I’ll be installing for rally duty, and I can see about fabbing up some proper intercooler piping for the SRT4 FMIC I’ve got while I’m getting creative in the engine bay.
This all has to wait a bit, though, as I’ve got some work to do on 464 (air conditioning, sunroof replacement), as well as Keith’s X/2000 (no badge) and rally car. Those details in another post, though.
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