chaseincats

Well gang, here's a topic that's been beat to death...but let's give it another swing shall we? I saw an old forum thread where a guy put a Halloween fog machine in his car and with all the windows up, turned it on which showed all the air leaks in the cabin. Specifically, he did it to find where exhaust was sneaking into the cabin when driving with the windows were down. I gave that a shot this evening and found that it is my taillight gaskets, but the strange thing is they are brand new from Motorsport. We even removed the black trim surrounds and bolted them back to the body and you can see the smoke sneaking around the gasket edges regardless of how tight we make the bolts holding the gasket to the body. The gaskets are reasonably squishy (I have no idea how gummy these are supposed to be but they are very pliable). I did notice that the plastic housing has raised bumps where the mounting bolts come through which would mean the gasket wouldn't be laying flush in the areas between these bolt bumps, right? Was I supposed to install these with gasket maker between the rubber gasket and housing?

Wish I still lived in CA - I'd be at his door at 8am tomorrow morning haha UPDATE: I bought some acorn-style lug nuts and noticed the wheel studs centering themselves as I tightened them. I then spun the wheels on jacks and the tred seemed to not wobble which is a good sign (although I never did this test before). I will take the car out this week and get a final answer if lugs are the solution.

Absolutely - glad it worked

How were you able to know the factory gear position? I didn’t think they were marked

Building on the above, did you ever try the acorn style lug nuts?

Well done! and let me also say that "percussive maintenance adjustments" is one of my new favorite phrases

Back when I lived in CA I took my car there too - great guys

I can do that and take a pic when I get home in an hour or so. What should I try/take a picture/video of @Zed Head

Mine would definitely hit the block of wood as they go around but I think it’s the wheels as some move not than others. I made my wobble better by finding which ones were more oblong than others and put them on the back. Maybe try his test and do the same?

Should I pop the top off the dist cap and spray some silicon lubricant in there and scoot the plate around a bit?

If I pop off the hose from the TB and suck on it, when I let go you hear the click of it snapping back in place. You also can't blow through the hose so the vacuum diaphragm is still holding air. I also put the timing light on it and pushed the throttle and you can see the timing advance immediately so they dist should be good.

Gotcha, the car has the original distributor so in that case I'm assuming I should put it back to 10? I came to 15 degrees because the car's idle changes periodically ever so slightly and twisting the dist to 15 (but not above) was the timing where the idle change happened the least. The idle change is so slight that the tach only barely moves if at all and the only way to notice it is using a vacuum gauge or your ear.

It will stumble/sometimes die if I do that which is good. I've also smoke tested the engine and its sealed up. It does have worn piston rings which is probably the main issue. Is 17-22 lbs a goal for vacuum in terms of having the engine run well or is it just a test to know engine health though. Basically should I return the timing to 10 degrees and 16lbs of vacuum or leave it at 15 so i have 17lbs?

Vacuum theory question for you. I was looking at the atlanticz vacuum measurement page and gave their test a shot. At idle with 10 degrees btcc timing per the FSM I'm sitting at around 16.25 lb of vacuum. The only way to get it into the 17-22 range (in this case to 17) is to advance the timing to 15 degrees at idle while configured to run at 800 rpm at idle. My question is, is vacuum lbs something to pursue or is it just a measurement. Basically asking should I leave my idle timing at 15 degrees so I can have 17 lbs of vacuum or put it back to 10 because vacuum is just a measurement for engine health and not a tuneup configuration point in the FSM like timing, valve lash, etc?

Good catch on the pitting but luckily that's just oil that had a couple of small bubbles in it from when I took the cap off (but you definitely did make me look twice haha). Since the car got a well needed oil change tonight, and in the interest of keeping as much of that oil in the engine as possible, I came up with an interim solution which I think should work: I grabbed some thick gasket paper and made a ring seal, placing it basically on top of the old rock hard one and being sandwiched between the oil cap and valve cover until I can find a replacement.

Arg I wonder if I am able to get the old one out, if I can just take it to home depot and says 'what fits in here'? haha

thezstore has replacement seals, you're just paying 20 bucks shipping for a 2 dollar piece of rubber

Yea the whole thing is powder coated minus the lettering of course. You might be right about that but what's done is done I guess.

Wow really? I'll get a flat head and hammer and try to bash it out or something tonight then. Could I just go to home depot and grab a thick oring if they have it in its stead? I really don't want to spend $20 to ship a 2 dollar part from thezstore haha

Both of my AFMs have been 5-pin so that makes sense as to why both have screws then

Just pulled the oil cap and it seems like there's neither an indentation on the valve cover nor in the oil cap. What looks like a seal is molded plastic and you can see on the lip where oils been sneaking out. I pulled my PCV valve and it's good - also the valve cover breathing hose is hooked up to the AFM boot so there shouldn't be any pressure building up in the valve cover to the point it would be blowing out of the cap which is what's really confusing...

I'm assuming all of ours have just hardened over the years and are no longer sealing

I'll give it a look tonight then and report back

I do but I closed it up. I can crack it open tonight and grab some pics.

Unless I never noticed because it's rock hard rubber. I'll check tonight and report back.