My '95 Caprice Classic STW, "Sally"

[Arquemann]

New O2 sensors are in aswell as the flange gasket between the passenger manifold and dogalytic converter.
Idle got quieter, seemingly no more smell in the cabin, but there's still the normal exhaust leak ts-ts-ts-tst-ts-ts sound when accelerating heavier.
When dropping the car off, I said to the mechanic to leave the manifold gasket be if that's what's leaking. I don't want to pay if they start breaking bolts in the head. But I didn't have the chance to talk to said mechanic when retrieving the car.

My guess is that the manifold gasket is leaking under heavier throttle. I have a spare gasket too, but the question is that do I dare try and open the manifold bolts on this 28 year old, 365k km rusty pile of Chevy... Iron heads and iron manifolds though.

Hopefully tomorrow's weather will allow me to reinstall the interior.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yes, that "tuft tuft tuft" sound is one of the exhaust manifold gaskets. You could probably get away with snuggin' the bolts, what I did with my '89 K1500. They were loose around cylinder #1 and so that was leaking. Also, that's no rusty pile of Chevy, it's actually a pretty clean car for nearly 30 years old. My dad's old '70 'Cuda had holes in the quarter panels at just eight years old.

[Arquemann]

Yes, that "tuft tuft tuft" sound is one of the exhaust manifold gaskets. You could probably get away with snuggin' the bolts, what I did with my '89 K1500. They were loose around cylinder #1 and so that was leaking. Also, that's no rusty pile of Chevy, it's actually a pretty clean car for nearly 30 years old. My dad's old '70 'Cuda had holes in the quarter panels at just eight years old.

To me it is a rusty car. If it has holes, they either need to be fixed or the car will end up off the road at the next annual inspection. This car having a frame, body rust isn't as critical inspection-wise, so fenders or door bottoms could have little holes without the inspector getting anal.
Keeping rust holes at bay doesn't mean every damn suspension and undercarriage bolt hasn't become one with what surrounds it. Good example was the front shocks where the lower captive nuts just disintegrated and started spinning, or the fuel tank strap that just let go off the body a while ago.

Clean for the age, yes. The body is oddly good considering I've found atleast 5 patches in the frame.

[sly]

Definitely wanna use a lot of penetrating oil on those bolts/nuts over a few weeks before trying to mess with them. Exhaust manifold bolts/studs are not fun to deal with.

[Arquemann]

Interior is buttoned up again. Bitumin mat on the front floors and trans tunnel plus leftovers in couple spots in the rear. There's two layers of the insulation felt mat in the footwells, one layer elsewhere. I tried to put two layers everywhere, but it would be too thick and the carpet most likely wouldn't sit properly anymore. Sprayglued the piss out of the insulation so it wouldn't bunch up underneath when I slid the carpet under the dash. Trans hump could've maybe had another layer, the carpet is bit loose there. Shuffling the seats and carpet in and out is hard work, jeez. And I'm outta shape. The rubber-backed carpet is probably 15-20 kg, one heavy and awkward sob to handle.

Managed to snug up a few of the exhaust manifold bolts/nuts. Haven't driven it yet but didn't seem to make a difference. Also access to said bolts on the pass. side is absolutely miserable. Gonna think long and hard if I want to replace the gasket. Heat shields are sharp and awfully in the way. EGR and A.I.R. pipes are probably rusted solid and the alternator needs to come off for access.

[Arquemann]

Snugging up the manifold bolts did make a difference, the chuffing sound is now only heard on higher rpm and higher load. So it definitely is the manifold gasket that's leaking.
And as I've somewhat come to expect of this car, fixing something results in some stupid consequence:

Now that the exhaust is pretty sealed, there's a certain small RPM range where the exhaust causes a pretty loud boomy resonance in the car, which has never happened before.
Sometimes I can hear it on accel, but it's obvious at a slight incline / higher load at about 102-104 km/h indicated. I thought maybe my freshly installed sound deadening made things weird, but the bitumin should definitely reduce resonances and the overall amount of deadening did not decrease, also the resonance seems to come from the trunk area.

Fun.

[Arquemann]

A while back I added some Lubegard Shudder Fix to the trans, mostly for giggles, stuff was on discount. Surprisingly it seems to have improved the jerky converter lockup by quite alot. From annoying to almost non-concerning.

I'm completely sick of the center brake light, it's such a piece of shit. It has a mind of it's own, it works when it wants to. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, sometimes it starts working after driving a while. And now it won't even work after fixing it, cleaning the contacts (which is the issue) works maybe a third of the time.

Oiled the locks and siliconed the door seals. Getting into the car is pretty handy for going places.

[Arquemann]

I'm completely sick of the center brake light, it's such a piece of shit. It has a mind of it's own, it works when it wants to. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, sometimes it starts working after driving a while. And now it won't even work after fixing it, cleaning the contacts (which is the issue) works maybe a third of the time.

Well, it turns out the center brake light is a mandatory thing only on vehicles registered after 1.10.2000, so I could legally throw it out.

But, it is genuinely an important safety feature, especially since the car has red rear turn signals, which aren't too common in Finland, and I feel like people's brain functions have just become totally conditioned to seeing brake lights. Don't want to get rear ended.

Quite a dilemma, to be safer or get to stop fucking with the POS light.

[friskyfrankie]

Would a replacement help or is it a wiring issue?

[Arquemann]

Would a replacement help or is it a wiring issue?

It's a corrosion issue, there's 3 pairs of poorly spring loaded contact points, all in close proximity to the seal on the back glass so things get constantly exposed to humidity.

[friskyfrankie]

It's a corrosion issue, there's 3 pairs of poorly spring loaded contact points, all in close proximity to the seal on the back glass so things get constantly exposed to humidity.

Any chance of cleaning and then putting some dielectric compound on them?

[Arquemann]

Any chance of cleaning and then putting some dielectric compound on them?

Done that twice atleast, I do not understand how the corrosion creeps past even that stuff. I use a thin protectant / anti-corrosion oil as normal dielectric grease does a good job at insulating instead of protecting, the spring contacts are too weak to push the grease from between the contact points. A couple of the contacts get jarred around so grease isn't good there either.

I'm gonna tear it all apart one of these days, clean everything well and see how long it'll last.

[jaywish]

I think I would replace the contact with a piece of wire. I am sure, given the way the world works, that it is in an inconvenient place but you possibly could route it to someplace where it would not have to bridge too long of a gap or get pinched where the door shuts. Maybe run it in the rubber conduit that shields other wires for the door?

[Arquemann]

Here's the little POS. Everything but the bracket built into the latch is on the garage table now.
Power comes to the studs poking out the tailgate, but it really has a hard time after that...

Also I don't know long that latch is going to stay there anyways, the outside handle that the latch bolts through the glass to, has shit for threads, left side is already stripped and I doubt the right will hold too long either. The latch/handle pivots on the right bolt because I can't tighten the left, which makes the latching a bit funny sometimes because the latch alignment is "dynamic".

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, all that stuff looks rather crusty. The angry pixies don't like that. If my mechanical and frabricobble abilities were any good, I'd try to redo the prongs such that I ditched them for wires that ran incognito up to the light assembly like jaywish suggested. Really stupid design, makes me wonder if they revised it at some point.