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Ok I put it off all winter and now we're back outside. Last year I had removed the underneath part of the dash and found the heater core bone dry so that was rewarding. We had a few good rain storms which washed the salt off the roads and I've been driving the car around. I've noticed a new puddle underneath the car after a drive, which was clear like water but oily like coolant. Today I got underneath the car and found that the car had in fact been dripping coolant from one of the heater hoses. Now that we have an active coolant leak I may as well start on the project.

I set the goal of draining the coolant today so I got started removing the plastic panels under the radiator. Here is after the chin spoiler was removed, which was just a few 8mm bolts.


The panel was held in with like 10 of these fasteners. I picked up a set of Icon super grippy needlenose pliers last year and they were great with these.


There is another trim panel just in front of the lower part of the radiator, which I had to remove to finally find the radiator petcock. It has a 19mm fitting but the easiest way I found to remove it was with pliers


When I opened it, the coolant trickled out so I undid the main rad hoses to release pressure and allow the coolant to gush out. Neither one really made this happen, and same with the coolant res cap. This is the lower rad hose, which is positioned just above the abs module, great


Lots of room with the airbox removed!


I had to remove the housing bracket for the cruise control to slide the airbox out


I decided to try to get the radiator out while I was at it. Over the winter a small coolant leak developed in one of the side tanks. I took out the crossmember above the radiator so I could get more room. This picture is how I accessed the bolts holding the AC condensor to the rad. I don't want to open up my AC system so I am going to leave the condensor in place. I was able to get to the bolts by removing the headlights and sliding them out of the way


I found this when moving the upper hose. Yuck


The passenger side of the two 10mm upper rad bolts. The ratcheting wrench was the only thing that fits here


This is a shot of the AC condensor brackets being free of the radiator assembly


Undoing the rans lines. The drivers side was a 19mm and this was a 22mm


I bagged them off to prevent contamination


And that's where I'm at now! I couldn't get the fans out. There is a bolt in the lower passenger side area that is being a pita. I can't get a good reach on it so I came inside to do some research on how to get it out. I have some swivel sockets and u joints I'll likely use to get it out, but for now I wanted to take a shower.

My plan is to remove as much stuff as I can and get an idea of what the car needs. Looks like we're already doing valve cover gaskets. There is a record of the coolant crossover pipe being done in 2021 so that's cool. When I removed the lower rad hose there was this super gross black coolant coming out of the thermostat(?) side of the hose, so that's great. I have a ton of new parts and I'm going to try to remove and clean as much stuff as I can.

OK, back at it today. Here's the bolt. Pretty easy to see, just look at it



Here are my tools


Got it. So annoying


But then the fans still wouldn't come out! I poked around with a flashlight and there is a bit of fan shroud plastic that extends out underneath the fittings for the oil cooler return. So I had to do this


Before finally slipping it up and out to the side. And I undid both of these as well


Victory! And check out all that sludge, what a mess


I got in there with some brake clean and wire brushes and cleaned it up a bit


How are you meant to replace an alternator on this? The hose above it is an AC hose that can't be moved out of the way.


I left the coil packs the way they are for now. I'll clean those when I take it apart to do the valve cover gaskets. I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

However, with the general state of the engine bay and lack of maintenance I'm going to be doing more jobs here than just the coolant hoses, so I need to assess a general order of things. For example, I have the stuff to do the water pump/thermostat/all the seals right now, but I'm not sure if I should wait and do them at the same time as the valve cover gasket. I'll have to do some research. Everything is so tightly packed I don't want to have to do anything twice because there is a certain order of operations that I won't know about until looking it up.

So I decided to go for the water pump assembly/ front valve cover.

I removed the coil packs. The wiring harness was heat aged and not friendly, and I'll have to work that out later on.




Then there was a bracket/shielding on top of the water pump belt, held on by two 10mm nuts and a 10mm bolt further back. Two of them went onto threads on the the water pump housing here


The tensioner assembly was held in place by two threaded rods with 10mm flanged nuts. These things


Once both were loose the tensioner came out. Before cracking them loose I loosened the 13mm bolt holding the tensioner pulley in, in case it was difficult after. The pulley is shot and will be replaced.


Then I took out the water pump using the special tool. It fits in and locks into place by rotating it clockwise, then you fit a breaker bar into the socket fitting and rotate it again clockwise, and out comes the water pump.


So now we're at the drive pulley. This has a flange that it looks like is meant to be used with a pulley puller. The puller I have is too big to work with this so I'll have to purchase one or figure it out.


Then I removed the 10mm bolts for the valve cover. Some of them weren't even tight. The valve cover came right off.

I can install the new VC gasket by working it around the VC and around that pulley, but I want the opportunity to clean the surface and inspect the cams, as well as replace the seal for that pulley.

I'm not sure how deep I want to get with the "while you're in there" stuff quite yet. I have all the coolant stuff and I could replace it all now but I want to pull everything apart and get an idea of other stuff that may need attention.

I did some mild research and found the pulley puller tool to remove the water pump drive pulley. It's an O'Rielly's 67010, or a Napa whatever this is since O'Rielly didn't have it


It attaches like this


and uses a 21mm wrench and a 16mm socket. Or whatever the imperial version of 21mm that is slightly smaller is. Sorry my landscape pics are portrait, I'm too dumb to figure out how to make them not be like that. I tried in the imgur editor but it's really weird and doesn't rotate them the right way.

Here is the seal retaining plate with some 7mm bolts. These were red locktited in


Finally got it off, had to tilt it at a weird angle to get it past the water pump shaft


Detail of the shaft where it passes thru the seal. I got most of this cleaned off with a shop towel


And it's all cleaned up


My valve cover deteriorated around one of the bolt holes and a lot of the paint is bubbling so I'm going to see if I can source a newer set.

I have a VC gasket set on order as well as the shaft seal, and water pump tensioner bearing. I think I want to leave the water pump itself off for now so I can have more access to flush the system out. I put the VC back on with the old seal, cleaned up, to prevent contamination while I wait for the parts in the mail. That's all for now, I want to get the VC sealed off before I continue.

So here is the weird stuff with my front valve cover


I took it off and cleaned it and the paint is bubbling beneath the surface in spots and it's just generally weird. I wanted to find a replacement. I looked up all the part numbers and everything is discontinued so that's great. It looks like there was a difference between 04/05 and 06-11. They changed the water pump arrangement in 06 and maybe some other stuff, but on the valve cover front there are now three allocations for clips on the front of the valve cover, presumably for the upper rad hose.

I poked around on ebay and everything was the 06+ style. Idk if there are any other differences that would make it not work, but I studied pics I could find online and everything else looks the same between the two VC styles. People on ebay wanted like 80 bucks and the best condition one was out of Texas, so shipping would blow out my timeline. So today I took a day off work and went to the junkyard and came across this


It came out of a 08 Buick Lucerne Super, which I was lucky to find at a junkyard. It had been hit in the rear but was otherwise in great shape, a shame to see.


I also grabbed the coils and coil harness (that I'd broken on mine) and got everything for $60! The new VC gaskets should show up tomorrow or weds and I'll be able to continue.

Here are the newer style coils installed along with the valve cover. The 06+ style worked fine with no issue


Pulley back on. The napa tool worked fine for this. Once the tool bottoms out the job is complete


I used the newer style vacuum hose and chopped the end off so it would work with my throttle body


Unfortunately this happened. While the pulley was off we had a rainstorm. I had taped and bagged everything off, and I thought the hood sealed pretty well, but I guess not. The corrosion extends thru to the sealing surface. I was mad af.


This will be my solution.



That was yesterday. Today my goal was to remove the rest of the cooling system. I started with my shop vac in reverse


I set up this shield to direct coolant down to a pan under the car


Then I removed the reservoir. This nut was fun to get. Every fastener from this point on involved my u joint and extension sockets


I disconnected this bottom hose that runs to the heater core. I'm not sure how this is attached, it seems like it twists and locks? When I get the new parts out I'll have a look. All these old hoses were so stuck


This is my finger pointing to the push on clip fastener that holds this pipe to the firewall. I removed that with a long screwdriver. The other side had already fallen off.


Using a 8mm ratcheting wrench to undo the heater core hose clamp at the way back


Then I switched to an 8mm socket, u joint, and my favorite tool: an 18" socket extension I've had for years. Got both hose clamps off and cut thru the hoses to break them free. I have a new heater core so I wasn't worried about damaging the pipes


Wrestling with the hoses where they continue on the trans side


I finally had the hoses disconnected from the car but still tucked under there, so I moved on to disconnecting the SAP pump so I could snake the hoses out. This was me feeling around for the third bracket bolt


Then the two bolts where the air pipe attaches to the exhaust manifold were a pita. They were again some combination of u joints and extensions along with sticking my hand in there and making sure the socket didn't come off the bolt. I don't have a pic of that but it's not like it matters! It was way behind the engine anyway.

Once the SAP pump was disconnected I was able to sneak the coolant hoses around it. I was trying to take it out as a unit since I didn't want to deal with undoing the hoses while they were tucked back in there. I don't know if it was more work doing it the way I did, but considering all these hoses were original it would have been a fight either way.

I wasn't able to take out the SAP pump because I don't have the tool that hooks onto GM hose clamps and allows them to be disconnected remotely. I was able to work with all the other GM style clamps because they were positioned in a way I could reach them with normal pliers, but not that one. I'll have to purchase that tool so I can remove the pump completely because I also need to replace the rear valve cover gasket.


Pointing in the direction I'm trying to take the hoses out. This was on the trans side.


Success. And a lot of yelling



Next is either the heater core or the valve cover gasket. I have seals for the intake manifold and I think I'll take care of that as well. It seems easy compared to this stuff.

Yesterday I went back to the junk yard and grabbed the rear valve cover and ignition coil set, just in case. Pulling the valve cover was definitely annoying, esp doing it in the rain, sitting on top of the motor, hunched under the hood, while the yard was closing.

These are the tools I started with. Not pictured but very important is the 10mm ratcheting wrench


I started by removing the secondary air pump. Whoever installed this put the hose clamp in such a way to make it impossible to remove, so unfortunately I had to cut the elbow hose. Even the specialty remote actuated hose clamp tool I bought wouldn't work because of the lack of clearance




Now I had this, which I needed to move out of the way


by undoing this bolt (down below the brake servo - tilt your head to the left)


I tucked the pipe back against the firewall and the O2 sensor wire into the heater pipes


The coil cover just pops up


The coil assembly was held in with four bolts. These two had to be undone like this


The coils pull up and out. The squeeze against the firewall but they do pull out fine


I'm working out what else has to be removed to pull the valve cover out. I'm undid the big connector assembly near the PS pump. This, all four fuel injectors, the coolant temp sensor(?) in the throttle body and EGR connector had to be unplugged to move the harness out of the way.

I also undid a wire harness retainer above the coolant crossover pipe, as well as the vacuum line going to the brake booster. Also, I moved what looked like some sort of fuel vapor hose that was clipped into the black V shaped bracket on the theottle body housing.


On the fuel injectors, the gray locking piece pops up and pulls off, then you press the center part here to unplug it




I had to remove this grounding bracket thing


And unbolt the coolant line here


And I lifted the harness up above the valve cover to slide it out. The valve cover has to roll toward you as it comes out, so that it can clear the exhaust cam gear in the back, so you need the harness out of the way.


Also this bracket on the firewall came out


The cam position sensor had a connector which I also unplugged to give the harness more slack


Oh yeah, undoing all the valve cover bolts was a pain. I started with the hardest, the ground connection in the back left. I tried using a U joint and extension setup, but what worked in the end was a 10mm ratcheting wrench and going two clicks at a time. The other bolts along the back involved some other assortment of U joints and extensions. The front and side bolts are just a simple deep socket and 1" extension.

cool




Then I cleaned out the valve cover and installed the new seals


My kit came with this and idk what they go to? They are smaller than the spark plug seals


Using my phone to double check that the valve cover is seated correctly in back


This is how I got the ground strap in. The 10mm ratcheting wrench until it was done




Bolting it back in was much easier. I used my battery ratchet along with a deep socket and 1" extension for everything. Fitting the cover on was also much easier, it just slipped under the wiring harness.

Coil packs back in. I had to reach in and help the tips of the left and second to the left coils find their holes for this to fit. It was tight


And anyway it's done. I need to purchase the exhaust gasket for the secondary air pump and find a 90 degree elbow fitting for the inlet side of the pump. Then I can move on to the intake manifold seals. The crankcase vacuum line from the rear valve cover to underneath the manifold crumbled when I was moving it around and the only way to fix it is by getting underneath the intake. Plus I'd like to get in there and clean etc.

Overall that was definitely not a fun job. But better than pulling the motor.

Nice. The cams etc. look like the car saw good oil change intervals.

I was happy to see them in that condition.

I'm considering tackling the oil pan gasket as part of the work I'm doing this year. The service manual

https://charm.li/Pontiac/2004/Bonnevill ... 20VIN%20Y/

says to remove the engine. I'm not going to do that. I'm thinking of using an engine support bar and removing the subframe until there is room. But I'm torn as the bed plate is likely also leaking, which I do not want to do with the engine in the car. I'd rather put that off until I have to remove the motor for some ...other... reason

Ok, got an update

I got into the water pump shaft deal. If you recall there were rust deposits on the end of the shaft. I pulled the water pump pulley off to get to the rest of the shaft and when it came off I saw there was no rust underneath where the pulley had been installed. Which means when I pressed the pulley on it removed the surface rust. I thought there was deep pitting so I was ready for the worst with the repair sleeve, but seeing this gave me confidence. I removed the valve cover again (service manual says you can reuse the gasket if it's undamaged), and set up a tent of shop towels and masking tape around the water pump pulley shaft to keep debris out. Then I cleaned off the shaft with sand paper, starting lightly with 220 and working up to 800. I pulled the shop towels off in such a way to prevent sanding dust from entering the motor (and water pump housing below) and I cleaned off the shaft by coating it with a thin layer of motor oil to absorb any remnant sandpaper dust and wiping it clean again. This was the reward of my effort:


So overall I'm pretty happy with that.

Then I swapped out the heater core. I'd already removed the entire under dash, except for the 3 way vent distribution plastic piece just in front of the heater core, that is held in by four bolts, one of which is entirely inaccessible. I could probably get it out if I struggled for 10 years but due to the angle and it being blocked by the metal dash skeleton getting back in would be impossible. So I left that piece in. The only fastened holding the heater core in place was a 6mm with a small bracket in the bottom center of the core. I removed this, and the heater core pulled straight out. I had to maneuver the pipes up and kind of twist it out, but overa
ll it was pretty easy to remove.


I had some time left in the afternoon so I moved on to the intake manifold. I pulled all 10 of these bolts out




Removed the 3 bolts that hold the throttle body in


I had to remove the fuel rails to get the last intake mani bolt ouf because the fpr was in the way. This was the easiest fual rail I've ever removed, it involved no prying at all. I set it to the side.


I had to disconnect this vacuum line to clear the fuel rail


Intake removed


New throttle body gasket in place


I purchased the Dorman seal kit that came with the throttle body attachment. Here are the intake seals in the kit


They were... wrong. They were too small and the lips that fit inside the allocations in the mani were not big enough and did not hold the gaskets in place. I did a quick search online and by some miracle a local autozone had a Felpro kit in stock. So I rushed down there (also grabbed a vacuum line end cap kit since the one on my manifold was shredded) and we were back in business. I cleaned off the mating surface, installed a new vacuum line here and torqued the manifold down (10 nm, the throttle body bolts were 12 nm) This was by far the easiest intake manifold swap I've had to do on a car.


Next is the slew of heater hoses. I may try to redo the "quick release" fitting on the back of the water crossover. I also did a ton of research on hose clamps and purchased a set of Norma ABA clamps that should ensure the car has no leaks once it is all together. I'm waiting on those in the mail and then I'll finally dig into the cooling system.

I had some time off work last week and banged out some stuff on the car.

First was to install the new water pump, water pump o ring, tensioner pulley, and belt. It looks at first like the water pump is askew in this picture, but I triple checked and it's in correctly. I also had to make sure the o ring stayed in place.


I installed a new 3" section of 3/4 hose onto the water pump cover, which also got a new seal. The easiest way to install it was to remove the pipe that it is connected to from the car and mate them off the car, then install it as a section. These are Gemi hose clamps, which I had leftover from a BMW build a few years ago. I ground down the rust build up on the ends of the metal pipe with a wire wheel.


10Nm


Close up of the 3" piece. I bought a foot of hose from Napa and trimmed it. A lot of the heater hoses in this car required trimming


Here is the threaded coupler on the back of the coolant crossover piece. This car had the coolant crossover gaskets replaced in 2021 and due to the lack of rust or patina it -looks- like this was replaced as well, so I left it. It was not leaking.


I gave the cover the old spit shine and that's job done!


Here I'm starting to work the heater hoses in. I installed these two hoses on to the double pipe and slid it in under the brake booster, the opposite of how I took it out. I had to install it and remove it a few times to get the angle of the hoses right. I believe I had to trim one of the hoses so that the pipe would line up with the heater core connections in a nice way.


Installed. There is a threaded piece that is dangerously close to one of the hoses, and was like that from the factory, so I trimmed a vacuum line plug and fit it over the threads to protect the hose


Moving onto the heater hoses. Working from the drivers side to passenger, this is the first hose, which I believe is the inlet for the heater core. You can see how much I had to trim it so it would fit. I believe I left it slightly longer than the old hose. Maybe a 1/2"


I'm working in the outlet house here. It was a bit tricky because I needed to wait to install the inlet until the outlet hose was trimmed to fit in order to install either, so I did a lot of holding the hose up next to the connections and eyeing it up until I was ok with the fit. Once it was good I slid them both on together.


I went back and forth about what kind of hose clamps to use. At first I wanted to use the original spring type, but the car had a coolant leak in two places with those style clamps. Also, in order to size them correctly I'd have to order an assortment, which is really expensive. I liked the ABA style clamps on my bmw, which have flared edges and a solid band so that the threads of the adjusting nut to not tear into the hose. All the old hoses I took off that had used the USA style worm clamps had been perforated by its adjusting piece, which can reduce tightening pressure by allowing the band to dig in to the hose on one side. Anyway the up shot is I spent way too much time thinking about this.

I had to position the adjusters so they would be accessible, but for the two heater core inlets, there was nothing for it and I had to use a 7mm wrench to tighten them


Working left from the heater core, here is the next hose. You can see the original hose and the hose that Rock Auto AND the GM parts sites say is the replacement. I verified in the heater hose diagram by part number and this is the "correct" one. This is how I trimmed it so it would fit.


In the end, it fits in the car pretty well. Around this time I had a brain wave and began to use silicone spray to install the hoses, which was worlds easier.


Here is the connection to the squirrely hose. I had to pull the part number for this hose from a GM parts website, as Rock Auto didn't have it listed correctly. There were a few hoses that looked like this one that were discontinued, and this is either a superceded part or from a similar car (like a Deville or Lucerne) but fit perfectly. I typed its part number into rock auto and it popped up and I was able to purchase it from them,


And the tank is back in


The windshield wiper fluid hose took an L while I was fighting with the car so I fixed it with more of the vaccuum hose fittings


Moving onto the bleed/purge hose on top of the motor, this is the old hose and how I trimmed the new hose to fit


At last the SAP pump can go back in. Here are the tools I started with. 1/4 drive is the way to go on this car


I instantly dropped the new gasket into the abyss behind the motor. I peered down from above, then jacked up the car and got under, and found a few other fasteners I'd dropped behind there, but despite getting my hand up and on everything, I couldn't feel for the gasket. After spending 20 minutes looking, I called it a day and ordered two more gaskets. Here is one of those


To install the nuts I tried using a magnet, which I've done before, but didn't work here


So I stuck my hand in there and held on tight


Got the O2 sensor connecter back on there. Now for this pipe. It's a weird 1" inner diameter with a crazy bend. I went to napa and spent some time looking at their hoses to see if I could make something work.


I had a credit with them and spent it all on this $44 bmw hose, which I trimmed to fit.


The angle was OK but the inner diameter of one side was just too big. I had this idea




And ended up with this. I used silicone on the pipe fitting so the inner layer of rubber would stay in place, and I cranked down on the hose clamp at the other end. It's ok, but I have another idea. The SAP hose from my bmw actually looks like a pretty close fit, so I ordered one of those. If it works I'll put it up here.


Then I installed the crossbrace, cleaned up a bit, and put the engine cover back on


Now for the oil filter adapter seal. Here I'm pointing to where the bolts are. Underneath everything and out of sight.


This was my view of the bolts from up top. I shone a flash light in the space between the headers, and there was an electrical harness sitting in front of the bolts, which I couldn't reach. I had to try to push it out of the way with the socket without ruining too much of the foil covering. Why.


The underside. I removed the filter and you can make out the lower of the 3 bolts in the top of the picture.


Here's another view. The bolt is in the center of the pic


I don't have any pics of the rest because it got crazy, but how it went was I had a 6" extension and deep socket 10mm on my battery ratchet up top, then from underneath I reached in and put the socket on the bolt, then reached up thru the frame rail to hold the trigger on the battery ratchet. Then I went back up to to position the ratchet onto the upper bolts, which I was able to do by feel. When I took the bolts out I saw they had thread sealant applied, so I applied new thread SEALER, cleaned up the gasket surfaces, and slipped in the new gasket.

I removed the oil filter before I started so it wouldn't be in the way.

I installed the lower bolt first since I could actually see that one, then moved to one of the upper. It was this dance of looking at it from below, then going up top and peering in between the exhaust header pipes to see if the bolt and gasket were lined up with each other and with the engine block. Eventually I got it on. Once the top corner bolt was lined up and threading in, the other top bolt went in fine, but of course involved the same song and dance of going underneath to guide the socket on the bolt, then going up top to ratchet it into place. Cool.

The fel pro kit I bought came with o rings for the oil cooler hoses so I moved on to replacing those. It took a giant 1" wrench to get the fittings off the oil filter adapter. It turns out only the two smallest o rings in the kit fit any of the connections between the oil filter adapter and the radiator. I removed the cooler hoses and took apart the fittings, and each hose has 3 o rings. One on the outside of the oil filter housing fitting, one on the inside (this pic) and the 3rd on the side that fits into the rad


Here is the fitting taken apart. I purchased a slew of new o rings, verified by the GM parts diagrams, as well as a new TYC radiator, and hopefully that will finish this chapter off. One of the lines is discontinued, and the other doesn't even come with the fitting, so I am electing to just replace all the o rings and leave the rest alone.


I'm thinking next weekend I can start the car and bleed the cooling system. I'm going to use orange Dex cool without sealant tablets. I still have to do the timing cover seal, front main seal, and tensioner pulleys, but that's for another time!

Ok the stuff came in the mail so I got to work. I undid both oil cooler hoses from the car, which was super annoying. They each take a 1" wrench and you have to do the drivers side first and last in order for the wrench to fit on the fitting when you go to do the passenger side. The o rings I ordered fit the ends of the fittings but they were the wrong size for the o ring inside the oil filter adapter side, so I reused the old ones. I tried matching it up with my o ring kit but all the ones in the kit were too thick. Anyway I cleaned up the hoses with some brake clean and shop towels, then deployed my patience once again and reinstalled them by offering them up to their slots in the oil filter adapter, holding the hose as straight as I could and turning the fitting with thr wrench. We got it done.

Then the new radiator. None of the options on rock auto or anywhere carry brand names that inspire confidence. There was no GM genuine, AC delco, Denso, Behr, anything. So I went with TYC, which I've used in the past for headlights. So obviously they make good radiators too.

It had to go in a certain way. I lifted up the AC condensor, pivoting it by its connections on the passenger side, so that I could slot the radiator in alongside it. Then the condensor slid into its clips on the rad, and I bolted it in with one 10mm on each side. Then I wrenched the oil cooler fittings in and installed the upper rad hose. After that came the fan shroud, which I again slid into place on the passenger side first, since one of its tabs has to go underneath the oil cooler fitting. Then on the drivers side I had to hold the fan shroud away from the radiator while I installed the lower trans cooler fitting. Once that was dealt with I bolted the shroud to the rad and finished up with the upper fitting.

The lower rad hose had to be shortened a bit to fit. I think I took out about an inch from each side. Then I put the front cross brace back in with its 4x 16mms. The rest of the bolts in that area went in as well. I buttoned everything up except the upper rad hose's connection to the coolant crossover pipe. The airbox and MAF and everything else went back on so I could start the car without any codes.

Then I mixed up some coolant. I bought 2 gals or dexcool concentrate and 2 gals of distilled water. My fiance has a CPAP machine so I used two of her empty bottles and mixed the coolant together. Equal amounts in each jug. Then I filled up the expansion tank until it was half full and wouldn't take anymore. After that I moved the the upper rad hose, the side I hadn't attached to the coolant crossover, and poured coolant into the hose so I could fill up the radiator directly. This way I don't have to way for the tstat to open and it greatly speeds up bleeding time.

After it was brimmed and spilling out I attached the hose to the coolant crossover and the mechanical job was complete! Then I started the car so the water pump could circulate coolant and I could add more to the tank. Heater on hot, holding the revs at 2.5k for a bit every once in a while I had to top off the tank twice. I put the expansion tank cap back on after a few minutes when the car was starting to heat up, and let it cool.

After a few hours I came back and repeated everything. The level of coolant in the expansion tank had dropped so I added more, started the car, held the revs up, and added more to the tank. After a while it stabilized, but I kept getting a low coolant light. No way was the sensor bad, I didn't have this problem before. So I googled it and apparently it's a thing. After draining the system its common for the level sensor to go bad, and it is built in to the tank so they have to be replace together. The tank is literally the only part of the cooling system I didn't do. Sweet.

So next week or something I'll get my turkey baster and swap the tank out. All in all my car took about 2.5 gals of new coolant. I think spec is 3 so I feel ok with the amount of flush I was able to do. I drove the car around the block and on the main road and the temp gauge stayed in the middle the whole time. I'm going to let it sit over night just to make sure no leaks pop up and then I'll put the underbody plastics and interior back together.

All back together


These are the heater hoses rock auto said I needed but I did not actually need


Different part of the driveway so the neighbors can breathe a sigh of relief

That's gotta feel good to have it buttoned up even with the coolant level sensor issue.

Yeah it does feel good to have all clean and new cooling system parts. I topped off the tank a couple times over the following day and the low coolant message hasn't come back.

Next on the list are the timing cover seal, front main, and tensioner/idler pulleys, all four shocks, and the driver's door sensor. The radio doesn't always shut off when opening the driver's door.

And my rear passenger door still leaks despite redoing the vapor barrier. The seal looks ok, even better than the drivers side, which doesn't leak. I'm going to set up the garden hose to spray water over the car while I sit inside and watch where the leaks originate

I fixed the rear door vapor barrier over the weekend. It was such a pain removing the old butyl tape. I peeled off as much as I could, then on the door I used a plastic scraper to get underneath it. Cleaned up with iso aocohol and it was done. On the vapor barrier side I again pulled it up, but then did a combination of spraying with iso alcohol and scraping it with a screwdriver to release it from the plastic. It took forever. When I went to reinstall it I hung the vapor barrier by the two plastic attaching pieces (forget the name) at the top corners, then I got an idea of where to place the butyl tape. I stuck the tape to the door but left the backing on (tearing it to go around corners) then when it was all on I removed the backing piece by piece starting at the bottom, and making sure the vapor barrier didn't fold. after I went all the way around I pressed the plastic into the butyl with a roller to make sure it was a good fit. I put the door panel back on and it's done!

I have just enough butyl left to do the front. Fantastic

I've found with butyl tape, the more violent you try and rip it off, the better it goes. Any slow pulling gives it more of a chance to stick and stretch. I also use the ripped off tape to help pull off the existing. Hate the stuff either way though.