Friday, December 19, 2008

Done With School, Progress!!!




Pictures:

I painted the engine block "Aluminum".



This is the primitive throttle position sensor, which is basically a three-way switch.



Here is the painted valve cover, also painted "Aluminum".


Here you can see the paint running: It was thin as water, and was very difficult to do. The second coat helped.



Here is the intake manifold, painted white. It looks spotty, but the second coat made it shine.



Here is the oil pan, it looks real great. Sitting there on the toilet in the spare bathroom (the garage was freezing!).
Well, today I started back on the Geo again, got done with finals at school! The torn-apart engine has been lying in the garage since about when school started, I guess, so that is where I started.

I took the block to a machine shop because I didn't want to mess it up, and I don't really have the tools to do it right. The block has to be room temperature, so while it was warming up (it had been in the freezing garage), I went home and started cleaning and painting parts.

When I took the head in, the machinist pointed out the burnt out valve that I noticed earlier, so that is at least one reason it didn't work.

I got a few things painted, as you can see to the side: The oil pan, the valve cover, the intake manifold. The black and white Rustoleum paint were nice and thick, and easy to work with, but the silver was like water. It ran a lot, as you can see in the close-up of the valve cover.

You can see some pictures of the throttle body and injector as I took it apart. The whole thing was much more messy, I imagine there had been a lot of oil blowing back, or just leaking everywhere: It was pretty messy.

If you get a Geo, one sure thing that can help is to make sure the valve cover gasket is flexible. They are only about $10, so if you have doubts buy a new one. It will save you lots of mess, since that seems to be a major leak on every Geo I have owned/seen.

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