Leaderboard

done in Brownsville. I just got here and took the Red over to the local shop for a front wheel bearing and the oil pressure sending unit. They jumped right on it [using my parts] done in about 35-40 minutes and charged me $40.00 [cash]. Gave the tech a $10.00 tip and drove home. No noise and an accurate oil pressure reading. Life is good! BTW the 'vert averaged almost 29 miles to the gallon running about 70 miles per. Drove just under 1600 miles in 31 hours [including sleep]. Don't ever try sleeping in a convertible. I did for 4.5 hours and woke up because I was so uncomfortable. That wasn't enough sleep so I had to pull over for another nap. [about 1 hour].

Used balance shaft drive gear, set of expansion plugs and the repair kit for the oil pump arrived today. The only things I used from the expansion plugs today were the two small steel ones, 19/32" from the stamped markings, which allowed the camshaft to be installed to stay. A couple more of the larger water jacket brass plugs will be used later. Now that the cam was in for good, the spare balance shaft was installed and it mated perfectly with the used drive gear. The one item I didn't have in my misc. parts was the retaining bracket for the balance shaft so the '95 s/c donor engine gave up its retainer which fit perfectly to the '88 block. One item I think I have somewhere is the sheet metal "spider" that covers the balance shaft inside the engine valley and has fingers between the various pairs of valve lifters. The fingers keep the metal dogbone style lifter aligners in place. The '95 engine uses one piece plastic guides for each side of the vee. It looks like modern plastic piece will work instead but I prefer the metal cover which keeps any oil flung off of the balance shaft from the bottom of the intake manifold . I will post a photo later if I can find the piece to illustrate the difference. The last item of some concern was the oil pump drive. The repair kit comes complete with the two gears, a new cover plate w/fasteners and two different style oil pressure springs and plungers. According to the paperwork with the kit, it depends on the style of the front cover as to which spring and piston are to be used and that will come later as they are installed under the oil filter adapter outside the engine proper. The new gears are a complete drop in replacement with the correct drive style to mate with the crankshaft sprocket for the timing chain. Problem solved. Hard to see but these are the two different oil pump gear sets.

I know it is not a fun project to get at the rear plugs but I only suggested closing up the gap as an experiment to see if it improved the assumed misfire under low rpm and high load. It sounds like there may have been some other items in less than pristine condition as well. All new components should work with the .060" gap, but closing it up a little lessens the load on a Magnavox style ignition. .042" is probably a little tighter than needed but .045-.048" will help reliability without giving up too much ability to fire lean mixtures.