The other day when Connie and I pulled the intake manifold off of the engine, I noted that there was quite a bit of oil around the intake ports of the heads and apparently in the runners of the manifold itself. Come to think of it, there was a substantial amount of oil at the entranceway into the intake manifold when I took off the throttle body to replace it with the LS2 model, even some oil on the throttle body plate itself. I didn't think too much about it at the time, as I recalled that Aaron had had three instances that I could recall while he had the car that had caused oil to be ingested into the air intake system because of a problem with the STS scavenge pump. The first time he claimed there was a wire pinched in the bell housing, the second time because when he put braided SS lines on the oil lines he used too small of a diameter return hose, and the third time when he forgot to hook the power back up to the scavenge pump after doing something else. So I just figured the oil in the intake came from one or more of those three incidents.
But I dunno, seemed to be a LOT of oil, and when I saw the oil literally dripping out of the intake at the head ports, well, it just stuck in the back of my mind as something I needed to think about.
Well, I wasn't too sure about what Aaron had done with the PCV system, as Harwood had installed a catch can and for some reason Aaron removed that and put in something else that also looks like a catch can, but has a filtered breather sitting on top of it.
This thing has a large hose running to it from the front of both valve covers. There is supposed to be a drain at the bottom, but there is no way to get to it while it is mounted , apparently. If I recall correctly, Aaron's suggestion was for me to pull off that filter and try to siphon out the oil that way.
Anyway, I noted that the oil was rather dark colored, so based on how dark the oil was when I changed it, it is a pretty safe bet that this oil in the intake all happened before I brought the car back home. I'm using Brad Penn Oil when I changed the oil myself, which is green colored, so what I am seeing is definitely NOT green colored.
So, with some questions in my mind about the PCV system in general, I found a thread that appeared to delve into this topic at length, and started looking into it last night. Might be worthwhile reading for anyone else interested in this topic. ->
http://ls1tech.com/forums/generation...outing-ok.html
So, with all that in mind, today (Thursday) I decided to take a look at putting that oil catch can that Aaron removed back into the car. Now this wasn't a small object to have to find a spot for...
Just the cans themselves are something like 8 inches tall and around 3 inches in diameter EACH. Heck, I had a tough time trying to find a place for that vacuum manifold block a little while back that was not nearly as big as this dual catch can. The only place that even came close was inside the driver side fender at the front up where that EGR pump used to be that I removed. But it was only close, not a fit. The only way that looked even possible to do was to have a single catch can and mount it on the EGR pump bracket. And even then, it had to be on an angle, not straight up and down. So I hated to do it, but I took that dual catch can into the work room, and separated the two by sawing through the welds. Working with a single can makes it much easier, but still, I only have the can sitting there as I really need to check to make certain that the headlight on that side doesn't hit the hoses nor the can when it opens. The can clears the headlight OK in the closed position, but I have no idea if the back section drops down much when the headlight is opened. So I need to check that out when I've got the battery hooked back up. I think there is supposed to be some sort of manual method to open up the headlight, but darn if I know what it might be.
Anyway, today the (correct) longer bolts for the intake manifold came in, as did those caps I wanted for the danged bolts that hold the upper and lower pieces of the intake together. I'm going to cap those darn things so there will be NO chance I will have another incident of my loosening those wrong bolts again accidentally.
I'm still waiting on the power brake booster vacuum cable to come in, and I guess it's fortunate I had ordered one. I really ordered it just so I could put that formed end back on that goes to the check valve, but when poking around in back of the intake manifold, I noticed a curious thing about the other end of that hose...
Hmm, does that look like a smaller hose shoved into a larger hose back there? I guess I need to replace the entire hose and just put the "T" for the vacuum manifold block into that new hose.... Hopefully it will be in on Friday and I can start putting this all back together again.
When I was telling Connie about what I felt I needed to do with the catch can stuff, she got kind of a sad look on her face and said "You are never going to be done working on that car, are you?"
Sure does seem that way......
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