427 engine (part 2) - RHS block

[Rich Z]

Well, Connie went with me this evening when I took the C5Z out to run down to the Hardee's in Crawfordville. She commented that it smelled like something burning, and I noticed it to. (Uh oh!) But nothing seemed amiss so I just kept on driving. Out on rt 319 I happened to glance at the volt meter and the needle was registering pretty low. (Uh oh again...) The DIC showed 11.7 volts. Usually I'm seeing around 13 volts, so something seemed amiss. We didn't get to the Hardee's before I decided to turn around and head back home, rather than run the risk of the car dying on us.

By the time we got back home, the DIC was showing 11.4 volts, so I think the alternator has gone kaput and I was just running on the battery. Nothing looked out of place, but there was an odd smell under the hood, kind of smelled like burnt cotton candy, more than anything. The alternator was hot enough to burn your hand if you touched it (ask me how I know..... ).

I didn't really do anything to the car since the last time I took it out beyond fiddling with the tail pipes and just cleaning up under the hood in case I popped the hood at the Hardee's thing. But sure seems like the alternator has gone bye-bye. Just one of those things, I guess.

I've got two alternators around here somewhere, one of which is practically brand new, since I got the chrome plated one on there now not long after I got this second one. I was having electrical problems showing alternator faults a long while back and replaced the alternator back then. So even my original one is probably still good. And I'm guessing this chromed alternator is probably 6 years old. Ah, the chroming was coming off of it anyway. Whoever chromed the darn thing did a piss poor job of it, as they obviously simply chromed the aluminum housing directly rather than triple plating it.

Odd that if the alternator failed that I didn't get any fault codes showing on the DIC, though. I would think that something should have showed up.

Oh well, guess I'll swap out the alternator tomorrow and see what happens. I might want to take a look at the starter as it seems to my that original problem I mentioned was caused by a loose and/or corroded starter wire. So maybe I'll take a look at that first before pulling that alternator.

Oh, a friend of ours said he drove by the Hardee's as he was going to meet us there, and he said that at 6:30 there wasn't a soul there on the parking lot. So maybe there wasn't any sort of cruise-in there this evening anyway... :shrug01:

 

[85vette]

Sorry, I got my Saturdays mixed up....

Maybe this will be useful....


Tallahassee Area Local Cruise Inn’s & Car Shows

Enclosed in this article please find a listing of all local events happening for Classic Car enthusiasts. If your club is not listed or changes have been made, please feel free to contact me and I will make the appropriate changes.

First Monday of the month:

Monday night Mustangs at Hooters on N. Monroe St. Event starts at 5:30 PM til 8:00 PM, all Mustangs are welcome in any condition or year. Contact David T. Hawkins at www.mestengofx.com

First Saturday of the month:

At the Sonic on Hwy.27 & Capital Circle NW. Starts at 5:00 PM til 8:00 PM, contact Clayton Weaver at 850-545-5029 cweaverracing@mchsi.com

Second Saturday of the month:

At the Hardees in Crawfordville on Hwy. 319, starts at 6:00PM til 8:00PM. Contact Kathy Lambert at klambert@comcast.net. Wakulla Classic Cars

At the What-a-Burger on Thomasville road, starts at 5:00PM til 8:30PM, put on by Fords of Florida Car Club, The Classic Chevy Car Club and Panhandle Ponies Tallahassee Car Club.

Vintage Vettes at the Wing Stop on Thomasville & Bannerman Rd. starts at 6:00 PM. Contact Dean at 980-1222 for more information.

Third Saturday of the month:

Cars & Coffee at the Classic Motor Storage & Repair 4308 Aviation Ave. & Capital Circle, starts at 8:00 til 10:00 AM. Contact Travis at 575-0259

At Famous Dave’s BBQ on Capital Circle, starts at 6:00PM til 8:30PM. Put on by Cruisin Corvette Club

At What-a-Burger on Apalachee Pkwy, starts at 6:00 PM til 8:30PM. Put on by Tommy Sykes.

At downtown Monticello, starts at 5:00 til 9:00PM. Open to all makes & models, door prizes 50-50 drawings. Contact Cindy Lambert at 850-997-1125 The Road Cru

Last Saturday of the month:

At the What-a-Burger on Thomasville Rd. starts at 5:00 til 8:30PM. Put on by the Tallahassee Street rods

Tallahassee Area Car Clubs

Classic Chevy Club meets the 1st Thursday of the month at Sonny’s BBQ on Timberlane Rd. at 7:30 PM

Cruisin Corvettes Club meets the 1st Thursday of the month at Famous Dave’s BBQ Capital Circle NE at 7:00 PM. Contact club President Beverly Blankenship at c5fever@comcast.net

Fords of Florida Car Club meets the 3rd Monday, at Golden Corral on North Monroe at 6:00PM. Club President Richard Widman www.fordsofflorida.com

Panhandle Ponies meets the 2nd Wednesday of the month at Seminole Wind Buffet on North Monroe at 7:30PM Club President Shirley Shields at www.tallahasseemustang.com

Tallahassee Street Rodders meets the 2nd Thursday at Ole Time Country Buffet on North Monroe Street at 6:00PM. www.tallahasseestreetrodders

 

[85vette]

Also, for all areas of Florida....

floridacarclubs.com/html/cruise-insbydate.html

Copy and paste if the link doesn't work.

 

[Rich Z]

Well, I put the car up on the lift and looks like everything is OK with the starter cables. Nothing looks amiss underneath. Well almost nothing. I see that the stripped bolts on that turbo housing are still leaking oil slightly. Dammit.

Anyway, I broke out my battery/alternator tester and everything appears to be OK. Voltage on the battery with the engine not running was around 12.5 volts. Alternator was putting out 13.4 volts at the alternator hot wire. The DIC is now showing 13.1 volts. :shrug01:

But I still smell that burnt cotton candy smell, and it's definitely coming from the alternator windings. So I'm going to go ahead and replace it. I'm going to just go with a rebuilt unit from Advance Auto for now, since I can get one for $150 with a lifetime warranty on it. So even if it only lasts a year, I get free replacements. The chrome plating on the one I have now didn't last, so maybe that is just a frivolous bling that I can do without. I've got a couple of old alternators around here, so maybe I'll take one apart and see how tough they are to rebuild myself. That way I can polish the housing if I feel that ambitious.

Ah well, today would have been a real nice day to put some more miles on the car. But I don't want the alternator crapping out on me and then have to worry about getting back home before the battery died. I have to run up to the Advance Auto up on the west side of Tallahassee to pick it up, so not sure when I'll get up that way.

 

[Rich Z]

Sorry, I got my Saturdays mixed up....

Maybe this will be useful....
Second Saturday of the month:

At the Hardees in Crawfordville on Hwy. 319, starts at 6:00PM til 8:00PM. Contact Kathy Lambert at klambert@comcast.net. Wakulla Classic Cars

Thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[shakedown067]

Best thing I ever did for my vette was find a local guy that rebuilds GM starters and alternators. HD replacement parts and install cost a whopping $135 for my black powdercoated ALT and he was done in less than an hour!

 

[Rich Z]

Probably can't be too tough to rebuild them. Might need a press for any bearings in the housings, I guess.

Anyway, just got back from Advance Auto with the new alternator and will be putting it on the car this evening sometime.

 

[Rich Z]

I wish everything I've had to do on my car was as easy as putting in a new alternator......

Anyway, the new alternator is showing 14.7 volts at the hot terminal on the back of the alternator. At the battery I'm now getting 14.1 volts across the terminals with the car running. And the DIC is showing 13.7 volts. So yeah, at the very least my old alternator was getting weak. Hopefully that particular problem is now behind me.

 

[schpenxel]

Going back to the fuel smell you mentioned a page or two back...

What type of hose was used? I've read in a few places that one type of common / slightly cheaper hose has issues with the smell seeping through. I'll try to find more info on it tomorrow, but it was a pretty common complaint with whatever type of hose was the culprit. Wish I had a better memory!

 

[Rich Z]

Yeah, I've also read that some of the stainless steel braided rubber hose can have a gasoline odor too. Particularly because of the ethanol additives in gasoline these days. Which is why I put that UV fluorescing additive into my fuel tank to see if that seepage is what I am smelling. But so far I haven't seen any orange glow using the UV light, which is what the dye I am using should produce. Obviously there is something on the hoses reacting to the UV light, and based on what the gasoline itself looks like, it does appear that there is something showing up on the steel braids.

But what puzzles me is why I don't see the INSIDE of that rubber hose showing any fluorescing residue when there is something obviously on the outside, and I'm guess came from the gasoline. :shrug01:

I still haven't checked to see if I got any of the EVAP system hose that should have been on the engine in the bunch of stuff that came back in the trunk of my car when I brought it back home from Aaron Scott's shop.

 

[Rich Z]

Took the car out today to see how the voltages would hold up and everything looks OK. Seeing around 13.6 volts on the DIC during normal driving. No burning smell, so I'm guessing that old alternator was REALLY toast.

I wish Advance Auto wouldn't put these funky white serial number labels on their alternators, but it is what it is. :shrug01: I'm leaning more to preferring the lifetime warranty over the bling appeal anyway lately. :yesnod:

 

[Rich Z]

Been doing some checking around concerning that oil leak I see on the passenger side turbo. Apparently there shouldn't be any oil at those compressor housing mounting bolts at all. The seal I see there in pics is an AIR seal, not an OIL seal. So that means the oil seal on the shaft itself has gone bad. Now that seems really odd to me, as Aaron Scott sent both turbos to be rebuilt (or replaced by rebuilt units) while he had the car, and certainly they can't have that much mileage on them. And I certainly haven't been pushing the car the short time I've been able to get it out onto the road. But here I have an oil leak already....

I pulled off the coupler at the exit port of that compressor housing to see if there was a lot of oil there, thinking that if there was, then maybe it was forcing oil up towards the intercooler....

Well there is apparently SOME oil there, but it didn't go gushing out of the pipe like I had feared it might. So I believe there isn't going to be any issue with oil being all up in that pipe and in the intercooler. But eventually, I guess it could get worse over time, and then it COULD become a problem. So it looks like another turbo rebuild is in my future..... I wonder how many times I am going to have to pay for some things done that I have already paid a couple of shops to do for me?

In any event, first step is to determine what sort of turbos I actually have...

The compressor housing is stamped with "Garrett" and looks like .60 A/R. The drive housing (I have no idea if that is what it is really called) says "AIResearch" with a size of .48 A/R.

I've been looking at videos and pics of turbo rebuilds, and it really doesn't look all that tough to do. Some of the seals and snap rings might be tedious to get on and off, but nothing looks like rocket science. Of course, I have at least those two compressor housing bolts that are stripped out that I will have to deal with. And while I am thinking about it, now that I know the size of the turbos I have, I think I had better investigate whether or not they are really appropriate to the power output of my engine. I can't really think of any good reason at this point to trust or believe anything that Aaron Scott has told me while he had my car at his shop.

BTW, Connie and I drove over to Apalachicola yesterday to meet up with Mike Elmore (vetteguy61) and his wife Donna to have lunch there. I drove the blue car (and thereby put 128 more miles on the clutch) and Connie drove her silver C6 as "backup". Mike had wanted to drive his "Chris Harwood survivor" car (his and my car are blood brothers, apparently) over there, but he had an oxygen sensor problem and the shop didn't get it done in time for him to feel comfortable making the drive with it right away. He too has been suffering problem after problem with his car after Chris Harwood laid hands on it. But in any event Mike and Donna drove over in another vehicle and we had lunch at Boss Oyster right on the water. Weather was perfect and we had a nice time.

Honestly, I was relieved to have driven that many miles without the car bursting into flames. However there is still an odd noise coming from the drivetrain intermittently when I take off from a dead stop. I can feel it through the shifter, and at this time, I really don't know what it is. So I still have a slight drivetrain gremlin in there that I will probably need to address sooner or later. But beyond that, the car drove really well and didn't give me anything else to worry about. Not that I'm going to be inclined to drive it for a LONG trip to California any time soon....... Matter of fact, I'm not sure I'll be taking it anywhere until I rebuild that turbo that is leaking. It might just be living perched up on the lift for a while again. Oh well.... Too bad "LIFT QUEEN" won't fit on a vanity tag.

Oh, here's a thought. What's the chances that the OTHER turbo doesn't need a rebuild too? :banghead:

 

[navy2kcoupe]

Just for your OWN piece of mind, I think it would be a good decision to do both at the same time. The car is gonna be down while you rebuild the leaking one, so pulling out the other one and going over it will 1) ease your concerns about it going bad sometime in the future, and 2) won't cost you ANOTHER down time in the future. Both would then be "zero-timed" and the next time you see problems with one, you could expect to see problems with the other. It would also give you the chance to see that the internals of both units are either in great shape, or have been "Bubba'ed up" by someone that was in there while the car was being worked on. At this point, I think you're wise to not trust any of the work that was done by Scott or Harwood, while the car was at their shops. Then too, if you order parts for both units right now, you won't have to go thru THAT process again to rebuild the second one.........
Andy :wavey:

 

[CorvetteJohn]

Just for your OWN piece of mind, I think it would be a good decision to do both at the same time. The car is gonna be down while you rebuild the leaking one, so pulling out the other one and going over it will 1) ease your concerns about it going bad sometime in the future, and 2) won't cost you ANOTHER down time in the future. Both would then be "zero-timed" and the next time you see problems with one, you could expect to see problems with the other. It would also give you the chance to see that the internals of both units are either in great shape, or have been "Bubba'ed up" by someone that was in there while the car was being worked on. At this point, I think you're wise to not trust any of the work that was done by Scott or Harwood, while the car was at their shops. Then too, if you order parts for both units right now, you won't have to go thru THAT process again to rebuild the second one.........
Andy :wavey:

I agree on looking at the other turbo during the down time. But ordering two rebuild kits assumes that they are both identical inside (yet to be proven). As Rich says they were supposed to be rebuilt or replaced by rebuilt units which does not mean they actually were internally the same after that. With all of the documentation Rich has done I wonder if he has any pictures that would show the casting names and numbers etc. If so he than would be able to compare tho see if what he has is new or rebuilt.

 

[Rich Z]

The turbos now on the car do appear to be identical as far as the numbers on the housings. And I believe the drive sides of the turbos have larger housings than what I had originally, as Aaron Scott told me they were likely too small for my new engine. BTW, I found out which place did the turbos as Aaron Scott listed it on the invoice I got from him. Place called Turbos Direct in Glendale, AZ. I just sent off a message to them explaining the situation to see what they say. They probably won't warranty it from me direct, and certainly I'm not going to be ever taking my car into Aaron Scott's shop again, but I figure I might as well see what they say.

I'm assuming that Aaron Scott is responsible for the stripped bolts, but I guess they could have been like that when he got the turbos. Probably no way to know at this point. Would he have had reason to remove the compressor housing? I can see where you might need to turn that housing to line up with the STS plumbing. Which, btw, wasn't done very well, as the pipe that connects to the port I looked at is offset a bit instead of lining up correctly. You can see that pretty plainly in this photo:

So I'm still gathering input from several sources to see what seems like the logical step for me to take. It may very well be that the housings are not the right size for my application, which means that will change the equation quite a bit. I'm guessing I can buy new housings, but push come to shove, it might wind up being cheaper in the long run to just buy new turbos. :banghead: I note on that invoice from Aaron Scott that I was charged $1,221.00 to have those turbos rebuilt. :ack2:

I was thinking about making a list of everything that has gone wrong with this project. But actually it would be a whole lot easier writing down everything that the people who worked on it did RIGHT.

This is definitely being a sanity stress test for me.

 

[Rich Z]

I measured the bolts holding that compressor housing in place on the turbo, and they are 5/16 -18 x 1/2 bolts. I thought perhaps I could use a couple of longer bolts and with any luck be able to catch any existing threads in those bolt holes beyond what was apparently stripped out and be able to tighten them down sufficiently to stop the leaking. So I ran down to Ace Hardware and picked up a few.

Got back home and pulled one of the bolts in a stripped hole and tried the new longer one. Well, I was able to run this 3/4 inch bolt ALL the way into the hole and it still turned freely when it bottomed out. So no joy. ALL the threads are gone in that hole. I didn't even try the other one, since regardless, I was going to have to pull off the housing anyway, and might as well fix both of them at the same time.

So I pulled the bolts out and took the compressor housing off of the turbo. Here's those two bolts and their respectively stripped holes:

On that first bolt you can see that the threads came out right along with it. Interestingly enough, on that second bolt you can see what looks like the remnants of some sort of sealant on the threads. So yeah, it appears that SOMEONE knew that the hole threads were stripped and tried to "fix" it the easiest way possible.

In this picture you can see where the oil was leaking from the bottom of the housing...

And the following are pics of the turbo drive shaft sitting in the rest of the turbo house and then one of the inside of that compressor housing I removed..

Now there is something interesting about those last two pics. The last few days I've been looking over videos and pics about how to rebuild turbochargers, and although I may be wrong about this, they all had some sort of O-ring or seal between that compressor housing and the center section of the turbo. There was nothing like that at all on this turbo when I took it apart. No seal of any kind. I'm going to have to look over those videos again to take note of this seal, just in case I am mistaken about this detail.

Anyway, looks like I am going to get some OJT using those Helicoil thread inserts pretty soon. Actually I wanted to pick up a Helicoil kit today when I was out getting those longer bolts, but oddly enough NAPA, Advance Auto, and Auto Zone were ALL out of the one I needed. And it was the ONLY one of those they stock that they didn't have. I mean, what are the ODDS? Must be more people in Crawfordville with turbos having stripped threads than I would have even remotely guessed at.

So it looks like I have to order a kit. And obviously the car is living on the lift again for a while. :shrug01:

And so much for running down to the car show and tell in Crawfordville this evening....

 

[Rich Z]

While I had the compressor housing off of the turbo, I figured I would see what sort of play I had in that turbo shaft. I have NO idea what is acceptable play, so I took a video in the hopes someone here knows. I was actually surprised that oil didn't come gushing out when I pulled that housing off. There is some oil still in the compressor housing, but not really very much at all. So any leak in the seals on the shaft are likely very minute.....

 

[CorvetteJohn]

Stripped bolts

It would be interesting to know if the same bolts on the other turbo are 5/16 or are they 8MM. Most manufacturing is in metric now and it would be odd that those turbos would be american standard. Which raises the question did someone in reassembling that turbo grab a 5/16 and force it into the hole for an 8 MM. Looking at the pictures of the holes instead of a heli coil could you get a 3/8 or 10mm tap and correct size drill and drill them out and retap them to those sizes

 

[Rich Z]

I've got tap and die sets for both SAE and metric, so that wouldn't be an issue. But I would probably need to drill out the three clamps those six screws hold in place as well in order to just use larger bolts.

Yeah, I was surprised myself that those bolts weren't metric. :shrug01:

But is this something that would have happened at Turbos Direct or at South Georgia Corvette? You do have to loosen those bolts to adjust the angle of the coupler coming from the compressor housing, but I can't imagine why Aaron Scott might have removed the bolts completely and then (theoretically) put the wrong ones in place of them. There would have been no need to do that. Assuming the turbos came to him completely assembled, of course.

Now if there should have been a seal for that housing, then perhaps there was an oil leak that Aaron tried to be fixed by simply tightening those bolts more. But the "more" suddenly turned out to be "too much". When I checked the tightness of those bolts, I used a small wrench as I knew the housing was aluminum, and didn't want to apply too much pressure if the bolts were already snugged up nice and tight. Obviously those bottom bolts would have been the logical ones to try to tighten more to stop a leak there. But I could tell with just a quarter turn that the bolts weren't getting any tighter. The others I checked were nice and snug, so there was definitely a difference easily felt between the stripped and non stripped ones.

I sent the photos and the link to the video to Turbos Direct to see what they say about it. If they say it SHOULD have a seal, then I have to take apart the driver's side turbo too to make sure the seal is in that one. Hoping, of course, that no bolt holes are stripped on that turbo. I think this is not really any sort of oil seal, but most likely an AIR seal to keep the boosted air pressure from escaping from around the edges of that compressor housing. I THINK a seal should be there, simply because of the fact that it would likely need to be there in order to contain the air pressure generated in that housing. I don't believe the tolerances of those two surfaces would be tight enough such that a seal is NOT needed.

Heck, I still don't know beans about this turbo stuff yet. I don't have a clue about what the actual model type is of those turbos I have. T3, T4, T3/T4 hybrid? :shrug01: Beats the heck out of me. I haven't found an "Idiot's Guide to TurboChargers" yet. But I guess I'll figure it out sooner or later. So far everything I have had to do hasn't really been rocket science.

 

[Rich Z]

Yeah, it looks like there is SUPPOSED to be a seal in that compressor housing....

Jump to 10:10 in this video and you can see where the guy is putting one on his turbo...