O2 Have power again! (long post)

[camron at worldaccessnet.com (Camron D. Crouse)]

Had Saturday all reserved to do timing belt, motor mount, and thermostat 
changes with my dad.  Nope! Ain't gonna happen, too much of a PITA, so 
we decided to do a few other things instead.

Cleaned out and oiled the K&N air filter (lotta crusty leaf bits).  In 
preparation of converting to Evans coolant, flushed the cooling system 
and have refilled it with 100% Sierra aqueous propylene glycol as per 
the race shop... this will remain for a few days, until my crossmember 
is repaired (frame shop will likely have to remove radiator, Evan's to 
go in after radiator reinstall).

Hmm, lets put this new O2 sensor on, I guess these things are expensive 
enough, I better use it huh? ...  My air/fuel ratio meter had been 
reading very lean for a few months, I suppose I thought it had been 
crusty connections or some other hoo-haw.  I bought one of those spendy 
O2 sensor wrenches a few weeks ago, it turned out to be useless in my 
situation, as the sensor was angled slightly upwards towards the floor 
pan and I could not get it on.  Ya know what?  Ya don't need one anyway, 
as I find out my seldom-used 22mm crescent wrench works perfectly for 
this.  Also gave the sensor wire a few reverse turns so that the wire 
would "unwind" and the sensor is screwed into place.

While I was at it, I decided to drill out the plug for my idle mixture 
screw to have access there.  PO had attempted this already, but only 
managed to bugger up the plug, so I wanted to get access to that puppy 
once and for all.  Funny, the Bentley says to carefilly drill through 
the soft metal to access the plug..  So I'm drillin' and drillin, being 
especially cautious about the shavings and where they end up...but damn, 
I just cant get through all the way... what gives??  Well then I see 
this little tab start to come loose down in the bottom of this 
ever-growing hole.  So very carefully, with some needle nose pliers, I 
grab that little thing and yank it out of the way, and viol?, access 
granted! 

I went back and re-read that part of the Bentley, it says that the plug 
was soft metal on top and hard steel at the bottom, do not drill through 
the hard plug.  Well, heck I was leaning on that sucker pretty hard with 
quality drill bits, but I never could get any bite... is some damn hard 
steel, don't really see how someone could actually drill through that 
part of the plug...  Well anyway the book goes on to say to use a small 
screw to bite into the plug (the soft metal) and pull it out.  Since it 
was already messed up when I started, I didn't really have a chance to 
do it this way, but I did get through nonetheless. I just had to do this 
by drilling out *all* the soft metal first.  I started making 
adjustments in fractions of a turn (towards enrichment) with the 3mm 
hex, checking my Air/Fuel meter each time.  I didn't notice any changes 
in idle or guage readings while adjusting, though I'm sure I didn't go 
past a total of a half-turn by the time I decided to stop.  My meter was 
reading stoich again, regardless.

Drained and filled the 2Y with some fresh Redline MTL.  Shannon's 
(16volt@scirocco16v.com) tech note was great, although it said to refill 
with 2.1 quarts and we could only get about 1.8Q back in before 
dribbling out the fill hole on the side.  Is this spec for a "dry" 
transaxle after a rebuild?  We also had the front end of the car up, but 
I'd think that if anything that would allow us to slightly overfill.  On 
the other hand, 16volt's tech note used an AGB I think, would this 
likely account for the difference?  We even plugged the holes and let it 
idle in gear for a minute, and after rechecking, we were still dribbling 
out the sight hole.

I decided that I could do the rear transaxle mount on my own, getting it 
off was quite a snap.  New mount, TT race from Peter@thescirocco, was a 
little bit trickier getting back into place, but eventually I got it.   
Zoop!  Okie dokey lets take er for a spin!

Holy smokes, I had no idea how poorly I had been running lately.  The 
tune ups "rocced" my world, I couldn't believe what a difference it 
made!  I really have some power again!  The rear race mount, though 
slightly buzzier, is nice.  Actually, I like the buzz.  Really the only 
down side right now is that the whole car shudders a bit when pulling 
from a stop as it overcomes inertia... but I think this will be resolved 
once my other toasted mounts are replaced.

Anyone know of a good step-by step online tech-note on 16V timing belt 
change?  I was using the Bentley, but man I get frustrated sometimes.. 
the tech notes like Shannon's and Patrick's are awsome... pictures of 
each step, each and every bolt, suggestions on the right tools to use in 
specific situations, mistakes *not* to make, oh, and did I mention all 
the pictures?  Thanks a lot, folks, as I'm a step-by-step kinda guy!


- Camron from Vancouver, WA USA
     '86.5 Black 16V 2.0L