I don't think I ever started a work log for my old GTX.. So well anyways here is one now... After being off the road for 2 and a half years I have finally gotta around to putting this pile of junk back together... This car has been a love/hate relationship since day one...
I last left off with a half installed transmission that I had rebuilt for the 2nd time...
First time I rebuilt the transmission because I blew up the planetary gear in the center diff..
Second time around almost a year later I stripped the final drive gear...
As I was installing the transmission I found a frost plug sitting on top of my starter... At this point laying on my back in my drive way my heart sank... It just happens to be the plug thats in behind the starter... I gave up at this point, packed my tools up and shut the hood on the car... I was pretty sure by now that when I blew the transmission up for the 2nd time and parked the car I left it with a block full of water...
Fast forward 8 or so months a head to more recent times.. My gf's little car packed it in and a jeep that we picked up threw a rod bearing... I am pushed now to get a car on the road so I have something to drive back and forth to work in... I had the 323 hauled off to the shop I work at on friday and set out on a mission...
Yay up on the hoist..
first up in order to get the frost plug that fell out back in I needed to remove the center diff actuator... behind the speedo cable, beside the diff lock switch there is a bolt.. inorder to pull the actuator out you need to remove this bolt
From there you remove the bottom plug bolt at the end of the actuator..
In this pic mine is all ready removed..
Once removed you can take a flat head screw driver and rotate the shaft 90 deg so that the flat side is facing up... Afterwards undo your 3 mounting bolts and the actuator slides off the shaft for the diff lock fork...
with that out of the way I then removed the brace for the intake manafold... With that removed I was able to to get at the frost plug.. Thankfully the shop I work at has an install tool that made punching a new frost plug in easy as pie..
new frost plug installed..
I started buttoning a few things back up hoping that this was going to be the only disaster I was going to find.. once I had the things to where I could pressure test the cooling system I decide to check for any other leaks...
I didn't get far when I heard water pissing on the ground.. a quick look and I found this trail from behind the turbo..
Bugger! So now switching gears I get the transmission side of things buttoned up enough where I can take the jack stand out from under the motor head up top to remove the turbo... Once removed I found another frost plug blown out...
Not a big deal, pound a new frost plug in and start to reinstall the turbo.. When I was cleaning things up though I got stopped in my tracks... I noticed my manafold was cracked. Upon removing the O2 senor I found the crack to be pretty bad...
Its a little hard to tell from the pic but the crack runs from the O2 sensor all the way back to the bolt hole..
Removing the O2 sensor was pretty interesting as well.. I am surprised it still worked fine..
The outter casing around the center porcelain had broken off...
A good look at the exhaust side of the turbo shows that some how when the O2 sensor broke it did no damage to the turbo...
I did how ever find a nasty surprise when looking over the turbo...
The exhaust housing is cracked almost 180 deg around the back side of the turbo.....
So well thankfully I have a stock pile of parts sitting in my garage... I ran home and picked up my good stock manafold... While on the way home I decided it was time to upgrade, so I grabbed one of my VJ11 turbos...
Turbo PORN!.. lol..From left to right.. VJ14, VJ11, VJ13(no I am not joking this is stamped on the turbo)
I noticed when I was looking at all the turbo that the one from my GTX was actually stamped VJ13.. not VJ14 like my other B6T turbo... Not sure where its from or anything, but it looks the same as the VJ14..
Off to the races I went swapping around turbos and manafolds...
I last left off with a half installed transmission that I had rebuilt for the 2nd time...
First time I rebuilt the transmission because I blew up the planetary gear in the center diff..
Second time around almost a year later I stripped the final drive gear...
As I was installing the transmission I found a frost plug sitting on top of my starter... At this point laying on my back in my drive way my heart sank... It just happens to be the plug thats in behind the starter... I gave up at this point, packed my tools up and shut the hood on the car... I was pretty sure by now that when I blew the transmission up for the 2nd time and parked the car I left it with a block full of water...
Fast forward 8 or so months a head to more recent times.. My gf's little car packed it in and a jeep that we picked up threw a rod bearing... I am pushed now to get a car on the road so I have something to drive back and forth to work in... I had the 323 hauled off to the shop I work at on friday and set out on a mission...
Yay up on the hoist..
first up in order to get the frost plug that fell out back in I needed to remove the center diff actuator... behind the speedo cable, beside the diff lock switch there is a bolt.. inorder to pull the actuator out you need to remove this bolt
From there you remove the bottom plug bolt at the end of the actuator..
In this pic mine is all ready removed..
Once removed you can take a flat head screw driver and rotate the shaft 90 deg so that the flat side is facing up... Afterwards undo your 3 mounting bolts and the actuator slides off the shaft for the diff lock fork...
with that out of the way I then removed the brace for the intake manafold... With that removed I was able to to get at the frost plug.. Thankfully the shop I work at has an install tool that made punching a new frost plug in easy as pie..
new frost plug installed..
I started buttoning a few things back up hoping that this was going to be the only disaster I was going to find.. once I had the things to where I could pressure test the cooling system I decide to check for any other leaks...
I didn't get far when I heard water pissing on the ground.. a quick look and I found this trail from behind the turbo..
Bugger! So now switching gears I get the transmission side of things buttoned up enough where I can take the jack stand out from under the motor head up top to remove the turbo... Once removed I found another frost plug blown out...
Not a big deal, pound a new frost plug in and start to reinstall the turbo.. When I was cleaning things up though I got stopped in my tracks... I noticed my manafold was cracked. Upon removing the O2 senor I found the crack to be pretty bad...
Its a little hard to tell from the pic but the crack runs from the O2 sensor all the way back to the bolt hole..
Removing the O2 sensor was pretty interesting as well.. I am surprised it still worked fine..
The outter casing around the center porcelain had broken off...
A good look at the exhaust side of the turbo shows that some how when the O2 sensor broke it did no damage to the turbo...
I did how ever find a nasty surprise when looking over the turbo...
The exhaust housing is cracked almost 180 deg around the back side of the turbo.....
So well thankfully I have a stock pile of parts sitting in my garage... I ran home and picked up my good stock manafold... While on the way home I decided it was time to upgrade, so I grabbed one of my VJ11 turbos...
Turbo PORN!.. lol..From left to right.. VJ14, VJ11, VJ13(no I am not joking this is stamped on the turbo)
I noticed when I was looking at all the turbo that the one from my GTX was actually stamped VJ13.. not VJ14 like my other B6T turbo... Not sure where its from or anything, but it looks the same as the VJ14..
Off to the races I went swapping around turbos and manafolds...
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