I got the heat shield on the driver's side motor mount turned around where it needed to be today. Easy enough to do. Just loosened up the bottom nuts for both left and right side motor mounts, as well as the top nut on the driver's side mount. Then put one of the adjustable tall jack stands underneath the oil pan, put a couple wooden boards between the jack and the oil pan to distribute the lifting pressure on the bottom of the oil pan, and just turned the screw shaft enough to just lift the engine a smidgen to loosen up the clamping force the weight was putting on the heat shield. Fortunately there isn't any sort of indexing peg on the shield, so it was a simple matter to just nudge it around 180 degrees while it is loose. Lowered the stand's shaft, tightened all three nuts, and DONE.

I've been placing shop towels into the opening where the blowoff valve sits on the intercooler, trying to sop up as much oil as I can that way. Doesn't seem to be a whole lot in there, and since the inlets for the intercooler are at the bottom and the outlet going to the throttle body is at the top, I doubt very much, if any, oil got up to the top. The convoluted tubing and cooling fins in the intercooler would have likely acted as a pretty effective catch can.

So I should be getting to checking out that SERVICE ACTIVE HANDLING issue pretty soon. Hopefully it will just be something that got jostled out of whack when the engine was pulled at the shop.

Was just over in the garage, to shut it down for the night, and wound up underneath the car again just checking out things. Noticed that the hose on the large air pipe on the driver's side turbo was sticking out more from the side of the turbo body than the one on the passenger side. So I reached up and found it would slide back and forth easily by hand, meaning the clamp hadn't been tightened. This is actually the inlet for air from the air filter going into the cold side of the turbo. So I tightened down the clamp and checked the other one. Then I saw that the hose on the pressure side of the turbo going up to the intercooler wasn't sitting right, neither, and the hose clamp was loose. So after fixing that I went around and checked all the clamps on the turbos. I already had to replace one of the clamps on the small hose on the passenger side, because it had a hose clamp on it that was way bigger than needed, so there was quite a bit of extra metal handing down from the clamp and quite noticeable when viewed from the rear end.

Now that I think about it, the nut at the top of that driver's side motor mount didn't take much effort at all to break it loose. So I think perhaps I need to check every nut and bolt that might have been touched while the car was in that shop. I'm planning on changing the oil and filter tomorrow, so while the crankcase is draining, I'll be checking hardware to make sure everything is tight.

Yesterday I found that the clamps on the airbridge were loose, so I tightened them all down. Then when I looked at the hose clamps at the inlets to the intercooler, I saw this for the one on the passenger side:

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/turbo_clamp_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/turbo_clamp_02.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/turbo_clamp_03.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/turbo_clamp_04.jpg


Not only was it situated in such a way that the end of the threaded shaft was jammed against the radiator (and likely would eventually wear a hole in it from vibration), it was pretty much impossible to get a socket or wrench on that nut. I was afraid that the radiator would have to come out in order to correct that problem, but I was able to loosen up the pipe enough, and nudge the radiator over a bit to the left enough to get a Gearwrench 11m box wrench on the nut and tediously loosen up the nut enough so that I could move the clamp around to a better position.

Then looking around more, I spotted this:

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/cradle_nut_01.jpg

The left front nut holding the engine cradle up to the frame was completely loose. So far everything else I checked was tight, so it seems like many of the clamps related to the turbo system were loose. I sure do hope the bolts holding the bell housing to the block are nice and tight. When the car came back from South Georgia Corvette, not only were they loose, but a couple of them were missing entirely. Which apparently contributed to the destruction of my clutch system back then. So I certainly didn't want to go through that again.

Got the oil and filter changed. Decided to go with Amsoil 5w30 this time. But honestly I am strongly considering going back to Royal Purple. Been using the Joe Gibbs LS30 oil the last several oil changes, but honestly, there probably isn't all that much difference between any of them. But with having turbos, I think they are a bit more critical concerning the composition of the oil than the more modern engines. If the modern oils are not suitable for engines with flat tappets, that gets me to thinking that the journal bearings in those high revving turbos might be an issue too. The problem is that the more you read about oils and lubricants, the more confused you get about what is actually *THE best* to use.

I've been just glancing at stuff before I actually tackle this SERVICE ACTIVE HANDLING problem, and this seems like it might be a good chance of being the problem. Thanks again for pointing me in this direction. Matter of fact, I had to repair the heat/AC module back when Chris Hardwood had the car all apart with some soldering. A lot of the lights were out, and I read about resoldering the flat surface mount resistors to fix this exact problem. Sure enough, that did it. So seems that there might be several electronics modules in the C5 Corvette and have a rash of bad solder joints in them.

Anyway, I was under the car today and on a hunch was checking the wiring going to the wheel speed sensors. Seems to me I had this error message show up one time when I had forgotten to hook one of the cables going up to a speed sensor. And one time I had this error show up in the C6 Z06 I used to have that turned out being a bad wheel speed sensor. So seemed like a good place to start looking.

And I did find a loose ground wire on the frame inside the rear wheel well on the driver's side. G401, I believe. I looked for one on the passenger side, but couldn't find it, so I'll have to take another look tomorrow. I probably need to check the other grounds, and likely should go ahead and reseat and clean up any and all grounds that I can find. Probably just as well I do this, even if it isn't the cause of the problem.

Oh, I found some YouTube videos showing that fix with the EBCM, that are real helpful.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GXD76dFGD0




And I found another place that will do turn around service on the EBCM if I get to being lazy and not wanting to take the module apart myself.

https://www.myairbags.com/product/ch...waArrREALw_wcB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi3CvDNBV1Y

Well, looks like the SERVICE ACTIVE HANDLING problem wasn't as complicated as it could have been. While poking around looking for obvious problems (which just seems to be par for the course when my car goes into a shop), I noticed a plug on the brake pressure sensor that sits on the side of the ABS pump. Something just looked odd about one of the three wires going into that plug, so I broke out the borescope to get a closer look at it.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/PIC_0004.JPG

Yeah, that doesn't look right. Checking around further I found pics of other plugs, and sure enough that white insulator should not be sticking out like that. The plug is a bit awkward to get to, but fortunately my small hands and some adequate cussing got it loose. Yeah, that pin had apparently been yanked out of the plug.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...or_plug_10.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...or_plug_11.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...or_plug_12.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...or_plug_13.jpg


BTW, the error code I was getting on the DIC was 28-TCS C1293.

So I oriented the pin the way it needed to be in the plug, and then pressed it back into place. Seems to be pretty snug, but I found a used wiring harness on Ebay for a decent price, and ordered it to have on hand, just in case. In any event, after two restarts of the engine, the error message went away, and will hopefully STAY away.

But I'm not out of the woods yet. Yesterday when I started up the car to see if my cleaning some of the ground wires had made any difference, I noticed some oil on the garage floor behind the tailpipes. Great..... I remember talking to the tech that worked on my car, and he said he had a problem with oil blowing out of the tailpipes. He said that it turned out being a loose connection in the oil return lines, that he was able to fix by tightening one or more connections. Right now I'm not sure exactly which ones. I know I had to check the intercooler when I got the car back home, and sure enough, had to sop up oil out of the bottom of the intercooler. But it appears the problem has come back. So I'm not sure if it is the same leak he saw earlier, or something new. The oil scavenge pump sounds like it is worked fine, but I sure am glad this leak didn't happen on the way back home. It would have likely drained the oil pan leaving me stranded along the road in the middle of nowhere.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...platter_01.jpg

I took some pics of the fittings in the return oil lines, and forwarded them to the tech to have him indicate to me which fitting he had had to loosen while working on my car. I numbered the fittings to make it easy to reference them.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ittings_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ittings_02.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ittings_03.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ittings_04.jpg


The fitting is loose at point #2 up front on the scavenge pump, and I had already tightened down #6 and #9 in back that were loose. I'm thinking I may have to pull off some of the fittings and put new teflon tape on them to seal them up good. I want to start with any that the tech had disconnected first and see if that fixes the problem, but I may wind up doing all the fittings that I have even slight doubts about. Apparently with a leak on this side of the scavenge pump, the pump is sucking air and not able to extract enough oil quick enough from the turbos. My guess would be that the loose fitting right at the scavenge pump would be the most likely culprit.

So that is what I will be working on tomorrow. Honestly for the money I paid for that clutch job, I really had expected I wouldn't have so many issues to have to deal with here at home.

I was reading up on topics such as oil leaks with the STS system, and from what I have been able to gather, putting teflon tape on AN connectors is not recommended. Apparently that can cause more problems than it will solve. NPT fittings are OK, however. I think the NPT threads would be directly into the brass fittings in that oil scavenge system. So I have to pull things apart to take a look at them.

I sure wish I could take this car to a shop without afterwards having to spend my time fixing things they break.

Well, it gets even better.

I was over in the garage just a bit ago, figuring I would try to trace the oil return line from the "T" coupling on the rear cradle to see if I could find any damage to the oil line itself. I saw that it went over top of the rubber boot on the half shaft axle on the driver's side, so I reached up to see how much clearance the oil line had. Well, it had NONE. And my fingers came away covered in axle grease. So yeah, the tech didn't check and that braided oil line (which I covered with insulation, fortunately) cut into the boot and it is now leaking.

I am soooo PISSED!!

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...le_boot_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...le_boot_02.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...le_boot_03.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...le_boot_04.jpg

Talked to the service manager at the shop that worked on my car yesterday afternoon, and he sent out a flatbed today to pick the car up to take it back to the shop. So the car is headed back to the shop right now after being back just 9 days.

So we'll see what happens now.

If you look at the last picture above showing the grease leak, you will perhaps notice what the problem is. That return oil line is underneath a hard brake line and that is actually pushing the oil line against the axle. Matter of fact, had the protective insulation I have wrapped around that oil line been turned differently, it is possible that it would never have sliced into the rubber boot. But the edges to that opening are kind of sharp, so I'm sure they had no problem slicing into rubber.

Oh yeah, while I was checking out the car getting it ready last night to be towed out of here today, I closed up the hood and noticed some damage up at the top of the hood near the center.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/..._damage_01.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/..._damage_02.jpg

Looks like a pretty good abrasion there. Could just be scratches or it may be cracks around it, which indicates to me either the hood was dropped when it was removed from the car, banged against something, or something banged into it.

Great.....

:face_palm_02:

I talked to the service manager and the tech today. They said they didn't see any oil leaking, so it appears there must be an intermittent problem. Hopefully they will find it so I don't have to worry about it happening while I am on the road. I might need to carry a few quarts of oil with me for a while, just in case.

A replacement boot for the half shaft is no longer available from GM, so they are ordering a new axle from Nashville. Hope to get this wrapped up next week, but I'm not holding my breath. The closer we get to Christmas, the more dicey it will be getting anything delivered quickly.

I was told that the body shop manager will be looking at the paint problem on my hood. I'm hoping it wasn't an impact that caused the paint to actually crack, instead of being scratches. So we will see.

Got a spare bay in the garage again. :(

The car is supposedly finished as of this past Friday, but was not able to pick it up because of the Christmas stuff going on, and I had some things to do that just couldn't wait.

Rained like hell today, so the road is a mess, which means we won't be picking it up on Monday, neither. So it won't be until Thursday till it will be coming back home. Tuesday is Christmas Eve, and Wednesday is Christmas, and quite honestly, neither Connie nor I want to be spending the time right now messing with the car. It's already sucked enough life out of us.

Connie and I ran out to the post office today, and yeah, our road was pretty messy. The puddles of water weren't as big as when I saw them yesterday, but the crap the roads department put on the road just turns to mud when it rains heavily. So had we picked up the vette today, I would have been scraping mud out of the wheel wells for sure.

Supposed to be dry weather for the next several days, so the road should be dried up pretty well by Thursday.

If someone had told me when we dropped the car off at the shop that I wouldn't have it home till around Christmas (9 months later) I would have laughed at the thought, thinking they were insane to make that kind of prediction. :face_palm_02:

Picked the car up on Thursday. The tech put it up on the lift there at the shop so I could inspect it, and everything looked pretty good. Saw some signs of oil leakage in the front of the engine, but I think it was from a past leak from the scavenge pump that blew back on the engine and some other areas up there. There were signs of the oil leak in the tail pipes, so I cleaned that up real good, figuring I could check that on the ride back home as a good indicator of whether there was still an issue in the turbo scavenge pump plumbing.

After a short drive, I checked the tailpipes, and there was no oil residue, so that was looking good. The drive home was uneventful, and actually a pretty pleasant drive. Car felt really peppy, and the clutch felt really good. No drive train noises, thank God.

I put the car up on the lift when I got home, and best I could tell there was no new oil leaks showing up anywhere. I cleaned up what old oil was on areas, figuring I'll just keep an eye on it to see if there actually is an oil leak somewhere. But everything looked pretty good, with nothing touching either half shaft at the differential.

So I was dusting off the exterior of the car, and wiping off fingerprints here and there when I was wiping down the area near the deck lid when I saw something skitter across the lid. Hmm... A piece of the decal on the deck lid had broken off. I sure as heck didn't hit it hard, so I looked closer. Heck, the remaining "leg" was severely cracked and just barely hanging on too. And closer inspection showed cracks and odd marks here and there. So I checked the front decal on the bumper fascia, and that too was pretty messed up.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...d_decal_01.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...d_decal_02.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...r_decal_01.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...r_decal_02.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...r_decal_03.jpg

Now what the heck? I went back through a bunch of old photos I took and even looked at some videos where one or both of those decals was visible. They sure didn't look like that before taking the car into this shop. Matter of fact, when I was trying my hand at wet sanding the paint, I actually used Q-tips to clean out the painted areas inbetween the openings in those decals. So I sure as heck would have noticed all those cracks then.

I'll post more picks in the next post, showing what looks to me as damage caused by a rotary buffer.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/..._damage_01.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/..._damage_02.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/..._damage_03.jpg

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/..._damage_04.jpg

I dunno, but it looks to me that the plastic of those decals got heated up pretty good by the friction from a rotary buffer. Not sure if the plastic just got heated up enough to start cracking, or else the pad on the buffer started snagging and catching on parts of the decal. You can actually see what looks like the plastic bubbling up from heat from the friction. At a couple of spots, I can't tell if the plastic got so hot that it melted and started to run, or perhaps whoever did this tried to fix some areas with some sort of adhesive.

Rotary buffers are notorious for burning paint if used by someone not experienced with them. I guess plastic decals are even more prone to damage from the heat of this type of buffer if the operator isn't real careful.

Well, damn......

I'm not even sure those decals are still available from GM any longer. I sent an email to the service manager of the shop with the above pics attached. I also attached pics I took earlier showing there was no damage to those decals prior to his shop working on the car. He is off on vacation till Monday, so I don't expect to hear back from him until then anyway.

But my guess is that they have someone there handling the detailing of their vehicles that really shouldn't be doing this kind of work. IMHO. Sure hope this guy isn't detailing their new vehicles before being sold to customers.

Well, my conversation with the service manager didn't go all that well. He seemed to be implying that the damage didn't happen there at the shop, and when I replied with the facts (as I saw them anyway) and my observations of the details I photographed, he interpreted this as being an attack on his employees. Yeah, maybe my saying I didn't want the detail guy there to EVER come within 10 ft of my car again, could seem that way, I guess. Seems that nearly every shop that does damage to my car wants to put the blame on me, my car, or both. I suppose other customers that get their cars damaged at shops just bite their tongue and stay bent over, thanking the shop for the "service". Sorry, not my style.

In any event, he says he will order the decals and send them to me, which I am interpreting that he is not offering to do the work to replace them there, and would just as soon not have my car back in his shop. Like it was my fault that the car was there for 9 months. Which I certainly hope too, since every time now I have brought my car back home from them, I find something new that is now broken. But if I find something else major wrong that they did, I will change my opinion on that. Bad enough that around 7 months of that 1 year warranty on that triple disk clutch got pissed away while it sat in that shop.

With that in mind, I found more things that weren't as they were when the car went into that shop.

First off, the firewall in the engine bay got damaged when the tech pulled the engine. Looks like the banjo fitting at the end of the fuel rail caught it. Hope that didn't get damaged and a fuel leak crops up sometime in the future.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...irewall_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...irewall_02.jpg

Not sure why the tech decided to pull the engine to replace the clutch, but in hindsight, I sure do wish that he hadn't. Caused me several problems that I would have had otherwise.

Then not really anything damaged or broken, just that I don't think the way the turbo oil supply lines were put back together was done the best way that they could have been.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ly_line_01.jpg

So I rearranged that a bit. Wasn't really comfortable with that AN fitting hanging down at an angle to maybe catch on something or get hit by something while driving.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...ly_line_02.jpg

Easy matter to just loosen up the AN fitting and turn everything to fit where it needed to be. Also replaced the sheet metal screws that Chris Harwood put in those clamps with bolts and nuts to hold everything more securely. I guess I could have dressed it up better, since Harwood put it this way to mount that God awful external fuel pump he put up there. But maybe one day I'll work on it to make it look more aesthetically pleasing.

Then on the oil return side, the junction block was tilted out from the rear cradle quite a bit, likely from that loose bolt holding the clamp to the rear cradle, so I loosened the other clamp and pushed the junction so that it was laying flatter against the rear cradle.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...rn_line_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...rn_line_02.jpg

Tightened the clamps and it appears to be holding better.

But I'm thinking I may look into trying to put some sort of bracket to hold the junction solidly against the frame rather than what it is now. Maybe vibration will cause those joints to leak with that tension being on the top part like it is now. If that were to happen, the scavenge pump would stop sucking oil out of the turbos, then I have a mess with the oil blowing out the tailpipes and up into the intercooler. If this were to go on for long enough, my crankcase would get drained of oil eventually.

But in any case, the car is back home in the garage and hopefully will stay out of ANY shop for a long while.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...n_12262019.jpg

Took the car out for a drive today, and turned out to be quite a pleasant ride. Seemed like the good old days. Clutch felt very nice, shifting was solid and firm feeling, no strange noises, and no oil dripping out of the tailpipes when I got back to the garage. Car feels really strong, but I didn't run it up into boost at all. Maybe next time I am out. This was mostly just to work the clutch a bit and break it in. Monster says that the triple disk clutch really doesn't need to be broke in, but heck, I would feel better doing that anyway. Not that I am going to be stressing it out at the track or anything. :peelout 1:

Hopefully all this drivetrain nonsense is history now and I can just enjoy driving the car.

I did get the new decals yesterday, so at least the service manager at the shop came through with that. Debating on whether I want to put them on now, or wait to see if I decide to get the car repainted in the near future. But at least I have them in case GM stops carrying them. And I guess it depends on how often I find myself looking for the cracks in the current decals whenever I look at the car.

Also bought some brackets to see if I can get one of them to work to hold that scavenge pump return junction firmly up against the rear cradle. If not, I may have to fabricate something on my milling machine.

Took the car out for another short drive today. Sure feels good to be behind the wheel of it again. And I'm beginning to really like that Monster triple disk clutch. I think I may have made the right choice in picking it out. Actually, I didn't really have much choice the last couple of times the issue came up about which clutch to use. But I think I know a heck of a lot more about this stuff than I did back then. :shrug01:

The other day I was looking at the rear section of hose for the turbo oil return line, checking for any leaks, and figured I should maybe more securely mount that junction fitting against the frame so it doesn't vibrate and possibly loosen up one or more of the oil fittings into it.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/oil_junction_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/oil_junction_02.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/oil_junction_03.jpg

Unfortunately I just can't get any of my drills between the rear cradle frame and the rear anti-sway bar to drill the holes to mount a bracket. But I found a Makita angle drill that should be able to do the job, and have one on order from Home Depot.

Now if I could just get FedEx to stop screwing around and deliver the thing, I could get this job done. It was supposed to be delivered on Friday, but for some reason the FedEx driver couldn't figure out where my address is. The guy must be dumb as a rock, which doesn't surprise me, because with past deliveries, he doesn't appear to be able to comprehend that Home Delivery means delivering to the home. NOT out there at the end of my driveway, sitting in plain view of the road. It's no wonder the shipping companies have such a problem with "porch pirates" when they are this incompetent at making deliveries.

I contacted FedEx about it, and their customer service is just as bad. At one point the girl claimed that the delivery was supposed to be via their Smart Post service. She sort of clammed up when I asked her if she was suggesting that the driver couldn't find the local post office. :face_palm_02:

So maybe on Monday I can get this done. If the driver can figure out where to deliver the package, of course.

Another project I am going to be working on REAL SOON involves the exhaust system.

Somewhere along the line, my catalytic converters fell off of the car. :hehehe: But honestly, I'm just getting tired of the unburned fuel smell whenever the engine is running. Especially in the garage when I start it up. The smell just clings to my hair and clothes, and takes several days to get evacuated from within the garage. I have an air cleaner running in there 24/7 which likely helps quite a bit, but still, maybe some catalytic converters back in place will help with this.

So I bought a pair of high flow cats from LG Motorsports to go on my exhaust system. I'm still waiting on some high temperature tape to apply to the junctions, since I have been plagued with exhaust leaks whenever I messed with the exhaust in the past. I also bought a different style exhaust clamp to use to see if that helps.

Anyway, I found it rather interesting that I could see right through the elements in the cats by shining a flashlight in through the other end. I'm just hoping that it doesn't make the exhaust tone sound worse, because it does sound pretty darn good right now without the cats in place.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...nverter_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...nverter_02.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...nverter_03.jpg

I got the oil return line bracket painted up with POR-15 silver paint, and drilled and tapped two holes in the rear cradle frame to hold the bracket in place.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/oil_junction_04.jpg

I decided to use allen wrench driven bolts to hold the bracket against the frame, and while I was at it I pulled out the two hex head bolts on the other two brackets and replaced them with the same style bolts. These will be a LOT easier to remove if I should need to work on those lines for any reason in the future.

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/oil_junction_05.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/oil_junction_06.jpg

This all should keep any of those connections from moving around from vibration and hopefully keep any future oil leaks from developing.

Might be a while before I can get to the exhaust, however. Banged my elbow against a sharp corner of a desk in my den, and my left arm is smarting pretty good from it. So I can't push or pull with that arm without causing pain. Hopefully it won't take too long before it is feeling better.

So my elbow is feeling better, and I figured I would put the C5Z up on the lift so I can check to see if the exhaust pipes are leaking where the headers connect up with the X-pipe. The reason for this is that if I didn't have any leaks at those joints, then I wouldn't have to pull off that X-pipe. The exhaust pipe arrangement is front to back: headers, X-pipe, catalytic converters (straight pipes right now), extension pipes to the cat backs, cat back pipes, rear mounted turbos, then exhaust pipes coming out of the turbos. The extension pipes to the cat back pipes just have to have the bolts removed and then swung out of the way so that I could remove the straight pipes and the extension pipes. Put in the catalytic converters replacing those straight pipes, and button it all back together. Shouldn't take long to do.

So I started up the car and lifted up. Then squirted the joints with soapy water and look for bubbles. Damn. Leaking like crazy. Looks like the tech didn't push the pipes together enough, because there are slots cut into one of each pipe end that slides over the mate in the slip joints. They look like this:

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/...nverter_04.jpg

The slots are there so that the clamp can make a better seal with the clamping force applied by the clamp.

So what happens is if the inside pipe isn't shoved in far enough to go beyond the cut slots, exhaust escapes, goes right underneath the clamp holding the joint together, and there you have an exhaust leak. So if one is leaking at a joint, then ALL of them on that joint are leaking. So yeah, I suppose that the exhaust smell I have been smelling while driving the car is coming from those exhaust leaks right underneath the floor boards of the passenger cabin. And for a turbo powered car, so is a lot of the boost being generated just being pissed away through those leaks.

Great.... Probably a good chance the other joints downstream are leaking too, but I didn't bother checking them since I have to take that all apart anyway. I guess the tech just didn't check for exhaust leaks. :face_palm_02:

Honestly, if something else comes up with this car that I can't fix myself, I will just sell it. As parts, if necessary. NO ONE appears to be worth a crap for fixing these things. At least in my experience.

Finally decided to tackle putting those catalytic converters in today. Damn I hate those slip joints on the exhaust pipes. I've been fighting with one section for a good hour now. Has to come off, because it's one of the straight pipes where a cat goes. Then the X-pipe comes off and then I can clean up the pipe ends and start putting it all back together again. Then hopefully when I check, I won't have any exhaust leaks.

Had I known the car was going to be in that last shop for so long, and the engine pulled out anyway, I would have gotten a new set of headers all the way back to the catbacks that used a different connection system between the pipe segments. The slip joints have never given me anything but headaches.

Anyway, got Break-Free sprayed on that one pipe connection and just letting it set for a while to hopefully help loosen it up. I hate to have to cut it off, since I never know if I might want to use it again. And I would have to be REAL careful I didn't damage the X-pipe in the process.

Finally got everything all put together and I hope all of the exhaust leaks plugged. I still had a small one earlier today, but I really cranked down on the clamp and it seemed to fix it. I was surprised to see that neither one of the cat back flanges were leaking at all, so perhaps my straightening out just the engine side flanges was enough to help seal them up properly. Plus I was pretty liberal with the high temperature sealant at every joint. I really don't like having to do something AGAIN.

I don't really notice the smell of the exhaust being any better in the garage, but perhaps at idle the catalytic converters just don't get hot enough to do their job very well. Plus these are "high flow" cats, so I guess they aren't as effective as the factory made units anyway.

Maybe I need to break out the EFILive stuff again and see if I can lean out the cells in the AFR table for the idle range of RPM. Heck, I'm going to have to relearn all that stuff, since it's been too long since I last touched it to remember much about it. The old brain just don't hang onto stuff as well as it used to.

Planning on taking the car out for a test drive over the next day or three to see if any of the exhaust pipes fall off on me. At least the weather appears that it is going to be clear sailing and sunny for the next week and a half. Subject to change without notice, of course.

Well, I want to tweak the position of one of my tailpipes just a hair, but beyond that it seems to be running really well with the new clutch.

Odor seems to be reduced with the new catalytic converters in place and the exhaust leaks fixed (knock on wood). Didn't notice any change in the sound as best I could tell.

But ain't it the way? Now with this virus stuff, I really don't have anywhere to go with it, and just don't want to drive around needlessly, forcing me to stop in at a gas station any more than absolutely necessary.

:banghead:

I guess if I got really ambitious, I could pull off those damaged decals on the deck lid and front bumper, so some wet sanding to get more of the scratches out of it that came courtesy of South Georgia Corvette, and then put the new decals on. Not sure I can really get THAT ambitious, though.

Rich, hope your Vette is doing well, was cleaning up my email and saw an email from this forum on there, thought I'd drop in and say hello. :)

Hey! Long time! Hope you are doing well and recovered from your experience with Harwood. I know I have my own scars that will likely never go away.

Darn! The date today is 4/27. I REALLY should take the C5Z out for a ride today......... :hehehe:

That wouldn't work too well on my road. Just dirt. Of course, I hear a lot of the pickup truck drivers around here out on the road "burning dirt", so I guess they think that really means something concerning how fast their truck is. :hehehe:

Well, I guess it is a sign.

The lower case "L" on my back window decal for "CorvetteFlorida.com" fell off. I had noticed that when it was in the last shop a couple of the taller letters had gotten damaged both front and back, but not really positive this was the cause of the one of them falling off. If you look in the picture, you can see that the "d" is damaged at the top, too.

Anyway, I decided rather than trying to find some place to redo the decal, I would just go ahead and remove it from the back window completely. It is still on the front, so that will just have to do. Now, all the rest of the letters I scraped off the glass weren't super easy to get off, so there did still seem to be enough adhesion to them to keep them from just peeling off on their own. So it does seem suspicious that just that one letter came off, and none of the others seemed inclined to do that. I have to admit that they were rather brittle, I guess from just age.

So anyway, it is what it is. Just another insult and injury inflicted all along the road by shops who worked on this car. This last time it seems that the detail guy they let loose on my car wasn't up to the job. IMHO.

Oh yeah, the driver's seat got broken too. I can move it back and forth about an inch while sitting in it. It did have a little wiggle to it before it went into this last shop, but I guess the tech being a rather big guy did those bushings in but good.

Damn shame that I can't say there is anyone I can think of that I can trust to work on my car. Even if I could find someone willing to do so, of course. Seems rather easy to just have shops blow you off if your car isn't mostly stock or else solely modified by them. Maybe it is my fault for being too picky and not wanting anyone to break things while they are fixing something else. Pretty damned inconsiderate of me, isn't it?