WTF is wrong with people??? I mean seriously...

I thought I had seen it all when I found that the PO used (I sh*t you not) WOOD GLUE, to seal the throttle body to the plenum. Then I found it was so gunked with dirt, grease and "mud" of some sort. After cleaning the car ran excellent in Open Loop(first started) however I still had a dead miss when warm going into closed loop. So I started moving on to the next steps going over the tune up items since this is a new car to me.

I buy shorties, stainless Y-pipe, full stainless cat back and cat delete. So I decide to take off the factory headers. None, I repeat NONE of the bolts were tight. No gaskets on the flanges, not sure if this year had doughnut gaskets or not. Curious if anyone could enlighten me if an 87 came with gaskets at the header flanges?

Not to my surprise.... Now I find orange permatex used as an exhaust manifold gaskets WTF, I knew it had an exhaust leak as I could hear it, and when I asked about the orange permatex when I was looking the car over before buying, he told me he just used that permatex to hold the gasket in place while he bolted the headers on. Yea, right!.

Then, on the drivers side, I find 2 of my spark plugs "finger" tight, as well as 2 of them are AC Delco #2 plugs, and the other 2 are R45T. Which upon looking at the plugs it seems they are different lengths as well as the burn pattern on them is very different. The AC #2 are 1/8" longer than the R45T's.

Next, on the passenger side, I find 3, I'll say it again 3, different kinds of spark plugs. First 2 are R45T, 1 is #2, and the last is a Bosch 7985. Why on earth would someone just "jury rig" a car like this? The body, interior and everything else is almost mint condition. Then to rig together spark plugs and use glue on the TB and wonder WHY it was running like crap. He told me he could not, for the life of himself, figure out why it ran rough at idle or why it had a dead miss. /Shrug... Could there be a reason WHY he used 3 different plug types/brands? I thought maybe blow by on a cylinder so he was using a hotter plug but the engine is solid. It has no blow by and compression is great so I don't get it. Also the plugs are not THAT hot of plugs that are available.

Just cracks me up how someone goes on and on telling me their so honest, and there telling me everything wrong up front and his wife tells him he is too honest and then flat out lies about crap like this. He told me he JUST gave it a tuneup with all new plugs, wires, cap and rotor and coil. Which the cap, rotor, coil was all original and dirt caked. Out of all the plugs 3 of them looked brand new the rest were pretty old, rusty and oil caked on the ceramic. He also told me he by passed the heater core because the old rubber hose split one day but that he swore the core was good. Yea, I hooked it up yesterday, freaking anti freeze all over the passenger floorboard now.

 

wow, you just cant kill a small block chevy


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wait a sec. you bought headers as a "tune up" item?


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Uhh negative ghost rider... It says "So I started moving on to the next steps going over the tune up items since this is a new car to me." which meant after I finished the TB issues and the car still had a dead miss, I started going over tune up stuff in an attempt to eliminate the rough idle at temp.

I then went on to state in a new paragraph that I bought headers, Y and full exhaust system. In putting it on I had to pull off the factory headers and they were sealed with permatex. It was only relevant in that I Wanted to give the reader a reason WHY I was pulling the factory headers off and how I found the permatex used as a header gasket.

So I guess the answer is No, and at the same time Yes. LOL I am throwing the headers and exhaust on her to help her breathe and support some smaller upper engine mods while at the same time I am doing a full tune up. So in a way, I did buy this as a "tune up" item.

 

Man...you got some work ahead of you. Heater core replacement is a PITA unless you're a contortionist.

Get a real set of plugs in it and see if you still have a miss. That would actually be my main concern...if it still misses, compression and leak-down test to follow...

 

Done compression already 165 to 189... have not done leak down. I think the 2 cylinders in the 160's is the same cylinders I have lifter noise. Going to adjust those this afternoon.

 

Personally I don't find heater cores to be that bad... I've had to change mine out twice (about 6 - 7 yrs apart), and it only took me about 3 hrs from drive-in to drive-out the 2nd time.

These cars didn't come from the factory with headers, they had manifolds. But apart from that, at least some of them had no gaskets, donuts, or anything else in the exhaust system; the carbed ones specifically. All the parts were originally metal to metal.

Yeah the whole "PO hack job" thing is pretty scary; especially when you realize, EVERY car you ever bought used has had at least one PO, and a sizeable portion of those are the same kind as this one here, and ALOT of em are driving those hack jobs around on a more or less (some more nearly, some not near so close) daily basis. It's no surprise that out of all the cars I see disabled sitting by the side of the road, a disproportional number are these cars, Mustangs, and various r¡cer POSs. Almost as though the hack jobs are catching up with the CURRENT owner before they even get the chance to become "PO" problems. Which in turn is why I preach so strongly against ANY FORM of hack jobs, in a general way.

 

My bad, meant factory manifold but header came out haha

 

Been a long time since I changed mine in the Camaro...I seem to remember a mounting bolt on top....unless I'm mixing it up with my Z24 Cavalier, which I've changed that one twice. No picnic either...

 

Yeah the heater core, the easiest way I found BY FAR, is to just bite the bullet and take out THE WHOLE dash... seems like trying to minimize the work by leaving it in, just makes more work and harder besides. Gotta take out the dash pad, speakers, console, some of the duct work, and then the main dash piece, which is held in by about 6 large nuts, and doesn't have to came absolutely all the way out; but then, the heater core itself is right out in the open and easy to work with.

 

Sheesh... Reading your guys posts makes me cringe. I hate messing with dash's on these cars or any for that matter. I have done every thing on every car I have ever owned myself. Including my recent 70 442 W30 complete frame off and there is one thing I hate more than anything and that's messing with dash's.

I just finished and sold a 76 C3 L86 to fund my Iroc project. I had to redo all the wiring and dash and I swore I was done with doing any dash work. I have arthritis in my hands and I am a programmer by trade. It just beats my hands up messing with small bolts, nuts and confined spaces etc. I will more than likely bite the bullet and take this some place, or pay a mobile mechanic or a friend to do the install. I will just stand over them and make sure there doing it correctly and not breaking crap.

I really enjoy working on my own cars but I hate messing with dash's. Would it make a different getting to the core if the PO installed a AC delete? I doubt it would since that area just held the AC core, but wasn't sure if I could get to some of the bolts by removing the delete plate and fan. Never done one on a Camaro so not sure what it looks like behind that AC delete.

 

Nope, not a bit. The heater core is on the interior side of the firewall.

Don't worry, it's a piece of cake. Don't be so scared of it that you make it hard on yourself. Don't be like some little kids when you take em in for a vaccine or something, they're so convinced it's gonna hurt, they start screaming about "it hurts" when somebody rolls up their sleeve. That's about what this sort of thing is like. Just put on your big boy pants and dive right in there, and before you know it, you'll be done.