I am signing the bill of sale to my very own. Grand National Okay, and we died. Oh, it's gonna die. No noise, noise.

This runs beautifully. I Mean it's fixed, guys. we fixed it. We're back in.

Chicago Starting to act up a little bit like it did before. Nothing too bad though. Welcome back to the channel. By the way, if you're around for the first, Grand National video all the way till the end, you know that this is a continuation of that.

So I said I'd either start filming right away if this thing was breaking down on our trip home, or we'd be at the shop by now. and uh, we didn't quite make it all the way there and it's starting to act up. It's got a bad U-joint too. Oh no, did you join in? it doesn't.

That's the first time you had to restart it. We definitely went way over 100 miles and nothing bad happened on the highway. nothing. although towards the end there I would give it a little throttle and it would just cut out like this and that was the first time it's died.

So towards the end of the last video, I'd mentioned that maybe the sump inside of the tank that the fuel pump sits in is broken somehow to where it now is reliant on the fuel all around in the tank. Typically they have a sump so that when you're taking turns, the fuel pump is always submerged. Um, that could be what's going on because we put nine gallons of fuel in it and we've driven. We've probably used up most of those.

probably only like three gallons left and it's still got the engine knock aired. It's very weird. Let's see there just cut out. Okay, I mean it's still running a million times better than it was in the beginning of that video.

But if we make it all right guys, we made it back to legit. Three quarters it is the next day. Uh, we put more fuel in it and it started to run better. So I think there's something going on with that sump in the fuel tank and it's getting low and then sputtering.

Typically when you run out of gas, it might sputter for a little bit, but then it dies. But this thing. it'll run poorly for many, many miles. Uh, so I think something's going on there.

But anyway, we are back at the shop and we have a ton to do. There's going to be a lot of discovering in this video. We have to drop the oil to see if there's any glitter in it because if you remember in the first video, this thing has kind of a knock and it might be a rod knock unfortunately. Uh, the belt squeal came back as well.

so we got to figure that out. and then we're just going to take a lot of other stuff apart. Hopefully fix a bunch as well. But first, I Normally don't clean a car before we fix it all mechanically.

but this thing. I just I can't help myself I need to see it without dust on it because it already looks amazing I Want to get a really good up close look at this paint and it's just simply dirty and I Found the factory Grand National Wheels Local to me with tires already so we have those in the shop as well. So we're going to wash this. Get some wheels on it all in the very beginning of this video.

so let's just let's just get started. Cold start. Oh yes we're National What are you gonna look like when we're done? Alex Show me Wax on Wax off Flex on wax off is that right? I don't even remember it's been sold and yes, it's missing the turbo 3.8 which we do have a new one on so we will re-badge it at some point. but I want to make sure the measurements are spot on so I got to do a little research.

It definitely needs a buff but wow does this thing look a million times better? Yeah! I Don't really hear the knock right now, but something's going on with the belt. Either way, we're gonna make it look sweet before. I'm devastated with whatever we find. so check out what? I Bought six original Grand National Wheels with tire center caps and lugs for 600.

This is a killer deal. It was local as well and all the other ones I found were about 1200 bucks just for four wheels with no tires. These tires are kind of old. um, but they're really not dry rotted.

They have a ton of life left and he threw these in. These have 275 drag radials on them and they are definitely old so we're just gonna go with these for now. So these Eagle Alloys are very period correct? these are yeah, probably more 90s really, but these were very popular. I had this exact wheel on my 1989 formula back when I was 16 years old.

All right, let's take our first glance. Oh man! I'm so excited about this! So overall, these wheels are in really good shape except the black parts of the wheels are very faded. but you know I Love my armor! Shield 9 Ceramic coating for restoring faded black trim and black paint. Wow, this stuff is so good! Yes, oh this looks great.

These are 235 tires. that's what they were from the factory I believe. So kind of narrow, especially for the amount of power these things make, but this is ridiculous I Can't believe this is my car. Oh man guys.

oh man. I'm getting excited, but hang on, we gotta spray on our armor! Shield Light fast Ceramic Spray It's so easy. I'll be able to do this whole car in like five minutes and this stuff is ultra hydrophobic. You're gonna get like three to six months protection.

It adds that deep glossy shine that you love from ceramic coating. You literally just wipe it on and you can spray this on the glass, the exterior trim, the wheels. Anything you want to protect. Oh and Avalon King is having a buy one 16 ounce bottle get one for free blowout sale only for the first 500 of my viewers.

So click on the link below and use code legit2 at checkout and check out how hydrophobic this is. We just applied it, wiped it off, that's it. and the water just runs right off the car. So this is a standalone product for cars that haven't been ceramic coated, but it acts as a booster a life extender to a car that has been ceramic coated.

You can use it kind of as a really good quick detailer. You can buy one, get one for free and give it away as a Christmas present or just keep two for yourself. Merry Christmas Peter I Got you a present God Bless us everyone! Do you want to try it? Heck yes! that works really well on carbon fiber as well. Really any exterior surface, this will just give it that deep glossy shine and make it look good again.

It is like brand new carbon now. Beautiful! I Am worried that we're gonna need an engine on this thing and then it's going to be down for quite some time. But just look at this paint. look at this car.

last time I Showed this off in a video. It sold out in just a few hours. This is a limited time and limited quantity offer. Buy one get one free.

It's the best deal there probably will ever be on this. Uh, so check out the link down below. make sure to use coupon code legit2 and with that let's bring in the Grand National and hope that my engine is okay. All right, we got the car on the rack.

We got to figure out this belt squeak noise. Eventually I will fix this headliner, but hang on, hang on before we get into this engine. One last cosmetic thing I Got to show you guys check out! What Lies Beneath Yes, Look at how nice these seats are. They're brand new.

The guy told me that his friend who he bought it from who had owned the car for a long time uh had these recovered and new cushions and everything and then he put these seat covers on immediately. so these basically have never been sat in and he did the carpet as well. Just needs a cleaning. but the interior outside of the headliner is an excellent excellent condition.

All right seat covers are back on. Come on, let's go! Alex Yeah I Know your post though you don't want to know I Don't want to know I'm postponing the inevitable Okay I just want it to look good for a little while Peter here Mr Negativity is like it's 100 a rod knock and we haven't even looked at anything yet. Which is funny because I'm usually the one who says it's fine. everything's good, right? Yeah, So anyway, it's got a little knock.

Let me let me show you guys what I'm talking about. Got quite the high idle. When you first fired up, the belt is screaming again. We had that fixed with a new belt.

Uh, when we first bought it. But check this out. Oh, all right, then it died. All right.

All right, let's pretend that never happens. All right. It's starting to come down a little bit. It's got a very, very high idle when it's cold.

Um I don't believe there's any vacuum leaks. But all right, check this out. so it's not knocking now right right there. Hold on right there.

Hear that right at that specific RPM it's got a knock or something. like a wrist pin type of noise. Something like that. What is going on with this thing and now it's running like complete garbage.

But we don't care about that. That could be 80s. Electronics We'll figure that out. but I Need to know.

Does it actually have a rod knock? Uh, well. if this thing will stay running Peter is taking a wrench to the belt tensioner to give it a little bit more tension to see if this squeak noise will go away. Is that maxed out for tension? Yeah. I'm pushing pretty hard.

What is that right? Oh, that belt tensioners cracked. Let's shut this guy off. This is this is going nuts. Okay, um.

all right. so the engine runs like garbage. It might have a little knock and the belt tensioner is cracked. That could definitely cause the squeak noise.

And the belt did come off at the end of the drive home. We put it back on and the tension feels okay. But either way, we need to get a new one. So Peter thinks it's a rod knock.

I'm trying to be optimistic in thinking that it's a cracked flex plate. That is a possibility those can make a noise like this. but we're going to take the serpentine belt off first so we can get kind of more of a clean listen so we can more easily diagnose this noise. And yeah, we're using Fender covers.

That's how nice this. Grand National is. This is like our first time using Fender covers, isn't it? Yeah, we always forget. Yeah, we've had these for like a year or two.

This belt tensioner is in a weird weird spot to get wrenches on. All right. There's that. It still feels pretty good though, right? The tensioner.

It does like it's a lot of spring in it that's cracked. but I don't know if that's necessarily the noise. We got to replace that anyway. So whatever.

All right, we got the belt off of the crank. Peter What do you think? Uh, what do you think of these seats? They're pretty. Everything's nice in here, right? It's nice for a living room, like a couch, but for a car, you still got a bad engine. I Don't have a bad engine.

You're not gonna move. They're nice. They're just not moving. Mr Pessimistic Pessimistic Peter Double P over here.

I Don't know if I've ever been called that. Wow, you're pessimistic. Pee. All right.

let's hear this. no rod knock engine. Oh yeah, there it is I don't even have to do anything with the throttle I Don't know if that's top end or not. Uh, pessimistic.

P might be right. I don't I don't want to be right. like ah, it sounds really bad. What are we gonna find in the oil? Glitter glitter? Yeah, all right, let's just let's just drop the oil.

Okay, so it definitely sounds like a rod knock, but we do have really good oil pressure. totally normal oil pressure. and sometimes it can be the torque converter bolts going into the flex plate or the bolts that hold it to the engine that are cracked. Um.

I've seen this before. I Mean we kind of looked around when we were laying on our backs trying to fix this thing in a parking lot. Well, we'll take a much much better look now. see the bolts right there.

The flex blade could be cracked around those bolts. That is possible. All right, we're going to look at that flex plate in a moment. I Just want to see the oil.

I Mean, if there's glitter, we're pretty much dead in the water here. We'll definitely take a nice little sample. Too foreign, you don't see anything Peter Stop. We have not changed the oil or done anything to it yet.

Man this is getting really hot. Okay I'm done. Cool down. Period.

Okay I'm back in that looks clean. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with this engine. We're at the tail end here now and this looks like totally normal oil.

Your eyes closed. It's normal. That looks normal. Seriously, you think that looks weird? No, no, it looks fine.

It looks fine. Bad is it to drop the pan. Oh, we're dropping the pan. How about a hat? That's not a hat.

It's a hat. All right. it's a hat. It's from the Bulls game so it's the next day.

I Had to leave early yesterday right after we drained the oil because we went to the Bulls game. The Bulls won as much as I Enjoyed the Bulls game. I Was thinking about this oil the whole time. what is going to settle to the bottom? So we are here to find out.

Yeah I don't I don't really see anything. it's kind of hard right now. It is dark oil so we'll I guess. Just pour this out on a white paper towel and see what we can see.

All right. So at this point I Want to remove the oil filter and check inside of there and this is an oil filter adapter. It is leaking so we need to make a repair there. but someone relocated an oil filter right here.

A much much larger oil filter. Not 100 sure if this is needed or not, but anyway, let's uh, let's take it off all right. So it is possible that this oil filtration system that someone installed on here is so good that it filtered out all the little bits of metal from the bearings being toasted. That is possible.

Or another possibility is that it's not the bearings. It's not a rod knock. It could be a wrist pin issue, which just hope it's the correct flex plate. All right.

Trying to be optimistic people. All right. let's see if we can see here. I mean I don't see anything? I Mean yes, we could cut this oil filter in half.

We can do that. That's a thing. You usually see something. I mean we are seeing absolutely nothing here.

No, it's just bubbles. No seriously. I Don't think there's anything in here now. It could also be that this engine's been knocking for years, so the damage was done a long time ago, the bearings came apart and then they've simply just changed the oil a bunch of times and now there's no more glitter in the oil I Have seen that before.

Also, All right. So we're gonna pour the oil out that we drained. But basically what could be happening here is if it's not a rod bearing, it could be a wrist pin. so this can get loose in here.

This this is normal right now, but when these go bad, they can get loose in the up and down motion. It's supposed to go side to side and that could sound like a rod knock as well. There's a bearing in here similar to this and what happens when you have a rod knock is this: Rod is literally knocking on the crank because the bearing material has worn away and there's a large your tolerance. So it's the same idea with a wrist pin issue.

The problem there is if it is a wrist pin issue, the engine definitely has to come like all the way apart. like the heads have to come off bearings if they're not that bad and the crank is okay and you were really on a budget or something like that, you could technically replace the bearings with the engine in the car which I would at least try and then maybe build something on the side. I Don't know. Um, like a factory recommended procedure for the BMW V10 Yeah, right.

on the M cars, you replace the rod bearings with the engine still in the car. They unfortunately are a factory recommended maintenance item on those cars, which is kind of ridiculous. so we could technically replace rod bearings with the engine still in the car. Wrist pins though? not so much.

All right. So I'm going to save a little bit of this just in case. I Feel like sending it out to a company for an oil sample? I might do that. that's more than you need usually and then we're just going to dump out the rest.

So this is everything that is settled to the bottom. If there's any anything this looks like really old oil. I mean look at that. No Glitter whatsoever.

How you feeling about this I don't know I don't know how I'm feeling because I don't want a rod knock but I also don't want a uh mystery not I don't want to I don't want a wrist pin issue either. but I don't know I don't know. we're just gonna keep going I think uh, what we're gonna do next because they're leaking Anyway, we're gonna replace these gaskets no matter what is. Remove the valve cover gaskets I Don't think it's a top end noise, but we got to do the gaskets anyway.

All right. So I Think this needs to be replaced? This is really, really in bad shape. Okay, is that right? You just take the rest of it. Can you just glue it back together? Yeah.

We'll just heat this up and make and make a new seal. There you go, All right. I Don't want any just getting in my engine. Get out of here.

Get out of here boy. All right. So we still have not emptied or organized any of the tools from the Honda Excursion the Honda Mercedes Excursion If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, watch, watch the video. I'll link it down below.

We bought a Mercedes that has a K24 turbo swap engine. It's it's really weird. but anyway, we you said weird I think it meant awesome. Weird and awesome.

Yes, yes it is off. It is really awesome. It's like the most reliable Mercedes ever because it's basically a Honda at this point. But we flew out there with all this stuff including inline fuel pumps and and all sorts of awesome awesome Sonic tools including hopefully a 10 millimeter that I need right now.

two. Oh and there's underwear. It's fresh underwear because you can only bring one bag each on the plane unless you want to pay more to check. So we brought tools, underwear, socks.

That's how we roll. Yeah, these valve cover gaskets are leaking pretty bad. and I noticed this too. This guy is super loose and wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Peter we have a super high idle. This is bolted to the intake and it's loose. You know where I'm going with this? Peter No, no, you got to spell it out All right.

How about some sound effects? No, No. I mean there's no blow-off sound. It's idling super high because it's got a massive vacuum leak that makes sense. We're fixing stuff left and right.

Wait a minute, that sounds like a knock. Peter I'm just kidding, that's not the problem, but how awesome would that be? We haven't made sure that it isn't the sound. Yeah, I mean you're right. like this would be insane, but could this be the sound? If it was at a very specific resonance frequency like a very specific frequency, then it.

Dude. if this is the sound, if this is the sound, we're doing a frame off restoration. It doesn't even need it. But we're gonna treat this car to a bunch of stuff that it definitely doesn't need.

if I get away with that. Oh Grand National Please please. I've had so much bad luck lately I mean if I wasn't already this far deep and loosened this up, I'll throw oil in this tightness and just yeah. I'm very excited now.

Peter We're never leaving the shop today. We are working until something gets figured out here. Okay, look at that stud right there. I Set you up on that one.

Here's a stud like you. Peter thanks Dad I Love Like the heat sinks I Mean that's not what these are. They're just first style, but that's kind of what they remind me of to make detailing more fun. Yeah right.

You guys ever take something apart and you're like ripping it out basically and you're like I don't know why I'm doing this because getting I'm never gonna get it back together, but you just want to take the part off I Mean that's that's what I'm doing all right. I'm able to finagle this guy out. Not gonna be fun to get it back in though. There's just a ton of wiring, harness stuff in the way, but we can do it.

We've done a lot harder than this right? that Mercedes V12 I worked on I'd say a little. just a tiny bit harder than this. Grand National the Cobra Oh yeah yeah. the Cobra valve cover that that was horrible.

Okay, okay, that is gone. This is an old cork gasket that they put some RTV on probably a long time ago. All right. So we're just taking a look here at our Stamped Out rocker arms.

Nothing really fancy here. Yeah, it's really hard to tell on camera, but that is a dual spring so that's cool. They upgraded the springs on here I'm not sure if they upgraded the cam. it does sound a little choppier maybe than Factory but then again, we don't have this thing running.

We do have ARP head bolts and the previous owner told me this car was like an 11, 5 and a quarter mile car or something like that. It looks like it has maybe a built trans. Definitely an aftermarket stall converter. A bigger Precision turbo? Um so yeah.

a stout little package. I Must say that side looked good and I'm over here about to take this valve cover off and look at this. That's a PCV valve that's not pushed into The Grommet At all. No big deal there, but that's not good.

Yeah, this would definitely also cause a leak and a knocking noise because it's a one-way check valve. It's got a little ball in there rattling around. A little rattle will make a big knockout. Yes, Yes.

okay. see. I'm getting somewhere people. Alex The Diagnostician.

It's just a couple of loose bolts and a couple of loose nuts. All right. Anyway, let's get this valve cover off All right. I'll pop this little breather guy out I Have all the bolts loose.

Hopefully this side is a little easier. Dude, this harness man is like the worst. I'll say it again. Long live the LS I said it during the Cobra removal of this side valve cover.

I'll say it now to kind of sort of the grandfather. Maybe kind of like a great uncle actually to the Ls. Something like that. All right passenger side valve cover is coming out.

there we go. I Didn't suspect anything wrong here, but nice to take a look. Nothing sludged up in here. Um, yeah.

I mean the Springs look. Broken rocker arms are intact. Everything looks good. Okay, cool.

Just replace some gaskets then. All right. So there is a very loose bolt at the bottom of this and I Want to see what kind of gasket we need if any. So we got to get some parts now.

Oh, it's actually a nut. Yeah! I Was just able to take it off with my fingers. So let's get out of here. Wow, This is really gummed up and you can see here the diaphragm working.

So what we have here is an old school GM EGR valve and we're going to test it right now by pulling a little bit of vacuum and if it holds, we're good. We can go a little bit higher than that. That's good, seems to be holding just fine and then you can see the diaphragm here. Bam! So what's happening here is when the vacuum is applied to this, mostly when you're just cruising or idling around after the engine's warmed up.

this opens up and it connects the two. So now you're going to have exhaust flowing through into the intake manifold. and what that does is it reduces knocks. So Nox is an emissions byproduct that happens when cylinder temperatures are high.

and believe it or not, when you introduce a little bit of exhaust into the intake, it actually reduces your combustion temperature. So this is strictly an emission device. A lot of engines have an EGR valve, some of them don't but yeah, I think this is good. It just needs a gasket.

like there's literally no gasket here and the bolt was falling out. so this would cause a massive leak. and I think that's why we were idling so so high and sometimes this thing would randomly die out as well which could be caused by a bad EGR valve. but I don't know.

Either way, this thing is working fine. We'll clean it up a bit, get a new gasket, and we fixed something. So no more knocks and no more knocking. Exactly.

That's what we're looking for here. so we're knocking out two knocks is with one fix. Well, they had a really nice oil pan gasket in stock, but we're going back together with the cork valve cover gaskets. I Was hoping to get some rubber ones, but that's okay.

it'll last another. I Don't know. 10 years or so. If only this gasket material could talk like who installed you.

It's done so long ago. All right guys. we're gonna clean these valve covers up with some diesel fuel in our parts washer. And guys.

I Can't say this enough, but don't do everything you see on the internet. I'm using diesel fuel to clean my parts in my parts washer. That doesn't mean you have to just do your own research. If this is something you don't think is safe, then don't do it.

It is diesel fuel. It does explode inside of engines. and if that scares you, then use a water-based cleaner. but it won't work like this.

I'm not encouraging, not encouraging anything at all. Wow, look at this. It just goes to work. I Love it.

And I mean I'm not using anything really that aggressive I'm leaving this factory GM barcode That's too cool. they were scanning this at the factory. That's that's awesome. All right.

So after about five minutes of cleaning in the parts washer with a normal brush, we went from this all the way to these Beauties here. and if I do have to do the engine which I probably do I will have these powder coated or figure out a way to just restore these to the original finish which is very, very close to what we have here. It's not really that stained so we have the vacuum going at the same time just to suck up any pieces of dirt and debris like this is truly the sign of How High My optimism is or at least my delusion. like we're doing a really good job on all these things that are completely pointless if the engine needs to come apart.

but you know it's the uh, the legit street cars away. That's the optimism. that's the pessimism. You do it twice because you're optimistic.

That's right. All right. we have our new cork gasket going on. This is really nice.

They give you these little notches in the valve cover and the gasket so you can hold these things on there nicely. That exactly cut perfect, but it'll work all right. We're going to do a little bit of our TV here. Not a lot, just enough because GM was like should we machine.

The Mating surface for the valve cover. Nah, just cast iron. that's good with all of its little bumps and bruises, so this will kind of help fill in the pores. All right.

Going back on with the driver side valve cover on an engine that probably needs to immediately come back apart after we drop the oil pan and probably find something really bad. but at least it'll have a very sealed valve cover if I could get it on. It's a gigantic wiring harness just getting in the way of everything that's totally inflexible too. Yes! I Got it past there now I Got to make sure this gasket's still on Great! All right valve cover is going going down there.

we go. Cool. We did it. We did a valve cover gasket.

Yay! now I Gotta I Gotta clean the valve cover again. Partially powder coated black? Yes, Yes, that's right. So we got to clean that off or put stuff on the rest. I'll just I'll just rub it on the rest and paint it.

There we go. We're good. It comes in every color as long as it's black. All right, so we'll have to get a permanent solution for this.

But right now we just have an o-ring in here and we're gonna see if this gets tight right there. Yeah, that's pretty good. Pretty good. not not perfect, but whatever.

that should work for now. I Got a bad engine anyway. All right. Valve cover number two.

Somehow going back in, hitting everything on the way in. All right, we got it out. so in theory should go back in there we go. Just a little puzzle piece.

That's all there we go. Done easy, all right. So we have a new gasket for our EGR valve and it gets held in with this little clamp and a nut. So I'll just put it on like so that's finger tight.

That's about how tight it was before, probably because it's very difficult to get a tool in here. Okay, you can barely get an open end half inch in here. There we go. That's some torque right there.

Click the final torque. There we go. All right, she's on there. That is going to reduce our knocks and our Knocks spell differently.

Welcome to the English language and let's pop on our little beauty cap. So nice. All right guys. Both valve covers have been reinstalled so they are sealed up.

We have fixed our leaking EGR and we're ready to go back up in the air and take an oil pan off. All right. we're spraying these flange bolts down with our Cree oil penetrating oil. This stuff is amazing! I Use it on all my cars and I will leave you a coupon code and a link and Amazon link down below if you want to buy some.

Smells really good too, but we don't want anything to break and we have to remove this exhaust pipe to get this oil pan off and then because we're going to be eventually doing a frame off restoration on this. Grand National because I Love it! I Don't really need a frame off restoration, but it does need the body mounts to be replaced. They're not really causing any issues, but they're just kind of worn out so we'll have to remove the entire beautiful Grand National body from the frame and then we'll be able to blast the frame and coat it because it's full frame and this is actually part of like the Cosmetics of the car. you can see the frame even at a normal level so that does need to be coated in black to look proper.

Um, but you know the car is an excellent excellent condition. We don't have any rust or rot anywhere so I am a big big fan of this car. It's an excellent platform. It's got some stuff stuff that's not done too well like that but all the important stuff is solid.

so I think it's worth it to remove the body one day. Yeah, look at that body mount right there. it's not good and we'll do all the mounts coat the frame just like the lightning which is super dirty but back at my shop and then we'll have yeah we are. really, we are really.

Crossing some stuff off of my 80s and 90s childhood. Bucket List Look at this. what is going on? C4 in the background Alpena Get out of here. We don't need you.

All right? Let's hope these don't break like butter. It's beautiful. All right. Look at that.

It just gets right in there. It's amazing. My last one was pretty much loose. Okay, thank you.

All right let's take some oil pan bolts out. This has definitely been resealed, which wouldn't be weird. It is an old car, but there is RTV everywhere. and look at this.

The Rtv'd the oil dipstick tube in there and I guess that's one way to do it so we might have to Jack this engine up in order to get this pan to clear the subframe. but we also read that you can put cylinder one at top dead center and it'll clear it's basically hitting the crank so we'll see what happens. Maybe we're just coincidentally there. I could put a couple of these rear ones back.

In all the front bolts are out. Oh, that's the last one this is being held in by our TV right now. he really went to town with that stuff. Uh, they used a nice gasket though.

that's good. This oil pan was leaking a bit though. Everything's just kind of leaking a little on this car so it just goes to show it hasn't been messed with in a long time. It's basically been sitting for the better part of a decade.

at least. Are we just gonna get lucky? Oh yes we are. We never get lucky. That's awesome.

So yeah, a lot of the forums and stuff online said we had to. you know, jack up the engine I mean I just got lucky taking the oil pan off now I'm about to get hit with some serious unluckiness. Now this is our TV and this engine is going to be toast. but it's a little baby battle.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. we want our little baby one. All right. let's dump this stuff out.

Okay, here we go. No dude, there is nothing. I Mean that's a little condensation. That's a big chunk of our TV right? Yeah, Oh yeah, that's just our TV There is absolutely no bearing material in here.

And for sitting for so long like this, this kind of stuff is normal. You know? this is we. haven't. we at all? Yeah, this isn't gritty at all.

There's no shiny stuff. This is literally just condensation for not having an oil change in like 10 years or whatever. Oh yeah, they did. They did goop it on.

What say you now? Peter What say you now? I I Think my my pessimism is is slowly dissipating. Okay and it's any smoking guns though. I Mean it still could very well be the wrist pin. I Mean those bearings could be shot.

They're really small bearings so it wouldn't make a lot of money. It wouldn't make a lot of material. Although, we're seeing nothing. All right, let's get this gasket out of here and take a look at the bottom end of our engine.

Now we can see the very bottoms of the Pistons. We can see if anything is lacking around. this is normal to have a little bit of side to side going on there. Do we have any smoking guns? Look at that cylinder.

One was coincidentally pretty far up there. That's probably why we were able to get the oil pan out. It's something to do with the counterbalance on the crank getting in the way. All right guys.

So Peter and I are poking around in here and uh, everything looks really, really nice. This kind of stuff is hard to show on camera. It's actually hard for us to see too. but it is the cylinders.

They are an excellent, excellent condition. So there you go. See the cross hatching is there. These cylinders are perfect.

They look beautiful. The Pistons look great. Nothing is loose so there you can see at the very top of the rod that is the wrist pin and the rod has a bushing inside of it. So that's kind of what I was suspecting if it wasn't a rod knock a lower rod knock.

But uh I don't know I've gotten my hands in there. Everything seems tight but nothing in here seems loose. We've got a little screwdriver in there as well to kind of pry things back and forth safely just against the crankshaft weights and whatnot. and nothing is loose.

Everything looks really good. Oh man, this is crazy and we have a really good view of our flex plate and so far I don't see any cracking at all. We're going to spin it over right now. Um, but yeah, it could be cracking in this area.

here. they could crack around the converter bolts I've seen where the converter bolts are shimmed in properly so it's kind of rubbing up on the inside of the block, but that's not the case. Um, yeah. so far, everything looks great all right.

So we're spinning the motor over this way because it's very difficult to get to anything here. The crank bolt? we got to take the little fan out for that. There's just no room so this is a little bit slower, but it's working. I Can also tell that this engine's definitely been apart at some point if you can see all that RTV in there.

So someone's done something to this guy and I gotta run the numbers on the Pistons Um, it could be aftermarket. I'm not sure. All right. We did some research and these do look like aftermarket.

Pistons Uh, they're probably TRW Pistons That was a very common piston to use in the older builds and the rods also look to be aftermarket. I Don't know what brand they are, but none of the factory rods had that casting line down the middle and then also the factory rods had two dots somewhere on them. We can't find that anywhere. and there's just stuff like this where someone was trying to stamp a number into the rod caps.

They didn't do it on this one, but they did it on that one. Just kind of indicative that this thing has definitely been a part all right at this point, since we know that it could still be a rod knock without a ton of bearing material visible in the oil. Let's disassemble some more and take some Rod caps off and we'll see what we see. What do we got? What do we got? Yes, we have where it's not that bad, but there's something.

Okay, now let's see if there's anything that'll tell us a clevite bearings. Oh, wait a minute. this is an undersized bearing .020 They've definitely done something to this engine. I Don't know if 11.99 is a date code.

Uh, maybe it was done in 1999? Not sure. But okay. all right, let's keep going here people. I'm gonna loosen them all up.

We're taking all these caps off. All right. this guy's getting in the way. Let's just get it out.

We don't have time for you. Oil pick up. Get out of here. always picking up oil and stuff.

Who needs you? I Love it How we're pumped for bad Berry I Know that'd be so nice I mean it's not the flex plate which would require us to remove the transmission I Don't think it's the wrist pins anymore It's gotta be it. Okay, not horrible. Again, this makes sense as to why. we don't really see any material in there, but there is some wear.

Um I Gotta say, knocking engines though usually have a lot more wear than this. It's pretty smooth, but uh I don't know. Let's see. we'll keep going now.

We just noticed that these things aren't labeled properly at all like the ones we just pulled off. They're just not numbered right? Oh, that crank looks like it's got some more lines than the other ones. Yes, look at that there she is. That's a bad bearing.

That's a very bad one. It's got no crush on it either. All right. I mean it's it's not totally destroyed.

But yeah. I mean it's oh, it's loose. she's loose. This is good news all right.

I mean I'm just excited that we figured this out. I mean hopefully we'll keep going here, but this is a smoldering gun right now. This is definitely a Smoking Gun All right, we got oversized bearings. This one is loose.

I Would say without looking at the rest of them that the rod knocks. probably coming from that one. Okay, we can fix this. We can do it for cheap.

All right. We're turning this engine over a little bit more and we have checked all around the flex plate. There are no cracks whatsoever and as best as we can see, none of the wrist pins seem to have any issues. Nothing is loose.

We can get our hands in there pretty well and that's solid as well. So right now we're just turning it over so we can get better access to the other bolts those guys can out right here. Oh yeah. Oh wow.

this is a bad bad bearing. So far this is the worst crank Journal we have and I can't feel anything at all so that's good. Um I mean it would definitely need a Polish but it's nothing too horrible. And keep in mind we had perfect oil pressure as well.

Look at this. They labeled this one one this one six and this really makes any sense. Okay, all right. number one slash number six coming down and that looks pretty good.

Yeah, not a whole lot of wear, a little bit. Definitely not as bad as that other one though. Let's say you first: Rod Cap What? You got what you got? Oh juicy. Wow.

that stuff is weird. Yeah, this is some weird here on the side of the bearing. Um, didn't get as bad on this side, but okay, let's see here. this one is also 20 under.

Yep, All right last. Rod cap coming off? Oh um okay. yeah. in the middle? Yeah, in the middle.

not too bad. This one's got an 897 possible date code on there. All right. So with the rod disconnected, we can kind of see if the wrist pin has an issue.

So I'm moving this back and forth and there's hardly any play at all. So I'd say they're fine and then moving the rod up and down like this feels good too. So I'll go around and check these. but I don't suspect it's a wrist pin any longer.

Hey, it can definitely make noises like we're hearing. but I think they're gonna be okay I think it's I think it's all about these bearings. At this point, you don't want to see that. how are those upper halves looking? This one's all right, but we got bad bearings.

Yes, that's awesome I've never celebrated that before. me neither, but this is so. this is so fun because the crank doesn't look bad at all. We could potentially fix this for like I don't know how much bearings are anymore with everything that's gone up, but they're probably still like 25 or something like that for all the rod bearings.

Theoretically, there could be tire smoke later out of the day there could be we can fix this. We're going to fix this, but we're not going to disturb the mains because they usually don't cause any problems. It's clearly the rods in this case. Uh, so we'll do the new rod bearings that should fix our noise and then this is going to be a fun experiment because I'm gonna try and put a few thousand miles on this engine as is and then way way later down the road.

I'm gonna take it apart because I may or may not have a fully forged short block for the Grand National already. That's gonna go in when we remove the body and do a frame off restoration, but then we'll be able to see what a bearing slap looks like after a few thousand miles to see if it held up. Oh, and I Don't know if you guys noticed this, but none of the rod caps match the rods. So these are all numbered.

They're supposed to go together. This is probably one of the reasons why all of these bearings aren't in the best of condition. So we've written down each cylinder and which rod and cap came off and they're pretty much all incorrect except for number six. And number six is the bearing that's in perfect condition.

So yeah, someone did not put this thing back together properly. All right. So we got to do here is pop some of these rods up like so and just be mindful not to touch the crank with any of the rods. Okay, and then you can kind of Swing the rod over like that and just pop the bearing out.

Like so there we go, All right. So we're gonna polish up this crank. But first, I Gotta see what our bearing clearance is. So we're gonna use some plasti gauge cutting off a little piece and that is what plasti gauge is I'll show you how this works and we're just going to snap in the top side bearing all right.

So with our plastic gauge resting on that bearing or an installer cap and we're going to fully torque these down All right. So we're torquing this down to 40 foot-pounds I Like to slowly kind of tighten up each side. All right. There we go.

So with the torque down now, we can just undo the bolts, pop the cap off, and measure. okay I Feel like we've just been here? Deja Vu Oh I Can't wait to see what kind of clearance we had here. I'm guessing it doesn't even crush it at all. A little a little crush.

Oh man. I wonder if that's even gonna measure? So what we're looking for here is two thousandths of an inch or a little bit less than that. like 1.5 000 something like that. something in between.

There is roughly the spec and uh yeah, we are at about three times that, so that is definitely causing our rod knock. That's a ton of clearance, all right guys. We got the bearings on order, so while we wait, let's polish out the rod journals to polish out the crank. You can use some Emery cloth or some 2000 grit sandpaper with a shoestring one of Peter's shoe strings.

They're nice bright red ones. So we're gonna first put a little bit of Cree oil on this and you can use engine oil. You can use diesel fluid, you just want to really lubricate this and then we're just going to go ahead and wrap it around and we cut this exactly to the size of the journal. So like so and like so nice and toit toit like a tiger.

Okay anyway so we have our sandpaper on there. so now we're gonna wrap this shoestring around and just kind of feed it through like so and then we're gonna bring her down like this. and the reason the shoestring works so well is because it's flat. We're going to go around again so we apply even pressure.

All right. At this point we're just kind of flossing away here so you want to have that flat side pretty much right in the middle. But you can see we have one end here and one end here. so it is getting pressure all the way around and we are polishing away flossing our crank.

and I would just like to mention that you know we are doing this as a temporary repair because I'm going to put a built motor in this thing. But if you guys have a car that has bad rod bearings, you can get more life out of your engine for, you know. Literally, these were these were like a dollar each. By the way, they were on clearance, they were one dollar.

It costs us twenty dollars to get them two days shipped so it was more for shipping. But anyway, for about thirty dollars roughly, we're gonna fix this rod knock and you guys can do this too. If you have a car and you just need to squeak out a little bit more life out of it, a repair like this could last like tens of thousands of miles. You know it eventually will need to be rebuilt properly, but if you're on a budget, why not try it? It gives you time to save up for a new motor or find a good core.

Yeah, exactly. It'll buy you some time for very little money. honestly. I've seen repairs like this last test a really long time too.

You know, like 50, 60, 000 miles and then the person just sells the car and it might have lasted even longer. Who knows. So we're just going at a medium speed here in about every 30 seconds or right about now, we're just gonna check it out. Oh yeah, yeah, I think we could do a little bit more, but I mean this is.

This is really nice for a temporary repair. This is super smooth. I Can't feel anything with my nail. You need to cut my nails but I can't feel anything I grew them out specifically for this video to test the crank people.

Okay, um, yeah, this is nice. All right. So we're continuing on and this is a really good before and after. so we polished this one.

You can see how super shiny and nice it is and we haven't touched this one yet, so this definitely makes a really big difference and it's going to give those bearings a fighting chance to survive. Okay, so we just finished up polishing all of the journals and these are definitely still the worst ones. They're very smooth but you can still see a little bit of the scoring. Uh, the ones for their back look really nice and shiny.

not perfect, but I Think good enough and we have our new bearings. And then we did a little bit more research into the Pistons and it looks like these are 30 over forged. TR W Piston Seems like this was a very very old old build and this was a very common build in the 90s and early 2000s. So we're removing the worst bearing and the new bearings just snap right in.

You can see the little grooves at the end, they just pop in like that so we can put the top half on and then we'll stick some more plastic gauge in there and measure see what kind of clearances we have. But let's do this one more time with the green plasti gauge so we can be a little bit more accurate. All right. We have the other bearing snapped in to the connecting rod, get some silicone spray going on.

Oh good catch dude. All right. And then just like before, we're putting the cap back on and we'll give it our 40 foot pounds. So these are not stretch bolts so they do not need to be replaced.

Uh, if this was an engine, I really cared? a ton about I'd probably replace them with some better Hardware from ARP or something like that. but uh, this should be fine. and now we literally just take it off again. Looks like we've seen here before many, many times.

Okay, see, we got for clearance. All right. Where are we at? Where we at? Yeah, that's nice look at that. so it's a little like right right there.

I Should say yeah, it's right in between. Exactly. Yeah, it's right in between. Perfect.

Perfect. Did we just fix your entire life? Uh yeah. major portion of it. All right guys.

So we've assembled the first four and we plasti gauged each one of these and they all come in in between that. Two thousands and three thousands range pretty much right in the middle. Uh, so a little bit looser than we'd want, but again, this is all temporary and I think that's going to work just fine. All right.

So all we do is snap our bearing half in there. Just make sure it's lined up here in the groove. and then we're using a little bit of engine assembly lube. and you could use engine oil if you'd like.

but I like this. it kind of sticks on there in case there's a little bit of time in between assembly and first start. and we're doing the same here. And obviously the other half of the bearing is already on the rod.

so once that's pushed up, you can snap it in. And now we have the right caps going on and they're much easier. This is how it should be. They just slide right on and the bolts thread in very easily.

The other ones when we took them on and off that were mixed and matched. You can barely get the caps on. These aren't cracked rods either, by the way. I Kind of wish they were.

So it's kind of crazy that on this old school build, these do look like aftermarket rods. They're not even cracked. You can see here on the Lightning engine, they come with Factory cracked rods so these Rod caps will not fit any other rods. They are cracked perfectly to fit into each other and that adds a lot of strength too.

So these aftermarket rods on the Grand National engine don't have that. So this is a built engine, but just put together improperly and that could have been probably was the reason why all these bearings are destroyed and we're on our last one. Okay, let's see if this engine spins. We're able to spin it by hand before.

Oh yeah, we're good. Listen to that sweet sweet 3.8 liter compression. This is the definition of spinning over by hand right here. Oh, this is beautiful.

This is beautiful. We're gonna be good guys. All right, let's get the uh. let's get an oil pickup in here.

We need that and the oil pan. See what it sounds like? All right. So we gotta replace our gasket here. Getting excited? Get off.

Get off my kind of damaged but repaired engine. There you go. All right. oil pickup is going in.

We have a new gasket with a little bit of our TV on it. So this is the old oil pan gasket and it's like they cut it right here. most likely because they took the front timing cover off without taking the oil pan off and they ruined it. and then they just loaded this up with RTV.

So anyway, now we have the proper gasket. We're just going to do a little bit of our TV here at the corners where it meets the plates and then a little at the corners in the front as well. and the oil pan is going in sweet, all right torque in the last. Bolt There we go.

Cool. Now we have to install our gigantic oil filter and I like to fill these up whenever possible. All right, that's good and I'm going to go with a 10 40 Amsoil Synthetic I run a 40 weight oil on my Turbo Trans Am as well. I think pretty much all turbo cars should probably have a 40 weight, so that's what we're going to do.

It'd be funny if they ran this gigantic external oil filter just to filter out all the bearing materials. This was their Band-Aid fix. Just filter it out, it'll clearance itself. Who needs to read numbers on robberies, right? They're custom rod bearings, All right.

We got a new seal for this and there we go. Nice and tight. And now for the last of our Amsoil 1040 Drink up little buddy. Drink up All right guys! Moment of Truth did our rod bearing repair work Or do we still have a rod knock? Uh, we didn't get the belt tensioner on time so we have the belt off right now.

Um Peter Are you ready? I Think so. Are you? No, But do it anyway. All right here we go. Oh Grand National Fire Though okay, and the battery's dead.

All right, we're hooking up a jumper Peter Sweet en it. We need a belt sensor though. like that is still broken and we still need to drop the fuel pump. No, No no, no, we can't do burnout.

So belt tensioner, We have to drop the fuel tank, figure out what's going on with that too. Whatever. Whatever it runs. Yeah, she's smooth.

Number four goes right around here. They were. Yeah, All right. just in case this video is ridiculously long and you guys forgot what it sounded like.

Max put the clip in. Um, so I've let it run for about three minutes now. It's gotten a little warmer and this thing is nice. Perfect so it would ride, knock right around there.

Oh yeah, you can hear these old old CM injectors clipping away a little bit. maybe a little. Valkyrie noise. No, this is beautiful.

Okay, all right guys. cool. Um, that was a ton of fun and we fixed this engine for about 20 bucks. and I I'm very curious to see how long this repair lasts.

Gases, gases anyone? We checked all the clearance. I I mean it was a little bit out of spec, but I mean I think I could drive this like thousands, tens of thousands of more miles and it'd probably be okay. It was far better in Spec than it was before. Yeah, exactly.

So anyway, in the next video, because it's also raining outside, we can't take this out right now. uh, we are going to drop that fuel tank because we got to figure out why this thing is intermittently dying. I Have a feeling that although we found the broken fuel filter in the other video, I think the fuel is slashing around in there, the fuel pump's going bad. Something like that, because whenever we get low on fuel, it starts to die out again.

And after we did the fuel filter, we put like 10 gallons of fuel in there. Uh, so you know it's kind of one of those. We did two things at once so which one one actually fixed it. So anyway, next video wideband O2 Sensor: We're dropping the tank.

uh, we're gonna do the belt tensioner. We're gonna spin some tires. We're gonna see how fast this Grand National is. and uh.

you guys also get to see if the knock came back. We are going to put some miles on it before that. So anyway, with that I Hope you guys really enjoyed this video I Hope you're enjoying the Grand National Series thus far. If you are, give it a big thumbs up.

Share the video with your friends. subscribe if you haven't already I think I might have messed that up. but most importantly, have an awesome day! I'll see all of you in the next video. Foreign.