Replaced rear brake pads, replaced left rear caliper carrier d/t seized slide pin, replaced coolant reservoir, replaced valve cover gaskets, replaced spark plugs and plug wires.

So; no more oil leak, no more coolant leak, no more squeaky brakes, no more rolling backward on a hill if I leave it in neutral with the parking brake set, and the engine purrs a little more contentedly with a bit of new spark in its life.

COMING SOON: new clutch going in, and replacing left rear control arm bushings to stop squeak. Seriously considering lightweight flywheel, pending funds.

Good times.

 

Nice to hear someone having fun... There is something so soothing about working on your car, assuming the wife and kids leave you alone!

 

It's a nice excuse to stand around in my driveway with a few beers in a cooler and enjoy the beautiful weather we had here today. Plus it kills otherwise idle time and it's nice to accomplish things that needed doing. Yes, we men are creatures soothed by the simple pleasures in life...

 

Nothing like working on your car all afternoon in nice weather.

 

how easy were the valve cover gaskets

did it stop the leak that you can see i still need to do mine

 

how does your ebrake hold better now?

 

VC gaskets are an easy job to do - definitely a DIY. The new gaskets are going to seem longer than they need to be, so be careful that you don't mis-seat them. Torque the covers down alternating bolts diagonally too. And there's a small vacuum line from an evap canister on the drivers side that runs in from of the VC that you WILL break, so have some replacement line on hand for that. Otherwise you'll be set. Parts are $50 from ECS Tuning.

 

Parking brake holds better because the seized-up slide pin on the carrier was preventing the caliper from closing all the way, so I wasn't getting full grip of pads on the rotor. Braking in general is much better now as well.

The valve cover gaskets were pretty simple; trickiest parts were getting at all the bolts (I had to use a couple of ratchet extensions and a universal joint on a couple of them, just because it's a funky angle and there is other stuff in the way) and then making sure the new gaskets stayed seated when putting the covers back in place. The car has about 153k miles on it, and judging by the condition of the gaskets I removed, it was pretty obvious that that was the cause of the leak. So far, the new gaskets are holding fine. I was leaking about half a quart of oil per month, so I'll let you know in a month if that's gone down.

I got the gaskets from Blauparts for about $10 each, which was the cheapest I could find. I didn't have any problems with hoses when I took the covers off; I think what TheDevil is referring to may be specific to the 30v engine.

I was a little concerned when I replaced the coolant tank; sucker had leaked itself DRY quicker than I expected... good thing I got that done before true misfortune befell my engine!

 

Good to hear you got all that taken care of man! I need to change my oil, I've been putting it off for a while now :-/. I'm due for a tune up as well, new plugs, wires, etc. My plan is to stockpile parts over the winter (like i do every year lol) and do the tune up in the spring. Not having a garage to work in sucks the big one