Having a field day trying to find the bottom of the last gasket material put into the square channel of the aluminum. I think the gen 1 s did not have a premade gasket. They were mak your own.

Then GM came out with preformed ones later.

I'm using a narrow dull screwdriver at a very shallow angle to slowly work my way down to the aluminum. I know not to gouge it but at the same time there is just so much crap... Ideas for a more proper tool?

 

Cleaning anything off of aluminum is tricky due to how soft it is. The small scotch brite pads are very fine for aluminum and plug up quickly.

 

Thank you. I will give it a try

The only nice part Is that the channel in the cover has 3 edges of the gasket that oil would have to get past in order to leak.

Now the top of the head...I know NOT to wreck that lest it never seal properly.

The gaskets around the plug holes should be interesting. The plugs are out from rotating the engine by hand.
I'm thinking it's best to put the plugs back in for that. Haven't decided how to cover the cams.

None of this was an issue as the 97 had a preformed gasket.......

 

A fine wire wheel mounted on a bench grinder or one chucked in a drill works well for me.

 

That would have to be a mighty thin as in not wide wheel. Sounds kind of aggressive but to each their own.

As I have worked my way down, I have found that the channel in the cover does not have a flat bottom period it is graduated in three separate steps or levels, making it all the much more fun to clean.

I cannot scrape anymore and I have not yet obtained some of the Scotch Brite pads. I found brake cleaner works somewhat to loosen and dissolve some of the crap. I'm hoping I haven't marred the inner surface of the aluminum channel. Part of the problem is that anything that is not shiny aluminum is a coating of some sort or some type of film. I keep rinsing with brake fluid. I need to get the pads and get this done.

Going to finish rear brakes right after work. Changed the caliper pin boots as the pins were dry when removed so I figured anything actually in there was just dried out grease.

Neat little trick I learned from some dude off the internet. Tie string to the bottom of it that slightly makes it fold in on itself. Put the string down through the hole in the caliper bracket. if you have tied the knot tight enough, it will pull the base of the boot which is actually a larger diameter than the opening through the channel and out the bottom where it seats. Don't forget to lubricate the metal channel that the rubber is sliding into.

 

Try it, you will be surprised

 

I went the manual method. After much time, and many many many many wipe downs with acetone to dissolve the last bits, I got the surface nice and clean and saw how much I had beat it up. No gouges but quite a few scratches.

I carefully cleaned the solid crap off of the top of the head with a brand new razor blade. It was pretty cool to see machining marks still present along that edge.

My comment about AC Delco putting out a pre-made gasket for the Gen 1 aluminum covers I do believe is wrong. I did however procure a Fel-Pro 91 to 95 preformed gasket. I was rather suspicious after I opened the box and tried to lay it down on the head. I won't go into the minutia of the specifics of getting this thing lined up properly and setting the cover down exactly 100% vertical, which is impossible, leading to 333 small adjustments each of which effects 17 out of the last 22.

One and a half hours later (remember my hands shake somewhat) I finally got it as good as I was ever going to, used new t40s to screw it down and torqued it to 89 in pounds.

Waited about a day for the small bits of gasket maker stuff I had to put down where the timing cover portion meets the rest of the head to set properly.

To my amazement there are no leaks. So far anyway.

Tomorrow I check the back pressure. I looked at the bolts on the exhaust manifold downpipe and I'm not sure I can do anything besides cut them off but I do have replacement studs that should work.

But we should know tomorrow if in fact it is the exhaust system.

Oh and I have a code 26 quad driver fault. One of the culprits is possibly a bad evap solenoid. which is funny because the car was fine until I put in a replacement. Or maybe I effed up the connector. We shall see. That's when the SES appeared.

And I took this picture of the valve cover which is as clean as I've seen it in decades, although I got some brake cleaner under the peeling paint and clear coat, but it was worth it cuz it looks a lot better now. I know I should not have used brake cleaner but I did anyway.

1995 SC2 cam cover. Almost shiny, but not.

And and I need to degrease this puppy.

 

So many stories.

So as I'm hooking up the backpressure sensor, the design of this thing is such that you put the adapter into the O2 sensor hole, then thread in a tiny length of 1/4-20 to the main adapter. The end with the 1/4 20 on it is crimped to the end of the hose which does not rotate independently.

So I'm spinning the hose and gauge, get about halfway, and the 1/4 20 piece tears off midlength inside the other half of the adapter.

So now I have NO real way to use this gauge -- unless I cut the end off, retap the hole in the adapter, and put in a 1/4 20 to 1/4 ****** adapter.

Everything would have been straightforward had I not run a metric M6 x 1.0 tap through the adapter. I assumed since it fit pretty well that the whole thing was metric,

NO. It is not. 1/4 20 is the traditional size for tapping into an exhaust pipe to check back pressure mid system.
So I order a better backpressure tester with a better design.
I'm trying to sort out the best way to use the other one.

The new one arrives after 9 days. It comes in a nice plastic case and reads a steady 1.5 psi attached to nothing.
I am livid.

I search around the net for an M6 x 1.0 to 1/4 barb adapter.
I find ONE. Amazon. Takes 6 days to get here and it is M6 x 1.0 to 1/8 or some bs and is JUST too small to fit the most narrow vac line I have, which is smaller than the hose on the gauge.
So now I either have to Frankenstein hoses of multiple lengths and IDs together with barbs everywhere or tap the adapter to some SAE size.
I am now livid AGAIN

I am returning the broken one -- I haven't decided if I want it replaced or if I should select one that won't get hosed during shipping.

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Finally got around to putting the old t stat in the 97.
As usual, lower bolt is PITA.

Open the felpro 1991-1995 seal I ordered -- they don't fit -- about 10% too large..........

As is my way, I never throw away removed parts until everything is back together. Used the old seal.
Refilled tonight. Will burp and do leak check tomorrow.

White car is in the driveway getting reacquainted with society.
I put the original purge valve solenoid back on after finding orig and repl both are within resistance tolerance. I even tried swapping the hoses to no avail.
I need to check if V is getting to the connector. If that is ok -- then I need to pull the cluster again and take out the extra bulbs I installed for the hell of it. I read one post from a knowledgeable dude that said code 26 can actually be set by instrument cluster bulbing issues.

This whole code 26 thing is ironic, as I have helped many over the years sort out Code 26 and now I have created it on my own vehicle and traditional troubleshooting methods seem to not work.

Rant over