HA - Too late for all of you. My step son just asked if I can look at his 2002 XG 350L that dumped a P1723 code for a failed Automatic Control Relay. Sorry, family comes first.

My $1.11 part that now costs @#$%!^ $18.00 is supposed to be here tomorrow. This will be the final part for bring the 2001 SL1 back to life. Keeping my fingers crossed!

 

IT LIVES AGAIN!!!!! The engine is once again running. A little noisier than I had hoped for but it's running and no fluids are leaking out!! Only thing left to do is put the wheel well shields and the console back together (after i drive it for a hundred miles or so) I'm soooooooo happy? Its Miller time!

 

Congratulations, Tom. You da man! As far as the noise goes, what do you think it is? Could it be that you need a little bit thicker oil?

 

(Tips hat)

 

Thanks!

The engine noise is pretty bad though. I'm guessing right now that at least one of the valves isn't gapped correctly. So when I have some spare time, I'll be pulling the valve cover back off and checking the valves. I just figured that that would have been done correctly from the company that I bought the rebuilt head from. Hopefully that's all it is.

 

Finally! Good news to report on the SL1 1.9 rebuild. I've been away from working on the engine for the last couple of weeks getting the yard cleaned up and fixing my son's XG350L. But during the last couple of weeks, I couldn't help just going out to turn the engine over and let it run on the SL1 every now and then. Tonight I went out with the intent of trying to figure out what the loud ticking noise was. BUT IT'S GONE!. Still has a slight ticking noise but for the most part, it's gone. I'm guessing that enough oil just hadn't worked its way around the cam and the rocker arms up around the No. 1 cylinder. Took it out for a test drive thru the neighborhood and it runs wonderfully. Finally, I can put all the wheel wheel liners back in and put the center console back together.

I do have a question for you engine experts though. I had bought a can of Rislone Oil Treatment to add to the oil to try to quiet the valve parts. Do any of you know if this stuff actually works or is any good? Any recommendations? Something other that Rislone?

 

Doubt it'll cause any harm.

Kinda weird that it would take that long for oil to get up there; hopefully there isn't a plugged oil passage in there, as that would lead to long term oil starvation of the head near #1.

Hard to think that would be the case unless something got wedged in there during the reman or someone didn't thoroughly clean something.

Would be interesting to drain the oil and see if anything is stuck to the drain plug and to pour the used oil through a colander and see if you find anything

 

I used to work with a guy that used Rislone with every oil change he did on his 87 Dodge Dakota. He had 279,000 miles on it when he sold it and swore all he ever did was routine maintenance on it. He did say he'd had to replace the distributor once, but that was the ONLY thing he'd had to replace other than normal wear parts. It even still had the original water pump.

 

well a quick update on the 1.9 engine rebuild....

been out driving the car a little bit now. I guess I don't fully trust my ability to rebuild an engine yet as I will only venture into town and back at times when I know my wife is home and can come rescue me if the car stops. Although it's been running fine and gives me no indication that it's not going to keep running. Maybe I need to be more trusting in my repair.

However, when I got stopped traffic the other day, I noticed that the temp gauge was creeping up and didn't come back down until I was moving again. I tried turning on the AC too and yep you guessed it, the AC compressor didn't kick on. When I got home, I let the car idle until the temp gauge was showing a little over the 1/2 way mark and the cooling fan never kicked on and the AC clutch never kicked on either.

So, I've spent the entire morning troubleshooting this dang cooling fan (assuming that the AC won't kick on unless the cooling fan is working since the PCM is switching the low side of the cooling fan relay and is probably looking for relay coil current before it will command the AC relay ON.) I hot wired the fan motor and it's good. I jumpered the cooling fan relay contacts so I know the wiring from the fuse panel to the fan is good as well as the fan return to the engine block. Tested the relay coil and it pulls in the relay contacts. So at this point, I'm guessing that the ECTS might be bad. So it's off to the local Chev dealer on Monday to get a new ECTS sensor.

One question I have thou for you Saturn experts. I know that the ECTS is simply a thermistor that feeds a resistance value to the PCM. Does the PCM drive the temp gauge in the cockpit based on the reading from the ECTS? Or does the temp gauge get its reading from something else? If the temp gauge is processed from the ECTS, I'm wondering if replacing the ECTS sensor will fix anything since I do appear to be getting a good reading on the temp gauge in the cockpit.

I have to get this fixed. I have too much invested in this engine rebuild to have something like an in-op cooling fan end this journey.

 

replace ects and connector w gm sourced parts.
Fan usually turns on around 3/4 to beginning of red; while 1/2 may seem logical, it's just not the case here.

So your fan is likely not turning on because the PCM is being told the coolant temp is significantly lower than it needs to be to command the cooling fan circuit closed.

The measurement from the ECTS is used to provide a dash gauge reading. Up to 95 there was a separate sensor to drive the gauge.

-----

AC and FAN

Fan will not run unless AC clutch is engaged.

Failure of clutch to engage is usually caused by a bad AC relay or the system being low on refrigerant and tripping the low pressure cutout switch.

Usually it ends up that the system is sufficiently discharged such that the low pressure switch is activated, which opens the circuit right before the AC clutch, resulting in lack of AC clutch engagement.

To confirm this, measure the high and low pressures.
Then jumper the connector to the switch -- if the fan and clutch engage, you know you have found at least part of the problem.

Total system charge amt is on a sticker on the front crossmember. Might want to add 1 of the two cans with dye in it to try to track down the leak.

Also may want to invest in a shcraeder valve re-coring tool and some inner valve pieces as these valves often won't re-seal properly when you go to disconnect the gauges.

And then your work goes to the ozone layer in the sky