Fairly productive day. Started out by swapping my 54mm throttle body with a 58mm one. Pulled it off a wrecked BII I have behind the shop that's been collecting dust (I'll get to it one day I guess). Started off by spraying it down with some degreaser to get most of the crud off... Then I ended up pulling the throttle cable bracket off and cleaning all the moving parts and surfaces. Once I got everything nice and clean I put some grease on the places that looked like it needed some. Bolted it back onto the manifold and called it good.
Next up I decided to go ahead and replace my TPS and ECT connectors (harness side), they were all kinds of goofed up from being old and brittle. Didn't have any problems just swapping the connector housing for the ECT, but on the TPS connector the old one and the new one had different connectors on the wires, so I couldn't just de-pin and slip the new housing on. Ended up splicing it together with some butt connectors. Not my favorite way of doing it but it'll do the job.
Moved on to the oil filter housing. Started by draining the oil and pulling the filter off. Took some fighting to get the bolt for the housing off because my y-pipe was sitting on top of it and I couldn't fit a socket and breaker bar (couldn't break it loose with a wrench). Ended up sticking a pipe into the exhaust and prying it off of the housing so I could get to the bolt. Finally got it all off and started comparing the new o-rings to the old ones just to make sure, all checked out. The big o-ring for the housing to the block was flattened and the small o-ring on the bolt, just above the threads. was hard like plastic. Had to take a small chisel and break the o-ring in half to get it off. There was also a tapered o-ring just under the head of the bolt. The old one was hard and brittle so I couldn't reuse it, so I ended up using gasket maker in place of it. Hopefully it'll hold up, we'll have to see. I made sure not to get any gasket material in the hole in the bolt.
Once I finished up doing that I couldn't stand it anymore and I finally convinced myself to drop the trans pan. What a mess that was. Got tranny fluid everywhere, basically bathed in the stuff. All down my arm, on my back, in my hair
... Fun times. Got the pan and filter off and the fluid looked really healthy, didn't see a reason to drain the TC or trans cooler, so I didn't. Would've been a waste of good fluid and money. One thing I would like to do while I have the pan off is test the TCC and shift solenoids. I can get to the terminals fine without removing the valve body (really don't wanna do that), is there any way I can test for resistance or continuity on them? Or connect it to a 9V battery and listen for a click?
Let the fluid drain and stop dripping while I cleaned up myself and the floor and looked on my phone for the closest filter and gasket kit. Crawled under there and looked into the dipstick tube from the bottom and I could see something blocking the dipstick from going in. Pulled the dipstick then the tube. Tried just turning the tube upside down so whatever was stuck in it would fall out, but it was wedged. Took a screwdriver and pushed on it. Out came a damn wood chip... What the hell. Bent the dipstick a little bit to match it up better with the tube. Goes in and out like butter now. Glad I got that taken care of, been bothering me that I couldn't check the fluid level for... years
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After I got that taken care of I brought the lower plenum with the fuel rail over to the work table. Already had the injectors and rail pulled out of the plenum, just sat it back on there and put the bolts in so I wouldn't lose them. Got that pulled back off and started trying to pull the injectors out of the rail. Already tried before but didn't fight with it too much. This time I found a pretty good method. If you grab the base of the injector (not the pintle cap, it'll just spin independently of the injector) and rotate it... Not rotate straight, but rotate at an angle relative to the rail. Do that for about 30 seconds and it should start to ride up then pop out. If it doesn't then you might need to angle the injector more. Also pulled off the FPR just to give myself more room. By then it was abut 5 o'clock so I took a wire brush and knocked off some of the rust and paint. Ran out of parts cleaner when I was cleaning the trans pan so I'll have to pick some up tomorrow when I get the trans fluid, filter, and gasket. Can I use normal brake cleaner inside the rail? Just wanna flush out anything that might be gunked up in there.
On the list for tomorrow is to finish up the trans, clean up the fuel rail, spray some paint on it and the new exhaust manifolds (let's not talk about this too much... let's just say there were some broken bolts that were very resistant to coming out). Might drain the transfer case and add new fluid. Same with the rear diff. Don't plan on fighting with the front diff. Just remembered I also wanna check my fuel filler hoses for cracks.
Thanks y'all for the posts about trans fluid as well. I'm gonna go with some Valvoline Maxlife Synthetic fluid.