1998 V70 Timing belt, cylinder head work 330k miles!

5rivers · Post by **5rivers** » 31 May 2016, 00:25

Greetings, again!
I did find the hose that was to be attached to this nipple. It was sitting underneath a few other vacuum lines; did not see initially, but once I looked from another angle was able to find it!! It was the #4 line in erickv11's excellent pictorial of vacuum lines. After attaching the line and another boost/jump from our '96 Accord, the motor did turn over and ran for a good ten minutes before sputtering and shutting off. I think I need to attach a battery charger to the battery since I have not been able to run/drive the car out of the driveway, i.e., let the alternator do its thing! Thank you for your replies!

5rivers · Post by **5rivers** » 31 May 2016, 00:40

Here is a pic of the nipple that is missing its vacuum line:

If you look at the lower left corner of the pic, the end of the vacuum line can be seen!

5rivers · Post by **5rivers** » 05 Jun 2016, 18:39

Greetings!
Two DTC's have arisen (no surprise, eh?!!). The first is P0117 - refers to the ECT (coolant temperature sensor) that sits just below the thermostat. I ran the car for about 5 minutes after clearing the codes, but the same two came back! The upper radiator hose is quite hot, the lower one cool. Am I not waiting long enough for the thermostat to open? The motor is not over heating; temp gauge is where it usually is just below the half way mark. The wiring from the harness to the ECT wiring connection is a bit frayed; there is not enough wire to install a butt connector, but I need to make this more solid somehow. The thermostat was new when I installed it last summer; I just don't recall where I purchased it. So, I am thinking the wiring issue needs to be taken care of initially, and then possibly a new (OE) thermostat. If I am missing or forgetting to check out another possible cause for the DTC P0117, please chime in! Appreciate all suggestions!!
The other DTC is P0130 - if I recall this is an O2 sensor issue, but I believe an exhaust leak is causing this code, as new sensors were installed last summer. The exhaust leak is located where the exhaust pipes meet under the support bracket (about the mid-section of the car), that I am hoping some weld will resolve.

Post by **abscate** » 06 Jun 2016, 03:47

That's an O2 sensor voltage error, so have a good look at the wiring around the O2 sensors. You want the upstream ones

Bad wiring around the thermostat will also cause that thermostat ETC too.

I don't like that the upper hose isn't getting hot in 10-15 minutes of idling

5rivers · Post by **5rivers** » 06 Jun 2016, 06:03

Hi abscise!! Thanks for your reply!
The upper radiator hose is definitely getting hot, its the lower rad hose that is not. Maybe a flush will help eliminate any build up of sludge in the radiator?
Going to the salvage yard today to find a better set of wires and plug for the ECT.

5rivers · Post by **5rivers** » 08 Jun 2016, 14:03

Greetings!
I did manage to find a relatively new ECT plug and connected that to the two wires on my car, using butt connectors!
Not knowing what could have caused the unbalanced hot temp between the upper and lower radiator hoses, I drained the coolant enough to extract the thermostat. You would not believe what was mixed in with the lower part of the thermostat: part of a paper towel - one of many that I used to stuff into the coolant holes to minimize the filing buildup as I was sanding the top part the motor where the cylinder head sits!! Guess it makes sense to keep track of how many one uses so they all come out before installing the head gasket and the cylinder head!!! Upon reinstallation, I inserted a newer thermostat, added coolant, and started up the car this morning. After a few minutes, both radiator hoses were extremely hot, and I noticed some steam coming through the heating vents inside the car! I shut the car off immediately. Both hoses were starting to warm up, but now, the radiator has sprung a leak!
Also I noticed some oil sitting under or near the SAS unit attached to the rear of the cylinder head, so I removed the cover to the spark plugs and found oil in half of the little valleys and divets that make up the top part of the camshaft cover. There was no oil in any of the spark plug wells. The culprit is a camshaft cover bolt that would not tighten (don't know how I missed this when I installed the cover), but it appears the threads inside the cover (or actually the top part of the cylinder head) are stripped. Any suggestions on how to remedy this situation?
There are some unusual noises coming from the alternator/power steering area that make me think one of those units might need replacing. It's a dry not quite screeching sound, like something needs a drop of oil. Any thoughts?
Appreciate any suggestions, especially on the stripped bolt hole.

5rivers · Post by **5rivers** » 09 Jun 2016, 16:11

Here is a question for our technical experts out there: I pickup a helicoil kit for a 7mm x 1.0 bolt (i.e., the size of the 40 camshaft cover bolts on a '98 V70). The drill/tap bit size is 9/32". Would it make sense to tap the bolt hole to 8mm and use that size bolt and hope it grabs and then tightens or go with the helicoil kit that requires a slightly larger size bolt hole (9/32's) for the insert for the 7mm bolt? Experience with helicoils? Appreciate your replies!

Post by **abscate** » 09 Jun 2016, 21:21

I think I would stick with the 7mm Helicoil , 5rivers. Take away as little metal as possible

5rivers · Post by **5rivers** » 18 Jun 2016, 15:55

An update:
I used the tap bit (9/32") that came in the kit to enlarge the bolt hole to install a helicoil and that seemed to go smoothly. After installing the helicoil and installing the camshaft cover bolt with a 3/8" ratchet there was still about an 1/8" for the bolt head to make contact with the top of the camshaft cover, and I could not tighten the bolt with ease. Thinking the bolt was much stronger than the amount of torque I could put on it with the 3/8" ratchet, I pulled out my heavy duty deep well 10mm socket and 1/2" ratchet. Within two turns, the bolt snapped/cracked - the head of the bolt and about a half inch of the bolt came out! The rest of the bolt was inside the helicoil; you can imagine my lexicon at that point! It took a few days over the past couple of weeks and quite a few drill bits to extract the bolt. I even resorted to using a quarter inch aluminum tube (for fuel/brake lines) as a shield (the drill bit fit inside of the tubing and the tubing fit perfectly inside the bolt hole) so I would not ruin the threads of the bolt hole. Of course, I thought of this after a drill bit snapped and part of that bit was left inside what remained of the bolt. I tried everything under the sun to extract the piece of drill bit but it was stuck pretty well inside the bolt. My bolt extracting efforts became a bit more complicated.

After removing the bolt, I could see that the helicoil was still intact, but I suspect that my drilling may have thinned its inside walls and I may have drilled a little too far into the bolt hole (a 7mm camshaft cover bolt just twirled in the bolt hole and I could tell the bottom of the bolt was not attaching itself to any of the helicoil threads). I had absolutely no luck using the oversized drill bits that are designed to extract stuck bolts. But, I did use a 7mm and 8mm drill bit along with the 9/32" drill bit from the helicoil kit to pull out thread remnants and to re-thread the bolt hole. I went through my used bolt collection and found an 8mm bolt with a similar thread pattern that was 1 and 5/8" long and after hand threading the bolt into the hole there was still about 1/8" before the bolt head could make contact with the camshaft cover (this seems awfully familiar!). So, rather than trying to tighten this larger bolt just yet, I got the car running and looked inside the bolt hole to see if I could notice where the oil was seeping in and there was not a drop of oil to be found. I probably should have made a closer inspection of the bolt hole to determine where the oil was coming from (like using q-tips to slowly dry out the bolt hole) before purchasing the helicoil kit, but hindsight is always 20/20! I just wonder if the oil that was seeping out of this bolt hole was from a hairline crack that may have been filled by the helicoil and somehow filled from the friction of drilling out the bolt. As I think about this, why would there be oil seeping out of this bolt hole, if the bolts' sole purpose is to hold down the camshaft cover, unless there was a hairline crack in the bolt housing/cavity in the cylinder head that would allow oil to seep out (any thoughts?).

Now, I am waiting for the engine to cool down to make it possible to remove the heat shield over the exhaust manifold/exhaust pipe connection to the motor, so I can try to detect what might be causing steam from that area. I did note that both the upper and lower radiator hoses had become very hot in just a few minutes of idling. The most heat seems to be centered around the rear of the motor near the water pump area. I am not sure what to make of this, but after I remove the heat shield and timing belt cover, I am hoping I can figure out what is happening. Then there is the leaky radiator to remedy....

Post by **abscate** » 18 Jun 2016, 19:33

Ouch. On the upside you are setting a new standard for persistence in this Forum.

Are you losing coolant ( or is that leaky radiator masking that?)

1998 V70 Timing belt, cylinder head work 330k miles!

Re: 1998 V70 Timing belt, cylinder head work 330k miles!