I didn't take any pictures of the process, but one of the other club members did. He managed to capture some interesting facial expressions and my bald assed head a lot too.
Husek restalled D5 going in primed with a full quart of fluid.
And the engine
She's a fucking cunt but she's in. We ended up pulling the passenger side mount off and reinstalling it when the trans and driver side mount were lined up and bolted in. The other guy in the picture has had his GN engine out many times, so I'm glad he was there to do this with me. There's no way I would have got this done on my own or even with local friends. At least not in a day.
FedEx dropped goodies off while we were working too. Condenser is here early!
They certainly don't make them like they used to though. That's for better and worse. The original was sturdy and fit like a damn glove, but wasn't very efficient. The new one doesn't fit worth dick and could easily be folded in half, but would clearly cool a lot more.
It seems like some turbo Buick folks aren't too bright. I've read about people cutting the car up over this which is absurd. Yeah it'll fit like a glove if you notch the core support for the tube, but wtf. I just bent the line. There are also goofy mounting feet, so I bent those out to fit the mounts. It sits nice and solid in it's home now despite the size difference.
Since the condenser outlet had to be bent, it no longer matched up with the liquid line to the orifice tube. Lucky that one could also be easily bent to fit.
Drop in replacement? Not quite, but what do you really expect from a shitty AutoZone condenser for a 37 year old car? It's thinner and shorter, so it actually has a much smaller footprint. However the much greater surface area of the tubes should result in cooler temps.
This is not as great of news. I'm surprised this system cooled at all because that's a lot of garbage. It's not flakey metallic garbage like I'm used to seeing but ugly nonetheless. I've heard this is something that can happen when you use ester oil. I guess it likes to gum shit up. Maybe I need to re-flush and re-oil with PAG. I just worry about doing that with compressor which likely still contains some mineral oil.
My buddy says he might have some sound mat that I can have for my GNS radiator box.
It's a nicely made piece. The factory ducted the radiator with sheets of rubbery plastic just zip tied together. It was shit and hasn't withstood the test of time. The GNS piece is lazer cut aluminum and held together with screws, but it rattles BAD. It's actually kind of embarrassing to slam the hood, and now is a great time to deal with that.
SInce I seem to have figured out the condenser, I guess it's time to paint again. Radiator is looking good!
I'll probably lightly paint over the front of the condenser too. I want it to be black, but I certainly don't want to overdo it and hurt the cooling either.
I'm very happy with today's progress!