Literally have had to fix things on all of our daily driver cars....
BUT....drove the SC for Thanksgiving on it's first trip of significant distance from home (about 45 away). It had the hood back on now, still no bumper cover though. I cut some sections out of the hood supports and the bumper to give more clearance for the new intercooler and existing TB (it has rubbed the hood for awhile now). I still need to eliminate a few pin-hole leaks and add a more bead to the pipes for the intercooler clamps/couplers to grip....a couple of joints still like to pop off...after that, I'll put the bumper cover back on.
Unfortunately, I did run into a few problems.
We go most of the way to our destination and I started noticing the car would cut out and go way lean after climbing hills and sometimes around turns....gas gauge was still on 1/8th tank....hmmm...but had been for awhile now! lol So I had to drive several miles (including the last mile behind a combine!), but managed to barely make it to the gas station....but no E85....I knew this though.
I brought the laptop with a good 93 tune....
Went to save the tune to the QH and got some weird error message on BE...three time....*gulp* Fortunately, restarting BE took care of it, and I uploaded the new tune.
Got out of the car and noticed a strong fuel smell....hmm...this is the first time I've filled up since having everything apart....uh-oh.... looked under the car to a small gasoline waterfall under the gas tank.
I had seen similar before (leaking sending unit o-ring), but there was ALOT of gas dripping out this time. I guess the o-ring DID need replaced after all?
My wife and kids (who drove the old Grand Cherokee, since the Navigator needs new camshaft phasers....
) pulled away "just-in-case" while I started the car back up and moved it after the waterfall has slowed to a drip and shut the Jeep off to check on the me and the Thunderbird. After priming the pump a few times, it started up GREAT on the gasoline.
I moved it away from the gas pump, just in case again...wife goes back to the Jeep, turns the key and IT WON'T START.
After looking at it for a couple of minutes, I decide the starter needs replaced or rebuilt....I had recently swapped a better-condition set of brushes into it to quick-fix it....I figured they'd last long than a week or two though. *sigh*
So after the kids crying, wife crying, wife yelling and me, me blaming the Thunderbird, we call my wife's grandparents (where we were going to Thanksgiving dinner) and had them pick up Danielle and the kids. I drove the Thunderbird. We had a nice Thanksgiving lunch with them, hashed out a plan to get us all home safely and a plan to fix the Jeep on Friday.
Amidst the stress, I'm thankful we were close to her grandparent's place, everyone was safe, and my car didn't explode or turn into a fireball. Which reminds me, I think I need to replace my fire extinguisher.
I REALLLY need to put some baffles back into the valve covers too...lol....after coasting or decelerating for a few seconds, it burns an embarassing amount of oil....lol. I'm sure the baffles with help immensely, since my theory is that the lifters are saturating the foam baffles that I added for the crankcase vents and then providing a significant oil mist down to the exhaust to be burned. If the baffles don't fix it, I may do a track/street setup or just go back to an up-sized PCV system....still glad I tried, even if it doesn't work out for street driving though.