C2's Alero Updates

[dbral]

That sucks, man. Two steps forward and one step back. At least the hard part is done. Crossing my fingers for the Power Torque master cyl. Have never tried that brand. Hoping it works out.

[[ion] C2]

They ended up pulling the internals out of the Luk plastic master cylinder and installing them into the metal version, and that resolved all the issues. The clutch pedal feels great now. Dunno, clutch hydraulics can be finicky.

I'll have to break in the clutch at night now that it's hot as hell here. Was a hot drive home today at 111 degrees with no A/C. But the clutch is much easier to drive and can be smoothly engaged.

My ignition switch however broke and the cylinder can't turn all the way to OFF. Was wondering why one of my switches had illumination while the car was off.

[dbral]

Happy to hear your car is back home and is much improved. Wondering if the shop hooked up the reverse interlock cable when they replaced your shifter? Did you try to put it in reverse to see if the key will turn to off by any chance...i disconnected ours when the shifter was replaced. GM and their safety stuff lol

Looking forward to more videos and hoping she is running strong now

[[ion] C2]

Hmm I imagine they left it disconnected. I did try to put it in reverse and try but it didn't make a difference. My ignition cylinder was already messed up since I was always able to remove the key at any position, even while running.

The shifter is nice and solid now, it used to be a total slop fest. No longer pops out of 1st, but instead it pops out of reverse lol. Tricky to get it to lock into position for reverse. I'd rather that than a forward gear though. Minor nuisance.

Yeah I'm hoping to get badass pics/vids asap now that everything's pretty solid.

[[ion] C2]

Front camber is now -2 degrees, wheel fitment looks good now. The rear apparently can't be adjusted as-is. Tires rub on the fenderwell, so I need some rolling, but that'll just crack the paint more lol.

Bunch of stuff was reassembled wrong when I got the car back, annoyingly:

• Coolant was way overfilled.
• Throttle cable, which has breaks/bends in it, was installed so there's a massively sharp bend right at the throttle body.
• Wire harness was rubbing against the shift mechanism.
• BOV hose was under tension and rubbing against something, routed poorly
• Fuse box is just floating in the bay, unsecured

Fixed everything but the fuse box. Not sure how it normally mounts. Added a rubber cushion where my charge pipe passes through by the washer fluid bottle, seems to have quieted things down a lot as far as vibration.

[dbral]

i'm looking at that throttle cable and thinking what would happen if it hung the throttle wide open?!?! Good you got it all squared away but sucks that you had to tie up the loose ends.

Oh yeah, a new shifter makes a huge difference. Weird about the issue in reverse though.

There is an ebay page selling what they claim to be oem ign. lock cyls/keys. Spent quite some time looking for the key blank with the olds logo on it a few days ago and had no luck. The Intrigue key w/logo is avail. but is a different part# than our cars according to GM. Gave up and ordered the blanks that have the GM logo on them.

[tw0123]

Glad to hear some progress is still happening Chris!!
The fuse box mounts onto a bracket but is a weird design; there's a channel it slides into on the bottom of the box and like a pressure clip the secures it

[[ion] C2]

Ah I saw a stamped steel piece on the side that it seemed to slide in, but didn't see anything that holds it toward the firewall. I'll look more tomorrow.

Gonna try and replace the ignition cylinder solely via the gauge cluster area, guess it works if you can reach around and press the release tab with a tool.

[[ion] C2]

Took forever to replace the ignition cylinder, finally got it after I bent one of my curved picks just right. However, that wasn't even the problem lol. It was the reverse lockout. That lever behaves all messed up, so after I disconnected it everything works great. Kind of annoying now my ignition key is different than my doors/trunk.

My old ignition cylinder was messed up though, I was always able to just pull the key out at any position. And realized while I was messing with it you could even turn it just with a screwdriver.

And the reason reverse was acting weird is the same reason (probably) 1st gear used to act weird for me and pop out and feel mushy. I have a stupid clump of wires underneath the shifter bezel that get in the way of the movement of the cables lol.

Since my headunit doesn't turn on for an unknown reason, and I need a new alarm system/keyless entry, I'll just tell the audio place to rewire my floor LEDs to my headlights instead of to the switch I have on my shifter bezel.

After looking up some pictures of the fuse box from eBay sellers, I figured out I just needed to push the fuse box rearward more until the bottom triangle shaped bumpout snapped into whatever bracket there is.

[[ion] C2]

Had the rear fenders rolled/trimmed, but there's still some rub on extreme bumps/forces. I'd like to tilt the wheels inward a little, but for some reason the place I had do the alignment claimed the rear can't be adjusted.

The guy doing the fender rolling said that's nonsense you can use camber bolts just like the front. So I'll try to get another, higher end place to get me some rear camber.

[leroBob]

We should probably rename the website C2'saleroipdate.com at this point lol. Maybe they'll sell the site to you for $35 pesos and a ice cream cone. Might need three ice cream cones tho one for each owner

[[ion] C2]

[dbral]

X2

There was a write-up somewhere about using the older (Later 90's?) w-body adjustable turnbuckle style lower control arms on our cars. They replaced all four arms and so were able to adj. camber and toe in the rear. Can't find it though....

Suppose the bolts would work too as long as the tire does not contact the struts/spring perches

http://www.gaownersclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125775&highlight=rear+control+arm s
Found it...the link to the other website this came from is dead, but there might be enough info here

[homegrown]

Originally Posted by dbral

X2

There was a write-up somewhere about using the older (Later 90's?) w-body adjustable turnbuckle style lower control arms on our cars. They replaced all four arms and so were able to adj. camber and toe in the rear. Can't find it though....

Suppose the bolts would work too as long as the tire does not contact the struts/spring perches

I did something like this years ago, except I went whole-hog and got the adjustable lateral links from BMR Fabrications. I still have them installed on my car to this day. The only thing I did was find a section of copper pipe to press in the bushings (acting as very thin sleeves) so I could use the stock mounting bolts (I did not want to drill the subframe to use the larger diameter bolts). In all these years, I've never had to touch 'em.

[[ion] C2]

Hmm so I should order some BMR Fabrication lateral links now instead of having custom ones made eventually, it seems. Then press in some tubing to make it suitable for 12mm bolts.

Then I just need to make custom trailing arms, or just box them in like I did on the red car and powder coat them.

[[ion] C2]

So the spark plug wires the shop made used the wrong boots, so the coils being mounted terminal down made the boot a nice cup for water and debris to collect. Before I got the car back they rinsed and wiped down the engine bay, and the water from that led to corrosion on all four terminals in only a few months (in dry heat). Also, they were not in a color I wanted.



Enter Scott's Performance Wire:



The weirdest part of the process was that although each coil and coil wire harness was numbered, the plug wires were routed as follows:

Coil 1 -> Cylinder 3
Coil 2 -> Cylinder 1
Coil 3 -> Cylinder 2
Coil 4 -> Cylinder 4

[dbral]

That is weird...good thing you were paying attention. Sucks you had to fix that and thinking the tuner should have at least given you a heads-up for the odd routing...and maybe a why for the odd routing as well lol

Those plug wires look like battery cables!!

[[ion] C2]

Originally Posted by dbral

Those plug wires look like battery cables!!

Haha yeah I told him I wanted the best stuff they make. Should be good.

[[ion] C2]

It's been really hot here so I've been particular about the times I feel like driving the Alero with no A/C. Went to drive it the other day for the first time after doing the wires and it ran rough so I turned it off after a few seconds. 1 and 2 were switched. Having the coils numbered wrong makes it hard to get the wires correct. I tested the coils and labeled them properly.

Went to drive it today and noticed my super expensive fuel pump does not turn on. I hear a couple clicks from the relays but that's it. Awesome. Have to call the shop Monday to find out if they remember where they put the fuse because I can't find any, and if that's not the issue, guess I need to tow it to them.

[[ion] C2]