Once you get that intake manifold out the way, the starter is trivial to swap.
Marv got here just in time to help with that manifold.
Nine captive bolts in it and four were finger tight when I started. This might explain Bubba's intermittent, random misfire on cylinder 1. I swapped coil 1 and 2 while I had everything off the engine, so if it moves to cylinder 2 we'll know it's the coil.
All of the engine bay's lines and wires run on the driver's side and interfere with the removal every single part you need to take off to get at the starter.
This was not a hard job, it was a pain in the ass job.
While we had it apart, we took it upon ourselves to change the serpentine belt that was showing wear.
What a cluster fuck!
We fought that thing tooth and nail only to discover that you can't bring it over the alternator last. We got it to go on by going over the power steering pulley last. The service manual says water pump last.
Marv tried that and it kept losing the AC pulley.
Test drive shows everything works! Huzzah!
I think it's actually smoother, which lends credence to there being a small leak from the intake for quite a while.
PS: I totally understand why the online estimates were $1,200 for labor. I started at about 1130 with Marv joining me about 1400. We finished up about 1900 with three parts store trips.
I read that last line in my usual fashion - kind of trying to predict the next word or phrase to let my sub-conscious work out the correct phrasing and pronunciation - and until I actually got to the end of the sentence, I thought it would say "with three parts left over".
ReplyDeleteI think that's more a comment on MY experiences with vehicle repairs than yours, though. :)