Saturday, November 17, 2012 - San Antonio Mechanic Shop, San Antonio NM

Tiredflower, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, November 10, 2012

Dang - what next?

Poor Salvador broke three bolts getting the 20 year old water pump off. Three long bolts that go through the water pump and then through the timing chest cover into the block. Before he started, he pointed out to me that these three go through the water jacket in the timing chest and often seize up over time. He was right. Now the timing chest cover needed to come off to extract the bolts. He also suspects a long term leak around the old timing chest to block gasket. There is evidence of a trace of oil in the coolant. So all in all not a bad idea to replace this gasket as long as we are so deep into the engine.

We're getting in pretty deep here but this stuff needs to be done eventually and doing it now saves the considerable labor of getting this deep into the engine at some later date.

What does the open timing chest reveal? Why a stretched timing chain of course. More parts to order...

What's another couple of days sleeping with my head 10 feet from passing traffic in the grand scheme of things?

Night camp

Drycamped - San Antonio Mechanic Shop, San Antonio NM