Katie (the V30) is back up and running.
The oil pressure switch magically works now after I disconnected and reconnected the wire.
Replaced one blown fuse and two blown bulbs, to fix the rear lighting situation.
New turn signals all around, so they all match even though on the right side signals were unscathed. (Cosmetics are important even on 25-year-old Magnas.)
So I got off super easy.
She's dripping oil from the rear valve cover onto the exhaust, causing her to smoke after she warms up. I'll take off the rear valve cover and see if I find the missing quart of oil. After the wreck, she was a quart low.
It's definitely coming from the valve cover gasket, not lower.
Congratulations! That is always a feeling of accomplishment to turn a hunk of metal into a finely running machine once again. Is this one destined for
ReplyDeleteebay now???
Cool - replace that head gasket and sell that beeeyatch!
ReplyDeleteIn some cases it's a gasket that was poorly replaced. Or, an old gasket that's shrunk a tad. You can either buy an new gasket, or cobble a washer (flexible base
ReplyDeleteboard is nice) to slip under the valve cover bolts.
In all cases, don't over tighten those bolts. They'll snap.
I remember the V4 valve covers being 2 piece, with rubber gaskets between and under them. The bolts had shoulders that were just long enough to slightly compress the rubber gaskets and seal them, in theory. They also had rubber grommets with chrome caps around the fasteners, and if the thin chrome cap was missing the shoulder bollts would bottom out before sealing the gasket, so it would leak. The
ReplyDeletegaskets also harden and shrink a bit with age. Adding a thin spacer between the chrome cap and the bolthead usually fixed the problem.