Sal Collaziano please look

[ToolnDie]

Hi Haymaker & Caddy Forum Rep.



I have a 94 Eldorado 87,000 and paid $3800.00 for it the body is very clean. Could you please cut and past this to where you deem appropriate in the groups and or forward it to those that could. I have had this car for a year now. After owning the car for 2 weeks it blew a head gasket. It sat for 3 months till I could raise the cash to fix it and gather all the parts. I read the news groups and tried the Bars Leak block sealer <<<< “Didn’t work at all”



On the web I was able to contact one of the lead engineers for the North Star motor at GM power train and was able to do a Q and A with him. He made a one sided bet with me saying that the motor would be clean and that there would be no ridge in the cylinder wall and that all the cross hatching would still be in the bore’s of all 8 cylinders and if it was not he would buy me a case of beer. He was correct in all he had to tell me. At the time you could only buy parts at the dealer for most everything. Since then I think Fel Pro makes a gasket kit for it now.



I looked at the prices for all the different way’s to fix it re-man motor, create motor, or rebuild, and decided to do it myself with the help of my roommate’s cousin’s husband that is a Mercedes mechanic I no machining very well seeing that I am a tool and die maker so I did the machining part and helped him where I could with all the wrenching – dropping the engine cradle ex……. Thinking that we would replace any and all other parts that were bad – motor mounts, body mounts, steel coolant lines, power steering lines, belts, hose’s, O rings, A/C compressor assembly, all gaskets, oil level sensor <<< was found in pieces in the bottom of the oil pan and had some what blocked-plugged up the screen for the oil pump .



After pulling the heads and oil pan I used masking tap to cover the whole surface of where the heads mounted to the block and cut with a razor the holes for the head bolts.

After cleaning and checking the head bolt holes someone had tried to fix some of the holes with heli coils in about 6 of the holes. I pulled out the heli coils not an EZ task.

I got the time sert tools and sert’s from the GM power train Engineer that were a mid size time-sert which is not the 1st kit and not the 2nd kit. It was something left over from testing at power train.





Note someone asked in the group if there was a difference in the type of chip’s that came out of the holes YES there was it was as if it consisted of different grades of metal or as if it had different heat treat properties some of it was small chips and others where strings like when you drill steel.



The only thing we did not change or touch was the piston rings, main bearings, and the rod bears. Note if you take apart any of that you can not re-use the bearings because there a compression fit. With the cylinder walls as clean as they were and all of the cross hatching still there we left it alone.



The only nasty part was the EGR system had a lot of carbon and had to be soaked and cleaned



If someone had tried to fix it with heli coils before use the large kit reason being there is not enough metal left on the side walls to tap for the small time sert’s kit. I did not have the drill bushing plate so I used a tap handle and hand drilled each hole using the smallest drill that would fit the hole and slowly opened the holes up using the next larger drill until the hole was the right size as to keep the hole on center to tap with the time-sert tap.

It took at least 8-10 hours to do but as you can tell I cleaned and prep’d it better than most would and I did it all using hand tool’s “no drill motor” or drill bushing plate.



When pulling the engine cradle out mark all the wires very very well we missed a ground wire and the blower motor would not work till we tracked it down.



Also watch out for the air ride sensors when dropping the motor. When re installing the engine cradle you almost need 3 people to line up the strut towers and watch for everything else.



Also make sure to use the sealer tablets in the cooling system putting the 6 of them in the lower large hose crushed up.



I would tell anyone doing this to buy the book’s that the dealer use’s to work on these car’s I think I paid $143.00 for the 2 of them with shipping. They have everything in them about the car.



I had some problems with the Bose gold radio 94 Eldorado it would cut in and out some times it would work for a little while and sometimes it would make a static sound after reading everything I could on the Web. I found it to be the CDM box in the trunk next to the power Ant. To ship and R&R at a shop in Fla. from Mi. they wanted over $100.00 to do. I went to the junk yard and found one in another caddy that worked for $40.00 after looking in about 6 car’s I guess it is a popular item because it had been pulled from the other 5 car’s.



When I was at work one day this last spring the GM power train Engineer that had helped me with the part’s and the Q&A for the time-sert repair – engine re-build called me and asked what I was doing I told him it was break time and he told me to meet him out front in 10 min. The next thing I no is he comes pulling up in a black XLR the little 2 seater Cadillac with a 4.4 liter super charged motor and a very large cowl hood and a 5 speed. And he said get in Oh did I have a smile on my face. He took me for a ride around the area and every chance he got to smoke the tires he did and when he hit it !!!!!!! The only thing I could compare it to was a early 70’s Olds Cutlass W-30 with a 455 cubic inch roller motor that was chained down to the frame to keep it from breaking any more motor mounts with a 4 speed and a 4:11 rear end that I went for a ride in as a kid. This thing sat you back in the seat or rather pasted you in the seat like a big block motor and just kept on pulling.



We were on a short strait away and he hit it from a dead stop and it just shifted out of 2nd gear and we were doing over 90 mph. before he had to slam on the breaks for the red light. Then he was pushing a little red button and I asked him what that was and he told me it was a water-alcohol injector to help cool the super charger. This car was a test mule for GM power train and it was sharp. When he dropped me off he took off burning up the tires and sending a cloud of smoke from the tires 10 feet up in the air all I could say was WOW……… As I came walking in some of they guy’s at work that were setting out front for break time asked Who and What was that I told them everything the car had and did but didn’t disclose who my friend was as to keep any future benefits of going for a ride like that again to myself. One of my parting word to him was “How are you guy’s ever going to top this one” he smile and said Oh I’m sure were come up with something. All I could do was smile and say I hope I can go for a ride in that sometime soon!!!!



Well, thanks guy’s and I hope that this will help someone some how and as you can tell I’m not much for writing and should have wrote this months ago. If I can help or answer something more on this I’ll try to help the best I can.

Best Wishes Ken

aka

ToolnDie

PS. Sal could you please forward this to Haymaker

[haymaker]

Ken, glad to hear that you worked through all the none standard time-sert installation problems. Yes same result with the Bar’s Leak Head gasket sealer. What procedure did you use to remove the old Heli-coils? Sounds like this is at least the second time the head gasket (s) have been replaced on that N*? Were both the head gaskets blown or just the one and if so was it the front or rear bank?
As to the consistency of the removed block material (drill shavings), I am still trying to understand the variations in its consistency. I still wonder if the material in question was always the problem and caused the head gasket failure or was the result of the head gasket failure? BTW were some of the old head bolts covered with oil, coolant or have standing liquid in any of the head bolt cavities?
Thanks for posting the details of your N* time-sert, head gasket job I am sure it will be helpful to others as they work their way through the same problems. The test XKR sound like something I would like to wheel around for a year or so.
BTW how is the car running now that it is repaired?

[ToolnDie]

HI Haymaker & All

Sorry for not posting sooner. As for the heli coils they were a real pain to get out had to use dental picks to get out with a long set of needle nose plyers, Both head gaskets were blown and both had heli coils in them. Oil and what appeared to be coolant was on some of the head bolts when pulled.

As for the chip's when drilling I'm not sure but they were not the same in all the holes and very well could be part of the problem. Now that I think of it.....It would probably not be a bad idea to use a little bit of sealer at the very top of the bolt just above the threads to try and keep any kind of oil or coolant from getting at the threads.

The car is running great we took it on a trip to the U.P. White Fish Point - about an hour and a half north of the bridge with normal driving "LOL" upstate in Michigan across the Big Mack bridge from just north of Detroit made it in 4 hours most people take that long just to make it to the bridge. All I can say is "Wow" this 94 Eldorado walk's down the E-way and is very fun to drive.

On the XLR caddy 2 door Vette off spring I had heard that they are going to use a 5.0 super charged North Star engine with a 5 speed auto trans or a 6 speed manual. If someone was to tweak it a little I'm sure it would spank a Vette.

I have done some work on the Hydro Form frame rails for like the last 4 years on both the Chevy Vette and the XLR caddy GM is to use aluminum on the high end models and I think it saves like 300 Lbs. and I had heard something about using a magnesium cross frame support to help lighten it up even more. even with the new 427 vette motor if you were to up the PSI on the North Stars super charger I know it would have more power than the vette would.

I would also like to say thank you to all for posting info on everything it has been helpful to me in repairing and understanding just what to do and watch out for.
Best Wishes and Drive M like you stole it LOL Ken