So, I pulled the fan and looky what I found....


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Hmm, a piece of weather stripping stuck to the fan shroud with a curved indention in it.. Wonder how that indention got there...


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Well, I know what happened now. :bowrofl: I dropped that little piece of foam a few days ago and looked but never could find it. I know where it went now! Seems it glued itself to the fan shroud and kept the fan from spinning. Got the new fan installed so hopefully everything's fine now.

I guess "something stupid" wins! :p

Indeed. And that's strike three so hopefully I'm in the clear for a while. Going for a test drive now to see how the new fan works.

New fan works great.

Woo hoo!!! Shit's FIXED.

Old stud screwed right out. The old threads in the head were completely stripped. Actually, they came out and were still stuck on the stud. :giggle: Stud was fine of course since it's a lot harder than the aluminum head. I was using a new stud anyways. I bought a 3/8-16 helicoil kit from Autozone. I could have gotten the metric one that's .015" bigger and reused my old stud, but the metric helicoil kit was 10 bucks more, and money's tight, so....

Biggest problem was room. With the manifold and turbo still installed, and everything else too, I couldn't get my drill in there to drill the hole square. So I tried what I figured I'd have to do. First, I got my drill bit and used a grinder to put 6 flats on the shank so it would not fit tightly into a 9mm 6 point socket. This was easy.

Then I put this combination of shit together. 25/64" drill bit - 9mm socket - 3/8 swivel - extension - ratchet

Had to use my hand to squeeze the area around the bit to hold it center while ratcheting. I won't lie, this wasn't easy. I had to keep checking to make sure I was drilling it straight too. But I got it. Used electrical tape to make a stop. Turns out when you're doing this by hand you can really FEEL what it's doing, so I kept drilling past the stop till it bottomed out in the hole. Easy to tell doing it by hand.

Then I just taped the hole. This was like eating a piece of pie. First I used a straw to blow the metal out of the hole. Then just taped it till the tap bottomed out. Then cleaned the threads again. I used some silicone spray stuff since I didn't have my cutting fluid with me. Better than nothing I guess.

Then just screwed the helicoil in. Then double nutted the stud and tightened it in. And this time, it didn't strip. :giggle: Then put a waster, lock waster, and nut on and tightened it up good. Also retorqued all the other bolts on the manifold I could get to.

No more exhaust leaks! Woot woot!!! So glad this worked and I didn't have to pull all that shit. If it had been any other stud this wouldn't have worked.


Oh yeah, I learned my lesson a while back about not protecting things from getting metal in them where you don't want it, so I zip-tied the turbo area and plugged the IC piping as to keep metal out.

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Oh yeah, same 9mm 6 point socket worked to hold the tap too. What luck?
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And then the camera died. But that last pic you can see the new threads.

Oh yeah, I gots my boost back! Spool had went to shit with this leak. I tried not to boost it much because I know it affects the VE and all, but I mean it was loud as hell and only made like maybe 5 pounds at 4K. (no boost gauge, so just guessing). I don't think it would ever spool completely. So now it makes boost down low again. :) It's raining here so no full boost pulls but it now makes a few pounds down low again.