The chronicle of the VX, a day in the life

[Moondog]

Ok, forester tranny seems a possible angle, gotta do some more research, I have it on good standings that one dynoed at 320 at japtrix, the if part, is the gear ratio correct going into the TOD, could use some impute on this, im a pro at making engines fit to trannys, im sure it wont be hard to settup the tranny to the TOD. The question is wether to bother with the tranny swap as well. Im not sure but I think the power button changes the what would you say, the way the tranny shifts under power. I can also put a control in for the TOD if I have to, its nice to slide if you want to without grabbing the E brake. And I wouldnt recommend playing with the TOD control on the street but offroad im sure the clutches can handle a good beating, I have the clutch pack in my hand and its beefier then any front wheel drive clutch ive ever seen, im talking multiple clutch disks wet sump. I say not to mess with the TOD on the street because my TOD was shorting out when I first got the truck and giving me full time all out 4WD, and made it handle like scary crap on the street.

[Moondog]

Ok, had some time to get down on checking if the engine was blown or not. Well, I started to do a compression test and when I pulled the coils I noticed oil was seeping past the spark plug bucket seals causing them to fill and idle to be rough because of missfiring. I found that in 3 of the 6 holes. After digging further I notice the valve covers were seeping oil onto the exaust manifold (fire hazerd) and aftermarket gaskets had to go. It was so slow that it was almost un-noticable but that would explain the oil consumpion issue or issues I was having. It seems I also had a small oil leak out of the valvecover gasket into a pinhole in the exaust manifold gasket. It seemed it seeping oil and was getting in there. Guess thats why it was smoking a little cause it aint doin it no more. I replaced all 6 bucket seals and both valve cover seals. When I did the compresion test I had 180 on every hole give or take a few PSI. The driverside valve cover is a bitch to get off, just bite the bullet and pull the master. Take it easy on the allens, they like to round out and cost $12 each. I completed the job from teardown to reinstalation in 1.5 hours for the driver side. At this time im nolonger burning oil. My VX is happy again.