Thanksgiving maintenance and 2 questions.. (long)..

[Alex Kowalski (audial@aol.com) (Law Guest Account) <lawguest@wppost.depaul.edu>]

Well, since the family is a thousand miles away, I had almost the whole
Thanksgiving weekend this year to do some maintenance on the '86
5KCSTQ.  Time to get at all of those things that I'd been putting off
forever.

First, I wanted to do the air filter, O2 sensor, clean the throttle
potentiometer, check the metering plate, and install my new turbo coolant
line, as well as clean up some wiring.  

The best way to do this was removing the turbo inlet pipe, which allowed
me to remove the front half of the airbox.  Wow, once that thing is out of
there you have all the room in the world, and the O2 sensor is a cinch.  I
took the inlet air box off and there was surprise #1:  someone had badly
munged the lip of the boot the last time they had it off.  2" of the edge
were folded under and the big clamp was just slid over the mess and
tightened.  It's amazing it didn't have a gigantic leak...maybe this was the
same person who sawed off the shoulder of my radiator inlet...

Not looking forward to hunting for an intake boot for my Turbo on
Thanksgiving weekend, I managed to gently straighten it with some heat
and  repair the splits that had started in the rubber.  I used Krazy Glue,
which seems to bond the rubber to itself very well.  

Surprise #2:  The air metering plate was considerably off-center and was
dragging near the idle position.  Easy to fix. 

Next, I installed (one) of the turbo coolant lines that Graydon Stuckey
made for me.  Thanks Graydon!  :-) This is the upper (inlet) line, that goes
from the left side of the block, behind the timing belt, and to the top of the
turbo.  The old line was trashed, and the little piece of fabric hose
disintegrated almost as soon as I touched it after taking it off.  Another
Time Bomb defused.   I soaked the fitting in penetrating oil overnight and it
came loose fairly easily even though it was _very_ rusty,  so I'm hopeful
that the oil lines will come off without too much grief later this week. 

Oddly enough, I hadn't noticed it before but the outlet line was in very
good shape.  Maybe it was replaced before I got the car.  Anyway, now I
have a spare coolant outlet line.  

Once you have the intake apart like this it is the perfect time to check
every single vacuum line you can find.  BTDT.  Finally, I cleaned
_everything_ and put it back together.  On a whim,  I took the time to paint
the turbo inlet pipe Mars red.  I can hear you gasping already, but I think it
looks great with the engine clean, peeking out from under the rubber
injector shroud and diving down toward the turbo.  

I still have two questions:

Does anyone have the _correct_ procedure for setting the ISV duty cycle
and CO from the Bentley?  I remember reading that the one printed in the
manual up through '88 is wrong.

Last but not least in this very long and rambling post, my engine cooling
fan motor is developing a strange noise.  Most of the time it runs very
smoothly, but especially on the low-speed setting it develops a
high-pitched moan (it actually sounds like a "ringing") that waxes then
wanes, goes away for a few minutes, and then slowly comes back. 
Bearing lubrication?  Anyone heard this before?  How do I diagnose the
fan motor to determine if it's OK and/or lubricate it?

Many Thanks and Best Wishes,

Alex