[DiabloClyde]

A very long time in the coming, I wanted to start a thread for some of the repair work and TLC that I am doing to Clyde. As a refresher I bought the car in 2017 from the second owner out of San Diego California with approximately 16,400 miles (miles converted from KMs throughout). this was in a collection of approximately 15 other exotics so I don’t think it got a lot of use to be honest. It was delivered in excellent shape and had a clutch job at 9000 miles. It had the usual issues that I asked the seller to fix (including rebuilding all six shocks, front brake air ducts). I knew when I bought the car that eventually I would need an engine out for clutch and starter and probably engine mounts while you’re in there.

Well, that day has come at approximately 21,000 miles but not because of my clutch: I’m having gearbox issues. Currently his engine is out and we are getting ready to open the gearbox to explore. More on that in the coming weeks.

My intent was to start this thread 4 years ago and work successively on it but I got lazy.

 

[DiabloClyde]

Before I go much further here’s some thing I need help on right now. When we took the engine out we discovered a leaking shaft seal on the power steering pump. Looking over the parts diagrams it looks like this pump is only available as one piece and a lofty sum of approximately $3000. Therefore, I’m looking to rebuild or certainly replace the seal. Has anyone done this before and can give guidance? I did a search on this forum and did not find this particular seal replacement covered. Any help would be helpful.

 

[wda24729]

When I restored my Ferrari 400, I went to a specialist who provided a complete rebuild kit for the power steering pump. I can't imagine the pump is a Lamborghini manufactured part, so I would hope it could be matched to another manufacturer part. I can't remember who I went to, but I'll see what I can find.

 

[AngelOfMurci]

Love these threads about Diablos.
Good luck!!!

 

[Russk]

A beautiful car, and a perfect labor of love. Looking forward to the progress.

 

[6Speed]

I don't have a diablo (yet), but I'm following this thread and looking forward to everything to come. What a great idea to create a thread about your specific car too.

Good luck and I hope that Clyde is up and running again better than ever soon!

 

[DiabloClyde]

Thank you everyone. Here is what I’ve learned so far about the power steering pump. OEM = LuK Fahrzeug Hydrolik pn#LF66 2106944. Lamborghini PN4032364. That model is NLA; new is 4036816, supposedly built by Vance Pump. New pump with all component parts is north of $3000 US. So, rebuilding it or certainly replacing the pump shaft seal is the preferred route. I have it in with my local mechanic and I think we are going to try to source getting the shaft seal replaced at a local machine shop. My concern with doing it myself is the extreme pressures in the power steering line. In theory, this should be easy for a machine shop or if I can source the original seal replacement part. I’ll keep you posted.

by the way, we only noticed the leak when removing the engine. Here to fore it was not leaking at all which makes me wonder why the leak during engine removal.

 

[DiabloClyde]

To go back in time a bit, here are the things I have already done to Clyde:

• all new plugs
• new coil packs (6, each carries two plugs). See my other post on this job including pay very close attention to corrosion on the ground screw and wire connection.
• fluids, obviously
• new battery
• new belts
• all new coolant hoses from firewall back. Not heater core hoses. Flushed entire system. tested thermostat in pot of water on the stove to ensure proper function. If you have a model year car that has a self bleeder hose on the passenger side check my earlier post out as to how to get to that hose clamp behind the rear passenger side brake lights.
• installed new fan temperature sensor switch in coolant line
• installed stainless steel braided brake lines. Others on this forum have suggested that is something everyone should do and it is really not that expensive or a hassle.
• installed the John Custer clutch rod
• removed front carpet to do some work in the stereo system that was aftermarket installed (McIntosh system… on steroids!). This is a key point for water-caused rust underneath the carpet at the frame members. Fortunately I only had a small amount where they drilled through to install the clamps to hold this Macintosh system but that needs to be remedied on all these cars at this point. After removing the rust use rubberized undercoat paint! Reinstalled the carpet obviously as it was in perfect shape otherwise.
• replaced power steering high pressure hose in the front of the car just behind the access panel in the Frunk. This hose is known to leak overtime and if yours hasn’t, it will. This is a fairly easy hose to replace but requires a quadruple jointed elbow naturally 😎. See my separate post on this as well because you will need to sacrifice a 19 mm (or 21? Can’t recall) socket with a Dremel to cut it down to size as there is very little chance you’ll get the socket in there otherwise. I show photos on my other post.
• replaced rear brake and turn signal bulbs with LED
• ceramic coat exterior, done by professionals of course
• after many hours and sweat with leatherique leather restorer, I gave up and took my car to an automotive leather refinish shop. They removed the seats and re-furbished the existing leather back to showroom original! No new leather, just rejuvenated the aging, tired leather to absolutely perfect condition. See my other posts on this.
• removed both rear radiator grills and took them to an aluminum anodizing shop. On advice of the shop they said do not do this work (!) as it will not come out well. Cleaned them up and reinstalled. See my other post on this for why.
• BMC air filters
• all new button head Allen bolts (found in the frunk holding the access panel and air filter housings). It took me a long time to source these and eventually I found them back in stock at eurospares.uk for a relatively cheap.
• New fuel filters and new pre-filters
• New gas tank sender assembly gasket. See my other post on this PITA fix.
• sourced and corrected a burned ground wire passenger side underneath and behind the front pop-up headlight assembly.

i’m sure there’s more but I gotta run! Wife giving me the eye….

 

[Sledge4.2]

you forgot about the first exhuast you bought from me that you carried on to your flight to seattle and stuffed in the overhead bid. You also forgot the second exhuast you bought from me, that you checked as luggage on your flight to seattle.

 

[Sledge4.2]

did you install it

 

[mikael82]

Before I go much further here’s some thing I need help on right now. When we took the engine out we discovered a leaking shaft seal on the power steering pump. Looking over the parts diagrams it looks like this pump is only available as one piece and a lofty sum of approximately $3000. Therefore, I’m looking to rebuild or certainly replace the seal. Has anyone done this before and can give guidance? I did a search on this forum and did not find this particular seal replacement covered. Any help would be helpful.

They are just seals and I will bet it is common seal, or you can find one from other pumps LUK pumps. Just open it and see what you find.

 

[DiabloClyde]

Ha! Not forgetting, Geno, just ran out of time heading out the door tonight. Here’s more of what has been done to Clyde to date:

• changed the original OEM exhaust. Bought Borla sport exhaust from member Sledge 4.2. Yes, checked it in my luggage on the return flight! OEM exhaust as has been covered in many other posts is surprisingly inadequate in sound and overly heavy in weight. Borla sound notes were really very good though I’m now changing to Larini to match my secondary cat deletes.
• bought Larini sport exhaust from same member Sledge 4.2. 😎. Not yet installed.
• installed secondary cat deletes new from Larini
• removed center consul surround and all of the switches and AC box and ashtray etc. Refinished sticky OEM paint to original color. Replaced cracked Koni shock adjustment switch surround. Refinished to original color ashtray cover.
• removed instrument gauges surround and refinished sticky paint to black.
• replaced the relays under center tunnel and behind instrument cluster as I chased down what ended up being a shorted ground wire noted above. None of the relays were bad, actually, I just got a little aggressive on my replacements. Most are relatively cheap, but they added up fast.
• removed steering wheel to access and refinish sticky paint on the steering column surround.
• replaced both door struts with new OEM spec struts for Diablo (not the heavier Murcialago spec struts). While in there cleaned and greased window mechanisms.
• unplugged the oh-so-90’s mouse track seatbelt motors. Same circuit as the cigarette lighter power plug so I could not just remove the fuse to kill the seatbelt motors without rendering my radar detector worthless.
• removed and installed new gaskets at the wing to rear deck connection. Oddly, the original gasket was working it’s way out from underneath the wing attachment.
• replaced bolts, washers and nuts as needed with OEM. relatively cheap and not worth my time trying to bring some back to original glory. Great example is gas cap flap.
• converted to 2WD from 4. See my lengthy posts on overheating 4WD system and warning lights. Love the peppiness and very much more nimble steering. this requires installing axle deletes which I bought OEM stubs, and did not spend the extra money on titanium. Completely reversible of course.
• removed and refinished to original the riveted heat shield at muffler area and the muffler heat shield box. Replaced with new OEM the little “caution: high heat” sign.
• removed all 5 carbon fiber engine panels and had professional shop clean and spray gloss high heat clearcoat. This was a departure from OEM spec in that those pieces were “dry” carbon from factory but inexplicably the carbon visible under the roof panel when in place above your head was gloss “wet” carbon from factory. Wet carbon in the engine bay turns many heads at car shows since everyone wants to see the engine. Bought new emissions and vacuum system stickers for those panels.
• new vacuum lines on passenger side of engine. Remainder to be done at current engine-out.

Speaking of, I have a whole host of items being done during engine-out this month. More on that later.

 

[SPGlass]

Great to see you’ve started a thread for Clyde. I’m looking forward to following along. What sort of issues are you having with the gearbox?

 

[DiabloClyde]

The above several posts were just to memorialize what I’ve already done to date which brings me to Seth‘s question: what’s wrong with my gearbox? Short answer is absolutely nothing. Long answer is unknown at present. It’s shifts are like butter and always has been a smooth shift but in changing my fluids this summer I found metal chunks (!?!) in the gear box oil. Photo 1, the four chunks aligned on the left side were the first fluid change this summer. I flushed the gear box and ran it another hundred kilometers then drained the gear lube again to find the other two pieces on the right side of the photo. Fluid in both cases had metallic flecks in it as well, so this told me that damage was being done even though no symptoms were felt or heard.

At this point I reached a real crossroads as to whether or not I have the bandwidth to do my own engine out. With three teenagers and an extremely busy job the answer was unfortunately no. It is currently at Veloce Motorsports and we will be opening the gearbox I believe next week.

very ironically, while delivering the car to the shop my clutch slave cylinder seal broke free draining my clutch hydraulics. I went the last few miles in first gear only! This is a completely unrelated matter that points to what so many of my repairs above have been and that is a low mile car needs to be run regularly.

I made the calculus to go ahead and put money into an engine out and gearbox rebuild, clutch, TO bearing, engine mounts, and at the same time will be doing all fuel lines, replacing a seized AC pump and valve adjustment while we’re in there. The net result will be a significantly refurbished Diablo ready to put many many many miles on.

 

[DiabloClyde]

Before you Internet sleuths try to figure out what these pieces are I will say that the mechanic and I spent probably collectively five or six hours pouring through parts diagrams to no avail: these pieces and their size do not appear to coincide with any known part in the gearbox. So, I spent much time trying to solve for certain issues like did a non-OEM part get installed during production, did a non-OEM part get dropped in the gearbox by accident during production, did the parts diagram not reflect an unknown piece? I spent two hours using my Boroscope fishing through the empty gearbox (after the last flush) to find no evidence of any metal, any damage, any scraping, nothing at all. It remains a mystery but for one inaccessible area and that is the VT coupling.

my best guess at this point aside from internal portions of the VT is it is approximately a 45 mm castle nut with at least eight teeth based on the measurements that I’ve been able to re-create. Problem is all of the castle nuts in the parts diagram, three of them, are four-teeth rendering these parts absolutely the wrong size.

 

[DiabloClyde]

Other smaller items while the engine and gearbox are out is the spring that pushes the shift lever up as part of the reverse lockout has broken. That is common. Also the rubber boot around the base of the shift lever has split which is also fairly common. I’ve had that part on hand for two years now waiting for this!

all engine-outs on Diablos require new or rebuilding the starter which we are doing sending out to a machine shop. There is a detailed wright-up on this by Mikal 82 having done his own, but I’m just going to pay a professional.

we are removing all injectors and sending them out for testing as well.

I already replaced fuel filters but want to replace all fuel lines. At the same time we are going to examine the fuel pumps and likely replace them new. An earlier post of mine about two years ago had fuel pumps making the sound of a walrus or harbor seal meaning they are likely in need of replacement.

valve adjustments are infinitely easier engine-out as Geno can attest! That is being done with the engine on the bench.

primary cats are in perfect shape with no damage visible whatsoever but we will use a borescope to get up in there. Also doing a smoke test on gaskets as well but I believe that’s all we’re going to disassemble the engine. There are no evidences of oil leaks and I have never had any in my garage either so let’s hope this continues.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

[SPGlass]

At first glance I would have said sychro teeth but I have my trans open so I took a look. I don't see anything that looks like that.

 

[DiabloClyde]

Question: anyone done an exhaust heat wrap on their Diablo? Wondering the wisdom of this to try to keep the temperatures in the engine bay down. wrap the exhaust headers and primary cats?

 

[SPGlass]

 

[DiabloClyde]

Synchros were my first thought as well but upon closer inspection of the parts manual and with my borescope it is not compatible. They are almost certainly part of a castle nut but the castle nut sizes and number of teeth do not match anything in Lamborghini‘s parts from years before or after. I have literally dozens of photos from my borescope (not on this phone so I can’t post them) all showing my gearbox clean as a whistle. Very confusing.

if your gearbox is open, despite that yours is not a VT, can you happen to see the castle nuts on the end of the shafts? They should be 20, 25, and 35 mm 4-teeth. If yours have more than four teeth that would be great to know. Particularly in my 97 model year when the company was having financial troubles it would not surprise me that they used non-OEM spec parts to cobble together some gearboxes, and if so I’m paying the penalty.