2002 Chevy Malibu LS

So you're probably as frustrated as I am/was with Chevy and their not taking resposiblity for an inferior product, and have found you missed the boat on the class action law suit.

Having realized that I set out on saving myself a couple of hundred bucks and fixed the car myself. Its not a hard task and no real special tools were needed just a good set of wrenches.

Here's what I learned:

-Take lots of pics along the way
-buy the manual
-torque wrench 0-200 inch lbs
-Keep your hardware together and label it
-even though the book says take the fuel rail off, I really did see a reason to pull it off other than risk the chance of breaking an injector trying to get it apart.
-replace the o-rings for the main-fuel and return fuel supply lines. Dealer part so prepared to faint for the price of two small $1 o-rings
- Good time to replace the waterpump and thermostat and belt
-I replaced the harmonic balancer as well, it had a pretty bad wobble
-clean the mating surfaces really well with solvent or gasket cleaner
-put rags in the intake and water jackets to keep the junk from falling down in the motor and something in the valley to keep it off the cam shaft
-about $250 in parts saved about 400 in labor
- DONT PUT DEX COOL BACK IN! use the good old green stuff and back flush the system out really well.

All in all it wasn't to bad other than little issues. If you need any further help or questions shoot me an email at dafonte1968@yahoo.com

Dante


Hmmm....... says alot about The situation Chevy's in, good thing i own a piece of it now!

 

Other then that, really these cars don't have any issues and are known to be very reliable. BTW, good post.