Howdy,

So Ive had my 98 coupe as my daily for 2-3 years now and 25K miles and for the most part things have been fine, aside from smaller issues and such that I've been able to fix quick.
I have a new job where I will driving a lot between cities, and now I'm putting probably about 4x the miles I used to put on the car weekly.

The car has 125K on it now and I need this car to be good and reliable for another year or two before Ill graduate school and be able to buy a new daily, a big failure or even a couple roadside breakdowns would not be something that I could afford at this point in my life. Perhaps I'm being way too paranoid but I just really need this car to make it trouble free a little while longer, and I'm willing to invest money if it means insurance and prevention against a roadside issue needing tow or a catastrophic 1/1000 failure.

Anyways, I have about $1k max that I can put into refreshing the engine, but i would prefer to have some left over to help with buying tires in a few months(25K miles on my 300tw contis currently).

From looking through this forum and youtube I have seen that oil pump could fail rapidly without much warning, harmonic balancer will fail eventually and needs to be watched, valve springs can possibly fail and cause catastrophic damage. These are what I know about currently.

Plans:
New oil pump
New harmonic balancer at same time
Valve springs upgrade (timing chain too?)

Plugs
Fuel filter
clutch mc(clutch sticks to floor when depressed for long time(parking lots etc))

Any advice or things I missed?

Thanks yall

 

Should be able to see if the harmonic balancer is wobbly or not just looking down at it while it is running. I personally would not spend the money on that if it is not wobbly at all. C5's are way more solid in that department than an LS2 C6 but I would think at 125k yours might be wobbly. If not, bonus! Save that money for something else.

 

$1000, isn't going to fix much unless your doing the labor your self. If it's the slave going out you'll need more money just for the labor. Same with the H.B.

 

195k on my 2002 and none of these problems,

 

Labor will be all me. I feel confident I could tackle these jobs

 

A while ago I did the mark test where you put a mark across the thing to see if its starting to walk off, last i checked it was still good. Ill inspect it while running tho thanks for the suggestion

 

One of the best automotive adages I’ve learned to be true is ‘90% of flats occur in the last 10% of tread life’. If your tires are near the end, they simply must take a high priority. And be sure to look at the center of the rears — I was shocked how quickly I went through my last set.
Your clutch is already giving you serious warning that demise is imminent. Parts alone for the clutch are going to do significant damage to your $1K budget — assuming you do a Luk with new slave, pilot, and rear main. Virtually any of the ‘while I’m in there’ add ons like couplers or bearings are even more budget busting.

 

When was the last time you replaced your clutch fluid? If it's black and thin you can have that symptom. It doesn't always indicate the clutch is shot. Do the "Ranger Method" fluid swap. See if that has a positive impact. If the fluid is clean and fresh and it's sticking that's a different story. Always check the cheap/easy maintenance stuff first.

 

did the ranger method quite a few times, even before the issue popped up. I think at this point i need to somehow figure out how to bleed from the slave. Saw a thread saying pulling intake mani and going in from the top can work and might be easier than going from under.

 

The only easy way to bleed the clutch is to pay someone else to do it.🙃

 

If the slave/master are showing signs of failure, it’s not a matter of if…but when that pedal is going to fall for good. If you have the wherewithal to drop and reinstall the drivetrain yourself, you can probably round up a clutch kit, slave, master, and remote bleeder in your $1,000 range. If you have a buddy who can give you a hand, it will be a lot safer and manageable.

A stopgap might be to install a remote bleeder and clean the crap out of the system and hope for the best. There was a recent thread where a forum member did it with the driveline together. So it’s “possible”…

Ps. Considering your car’s mileage, if you were to go the clutch route, you should look into a rear main seal/cover replacement.