Horrible noises...

[hippynerd]

The oil leak is above the BS cover, it seems to be between the cam gear and the first cylinder area. I think the other leak may just be the valve cover oil tube hose, it seems to be leaking. I also have a a heater hose that has a split. I need to replace those two.

 

The clutch pedal doesnt pump up. you press and it moves with little effort about 1/2 of its travel, then you can feel it building up pressure. There are no visible leaks anywhere around there.

 

Being able to compress the slave over an inch seems unusual, it seems like it should be stiffer.

[hippynerd]

After much struggle and many tools, I managed to adjust the clutch pedal. I might have over adjusted it, the pedal is pretty high up, and it dis-engages right, and fully disengages about 1/2 pedal.

 

It was extremely difficult to get it to adjust, you have to get in the worlds most uncomfortable position to reach it, I had trouble keeping the light so I could see what I was doing, the cotter pin was a lot of fighting to get undone, and it requires straining , while working with your hands over your head.

 

What a miserable task, I hope I never do it again.

 

Clutch pedal adjustment, it sounds easy, but trust me, its harder than it sounds.

[hippynerd]

I spent a couple days trying to stop the leaking this week.

I pulled the head, and looked for places that the leaking could be coming from, and tried to stop it.

 

Ive gotten most of it to stop, but there was a leak in the back. I couldnt see where it was coming from, but the only place that I can think that oil could leak out was the cam plug in the back of the head. I pulled the valve cover, and the back cam tower that hold the cam plug. I remvoved it, and put in a brand new one, with plenty of black RTV on both the plug and metal. I put it all back together and let the RTV set. I drove the car last night and got it up to temp, then parked it. I could smell oil when I parked, so I know I have some oil to clean, but hopefully its minor, and something easy to fix.

[wrngwae]

After much struggle and many tools, I managed to adjust the clutch pedal. I might have over adjusted it, the pedal is pretty high up, and it dis-engages right, and fully disengages about 1/2 pedal.

 

It was extremely difficult to get it to adjust, you have to get in the worlds most uncomfortable position to reach it, I had trouble keeping the light so I could see what I was doing, the cotter pin was a lot of fighting to get undone, and it requires straining , while working with your hands over your head.

 

What a miserable task, I hope I never do it again.

 

Clutch pedal adjustment, it sounds easy, but trust me, its harder than it sounds.

 

 

HAHAHAH,,, just saying.. im 6'4" and oh lets call it 260lbs... been there done that... it does suck but it is much needed.....

[hippynerd]

Im only 5'10, and I found it really difficult, that extra half foot must make it seem impossible.

 

After spending hours upside down working on it, I have figured out how to get to it, and adjust it. I can now do it in under half an hour. I still dont want to do that again though

 

Ive stopped most of the oil leak, but there is still a mystery leak, its somewhere around the rear passenger side corner of the motor. It seems to be coming from between the head and block, but I cant really see where its coming from. I spent a couple hours yesterday looking for it, I got a mirror out, and was able to see much better, but even that was difficult, and I wasnt able to determine where the oil was coming from.

 

I looked at my other block and head. There is an oil passage on the drivers side of the back of the block, but not the passenger side. The oil seems to be coming from between the head and block, but there is no oil anywhere near there (there are several coolant ports around there, but no oil.

 

I jambed a paper shop towel in the area and wedged it between the block and coolant tube that goes around the back. It still leaks down the exhaust side of the block though.

 

Im a bit perplexed and dumbfounded. Im not sure how to resolve this problem, because I cant figure out where the oil is leaking from.

[hippynerd]

I forgot to mention that the car is running real good. It breaks traction instantly, and the car hauls tail.

[hippynerd]

Updates...

Engine is leaking a whole lot less oil, it wasnt really leaking a lot of oil, but it was making a lot of mess. For the most part, the engine is dry and clean. I took out the mechanical oil pressure gauge, that helped, but I had a lot of oil leak from the gauge into the vent, and slowly run down and drip on the clutch pedal. its a good thing I have floor mats.

 

I dont like the factory oil gauge, but its working to some degree. It doesnt seem accurate somehow.

 

Ive been going through sensors trying to get the engine to run better. It runs real good, then it runs real poorly until I shut the engine off and start it back up. I think its the MAF. Ive tried 2 different mafs and they both may be bad. If I disconnect the maf, I think the problem goes away, but it also makes it run rich enough to thin the oil.

 

I also changed the CTS, but its not responding the way that I would expect, it seems to be about 200 ohms when it should be 100 ohms.

 

The TPS and ISC were messed up, and I took spare parts and got them back, but the TPS doesnt seem to respond quite right too. I have the old one, it worked fine, but the outside is broken (I wasnt careful enough when I hoisted the engine, and broke it). If I can figure out a way to put it back together (glue?) I can use the old one, but I dont think superglue, or plastic glue will work well with this kind of plastic. I might be able to do a bondo thing, but that seems likely to break again, as its kind of brittle.

 

There is also an untested intake sensor. the 86 has a sensor in the OVCP, and im not sure how to test it, but I have anohter OVCP with a sensor, and I swapped it, and it seemed to make no difference.

 

Ive been running a 16g turbo, and it kind of seems like it was quicker with the smaller turbo. I have a 14b that Ive setup for td05 a couple years ago, maybe I will put it on and see if I like it better.

[hippynerd]

http://www.starquestclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=28043

 

I think I will start by making an LED and hooking it up to the connector under the air can, like mentioned in the thread linked above.

[hippynerd]

That was pretty easy. I rigged up some LEDs on to the connector, it turns out that there are only 2 wires, and I even got them right the first time.

The LEDs blinked 6, 3, 1.

I warmed up the motor, and the 1 went away

I spent some time checking out the ISC motor that I had rebuild/replaced with at spare, and it looked like when I repaired it, I got the wires backwards, I took it apart, and swapped wires, the put it back together. It held the throttle open really high, like 4,000 RPMs, I fussed with the idle adjust, but that didnt help. I took the ISC out, and compared it to my spare (or is the spare the original, I cant tell anymore.) I found that the two ISCs that I have are different height, one is 2.97' the other is 2.8", I put the shorter one in place. At one point I think I only had the 1 blink, but now that its warmed up, with the 2.8" ISC, it has the 6 blink back.

I decided it was time for a break, and I ll look at it later.

[hippynerd]

I fussed around with the 2 ISCs that I have trying to figure out if I can use the long one, but I ended up breaking more wires and repairing them, and I just put the one that fits right back in the car. It seems to work, but there is a problem. When you start the car, it throws the code for ISC, and the ISC runs the throttle up and down about 500 RPMs over idle speed. It seems like it stops after like 5 minutes of idling. It throws the 1 blink code at first, but that goes away after the engine warms up a bit. I think that the brand new CTS isnt right. It didnt measure what the book said. I have the exact same problem on the 83, its OLD CTS droppped the lower threshold and doesnt work until the motor warms up, the new replacement CTS (very hard to part), measures way off what the spec is.

 

My guess is that the maf is fine (although it probably wont handle the higher boost levels very well, its not failing)

 

I also did the TPS/ISC reset. the TPS is a little bit janky, I dont get exactly the same voltage when I snap the throttle plate each time. its within a .02v of where I set it, but it bothers me that I dont get the exact same results each time.

 

I think that I will work on temp gauge, mabye setup a mechanical gauge, and meter the sensors at various temps.

 

The car is getting real close to be stable, and I plan on selling it when I get things working well. I may sell the car with extra parts like fenders and hood, and even my 83 motor thats half rebuilt, but needs more rebuilding. I think I want a diesel in my 83.

[hippynerd]

I worked on the ISC again yesterday. I can confirm that my ISC seems to be working fine, but I still get 6 blinking lights. I tested the switch while it was in place, and its working, then I ran the motor both ways by hooking it up to the battery. It all seems fine. I took apart my spare ISC to see how it all works, and came up with simple test procedure.

 

I didnt get a mechanical temp gauge hooked up, but I did test the CTS after the engine had warmed up (when the temp gauge goes past the 2nd mark on the gauge) You can hear the engine speed change a couple times, it seems to re-adjust the idle right about where the marks are on the gauge. The engine runs really crappy after it warms up, but then you shut the engine off, and start it up again, it runs real good for a while, then runs poorly again.

 

The CTS (for the ECU) seems to be running about 400 ohms at temp (Im guessing thats about 160 degrees) The manual says that it should be at 104 ohms. When I tested that sensor, I put it in boiling water, and it read over 200 ohms.

 

When the car gets up to temp, and isnt moving, the throttle goes up and down from 1000-1500 or so and wont drop down to regular idle speed. It stays at idle speed just fine untill the engine warms up, which seems kind of the opposite of what you might expect.

I dont have the AC temp sensor hooked up, I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

[Edde]

From memory only I thought the spec for a hot cts was about 300ohms.

 

There's more to that isc than maybe you're realizing. The motor position sensor (mps) is there to read the isc position. In addition to the stepper motor the isc has a button on the end. When your foot is off the gas it should push against the throttle stop and close - telling the ecu: IDLE. Something is out of whack with your parts or adjustment so the system is hunting for idle. It's confused.

 

Also generally best to limit volts to test the isc to 6 or 9 or whatever is in the manual. 12 can cause it to jam up.

[hippynerd]

I didnt find the ISC stuff in the manual, but I did find stuff at starquest.i-x website. It turned out that my spare one the button didnt work. I took it apart, and was able to trouble shoot it down to corrosion on the contacts inside the thing. After putting it back together it wouldnt budge on the 6v battery that I had, so I ended up using the 12v. It didnt want to move at first, but after I exercised it a few times, it was back to working like it should.

It turned out that the one that I thought was the spare, was the one from this car. I took the ICS off and change the throttle cable lever and parts for the longer ICS (the one that was originally on the car), and got it all working. The error code went a way! Yay!

 

I did another TPS/ISC reset (I had to do it a couple times because I screwed things up.) I burned my hand a bit trying to adjust the idle screw. thats a pain in the butt.

 

I think I got it set, I dont like the TPS though, its not very consistent. It works though, and its good enough till I figure out how to unbreak the original one.

 

Yeah, its neat how the ICS works, you screw it all the way down, and that pushes a black plastic thing to push a copper tab up, to make the contacts contact. Then the switch at the tip will work.

[hippynerd]

300 Ohms is also the spec for my 83, it uses a different sender, but warmed up is about 300 ohms. Ive been trying to replace it for like 10 years. I finally found one, ordered it, but it doesnt work right, its like 10k ohms warmed up, and like 20k cold.

 

What I did was hook up resistors, and when I had 100 ohms hooked up after the car was warm, it did not run right. I added a couple more 100 ohm resistors, and it smoothed out to a normal idle. I looked it up like 10 times in the 1986 manual online. Each time it says 104 ohms. I ended up using a new CTS that I had but didnt measure 100 ohms when heated on a pot in the kitchen.

 

I spent about an hour and tested all the coolant sensors and measured them at 3 stages, cold (about 60 degrees), warmed up to the first mark on the gauge, and the last was over the second mark (fully warmed up)

You can hear the engine change as the needle gets to those 2 lower marks on the gauge.

 

The car seems to run like a normal car, and does the normal warm up routine. I dont really warm the car up, I start the motor, wait for oil pressure, then drive slowly the first couple blocks. Because of where I currently live, that means mostly idling downhill and sitting at a stop light.

 

There are some electrical add ons, and some cosmetic things, then I think I will try to sell it. Right now it has the 16g turbo, I may experiment with the 14b turbo. Its been a ridiculous amount of work, and it would be nice to break even. I may even sell the car with no motor, this motor is from my car, and it can go right back in if it has too. I also have a mostly rebuilt 83 motor, but its probably going to need boring and pistons, rods, and rings.

 

I wish I could keep them all, but I dont have space or money for them all. this one is way faster than my 83, but I still like my crusty old 83 better.

[hippynerd]

Ive been working on the TPS/ISC and I cant seem to get the idle adjusted right, and both of the TPSs ive been using seem a ltittle bit erratic. The throttle gets kind of weird, it doesnt hold the same speed, you constantly have to lift and press a tiny amount to keep the car going the same speed. Ive also found that the car idles weird as it warms up. Often after the car warms up, the idle says too high (like 1500 rpm), but not always, sometimes it flattens out to like 800. It holds at 800 while warming up most of the time too.

 

The most annoying problem is that it loses power. You will be driving along, and the car starts slowing down, you press on the gas, and the car slows down more, you press all the way down, and it continues to slow down. Sometime when this happens, pressing all the way down makes it cough and sputter, then runs ok, sometimes it just keeps slowing down. If I shut the motor off, wait for the motor to spin down, then start it, the problem goes away for a while, but always returns later. I think disconnecting the maf makes it go away, and disconnecting the ISC probably makes the idle thing go away.

[hippynerd]

I fetched a hopefully good transmission, and a new bumper cover the other day, and I've looked at the transmission, and cleaned up the pan gasket, and re-sealed it. It looks good inside, so hopefully everything is OK with it.

 

I took my 83 transmission out yesterday, and I have it ready to remove the 86 specific parts to put on the hopefully good transmission, then I will install it today. If things go well, I'll get some paint on the bumper cover, and may even get it installed, but Ill be happy to just get the trans done today.

[hippynerd]

Update:

I had some wiring problems and my door lights shorted out, and took some fuses with it. I went through the electronics, and cleaned stuff up, and replaced fuses and door locks, windows, and remote start all work right again.

 

I need to lube the passenger side window tracks and stuff so that it rolls up like the drivers side, because it rolls too slow, and the window doesnt go up all the way with the remote.

 

This car is way faster than my car, and a lot of fun. I will miss it.

[hippynerd]

Somehow I managed to melt the insides of the second cat. It was seriously preventing the car from boosting, but the engine still ran ok.

I also blew apart a turbo (14b). When i took the turbo off the car, It blew the oil ring into the turbine housing, and the nut was half unscrewed of the spindle. Here is a timelapse of dissassembly, and re-assembly. The turbo will work, but its been damaged enough that it wont work well. It needs a rebuild, with new bearings and wheels.