(OT) Car coolant question

What engine does your Caprice have? I think by 89 the 305 and 350 had both been switch to TBI but maybe a 307 was still available with a carb.

Reply to
Larry W
Loading thread data ...

Indeed. Aamco's advertisement states that half of the cars they work on don't need a new transmission. It says nothing about the percentage that actually get a new transmission.

Reply to
krw

Or get charged for one, wheter it needed it or it was installed or not, if you get my drift... Certainly happens with in-tank fuel pumps, I have no doubt of that.

Reply to
Larry W

I sort of agree with the need for a heavier duty truck. This F-150 I have now came with overload springs, so it can easily handle the normal loads I haul. My most common loading, and normally the heaviest loads I haul are loads of hay, with the average load being one ton maximum. Everything else is normally pulled behind the truck such as hay and grain wagons, and implement machinery.

That old 78 F-150 used to sag, till a friend sold me some leaf springs from a very heavy duty truck. I put them in and nothing would push that frame down, but it rode like a concrete truck. I wish I would have kept those springs when I junked the body, after selling the engine and a few other parts.

While I know diesels are more durable and a little better on fuel, I'd not want one because in this climate where we get well below zero in winter, all I hear from other farmers are problems with the fuel gelling up, even with the additives made to prevent it. They're good in warm weather but a pain in the ass in the cold. I'll stick with gasoline.

Reply to
homeowner

While I get your drift, but I know for fact several of the people who's cars/trucks most definately did not have a working pump. I dont enjoy working on machinery too much. I fix most of my own, but when friends ask me to do repairs, I tell them no. Yet, I'll often do a simple diagnosis for them. It's easy to stick a piece of hose in the gas tank, hold it to my ear and listen for the pump. If I dont hear it, I will usually check for power at the wire going to the pump. If there's power, the pump is shot. Then they can take it to a mechanic or fix it themself.

I am wondering if we have some fuel additives around here that ruins the pumps. Not all parts of the country get the same fuel, and here in the north, we have summer gas and winter gas. Who knows whats in it that may do damage. All of it contains alcohol these days too, yet in an adjoining state, they still sell pure 100% gasoline.

Reply to
homeowner

That dont work on my carb chevy, but it's usually pretty well flooded once it gets that far. What appears to happen is that frost builds up on the chole plate and sort of glues it shut.

I will try this on the FI Ford truck. I just asked a local mechanic what might cause that problem, and he told me to put the pedal to the floor and try it again. But since I'm still waiting for my radiator, I have not used the truck lately to try it.

I have to admit that after working on that stuff for over 40 years, I know a lot more what to look for on a carb vehicle. This FI is all new to me. I will agree that the electronic ignitions on the carb vehicles was a big improvement over points. I even converted one of my tractors to an after market elec. ign. system.

I still recall back in the 70s when a vacuum advance weight broke loose in an old car and cut the top right off the distributor. That time I wasnt going anywhere. We had to push the car off the road, get a ride home, and cone back the next day with a new dist. and replace it. That was a really weird problem.

My Caprice 1989 was the last year they used a carb. It has 16 vacuum hoses. When I had to change the intake manifold gasket because of coolant leaking outside of the engine, I spent over an hour just drawing a chart and putting labels in each and every hose. PIA! Yea, too many emission things on tht engine. A mechainc once helped me with a problem, and told me to eliminate several of them. I did, and it ran better.

Getting parts for both my 88 F-150 and 89 Caprice are getting harder to find, particularly junk yard parts and body parts. Brakes and most engine parts are still available. A lot of guys restore and rebuild these old Ford trucks around here. Actually mine was partly restored, with a new box, and the driver door, but the rest was needing work. Whe I bought it I had to completely replace the entire brake system, re-mount the cab which was not attached on one side, repair some bad wiring, and more. Soon after the rear end had to be rebuilt, and now I'm dealing with the cooling system. Seems that for every day I drive it, it's broke down for 3 or more days. As soon as the cooling is fixed, it's getting a "for sale" sign.

On the other hand, the caprice is as reliable as any car can be. I did some brake and front end work in fall, and replaced the battery and some tires. Aside from the choke issues, it starts and runs every time. It will need some exhaust system work soon, and I know there is a bad rear shock, but it always gets me where I need to go.

Reply to
homeowner

It's the 307 Olds engine. The body is a station wagon, and they seem to have always used those engines in the wagons. Station wagons are hard to find anymore, so I try to keep it in good shape. I've been offerred some pretty good money for it, but I'd rather keep it since it's so reliable, and I like the STW body. This was the last year they had a carb. It has some electronics in the carb, there are 2 plugs on it. Before this one, I had an 86 Olds STW. The body was almost identical, the engine was the same, except only one elec. plug on the carb. I still have that car for parts, but had to quit driving it when the frame broke and was too rusty to weld, not to mention the tranny was dying. The engine in that one still ran well, and aside from taking the electronic ign module off of it, and the starter, it's still complete.

Reply to
homeowner

So you are overloading it by 100% on a GOOD day - and the wagons are generally also exceding the GCVW by 100% or more.

Still overloading the axles and axle bearings - and quite possibly the tires and wheels as well. Not to mention the poor frame!.

Up here in Ontario they are just fine. Much better torque for slugging around the farm - and who uses gasoline tractors any more???? Sure not around here. The winter diesel doesn't have any trouble flowing here. Even a shitty B414 International will start in Huntsville / Parry Sound Ontario if you plug it in for half an hour. (or feed it ether) Friend's Toyota Hilux Diesel was even starting on one glow-plug if he cycled it twice - ran like crap and smoked like a fiend - starts and runs beautifully now since he put in new glowplugs.

Just don't get caught with off-road fuel in your road truck!!!!!

Reply to
clare

Or the ground is bad - or the connector to the pump is bad.

Up here in Ontario we get winter gas, and hooch too.

Reply to
clare

My son had a mid to late '80's Chevy wagon with the Olds engine. Bought it used about in 1999 or 2000. There was a batch of those

307's made with soft cylinder walls, and he got one. My mechanic told me this, and he had seen more than one. With about 70k miles on it the blow-by was so bad the cat got plugged and my son had to hole it with a screwdriver to get down the road. Since my son really liked the car, I had my mech put in a new GM Target 307. Same warranty as GM factory. Cost me about $2500. My mech said it's a real good engine except for that bad batch. A couple months later the car was stolen, and never recovered. No insurance. Book value was real low. Think it had a quad. I remember my mech told me it would cost more if the blow-by had screwed it up, but he got it all running sweet.
Reply to
Vic Smith

Thats the beaty uf FI. It works every time - no stinkin' choke to stick

And good luck getting a "$20 carb kit" for your average old clunker. A gasket only kit for a quadrajet is $30 to $50 if you can wait to order it online. A Holley 4600 is about $60.

A full renew kit for that holley is about $75 for a 77/78 Ford.

Vacuum advance has no weights - that was your centrifical advance.

And electrically controlled carb on most of them too.

You'd likely have gotten the same price without fixing the radiator. Generally the price can only go SO low!!!

And other than the choke - which is a total non-issue on a car 2 years newer (with EFI) - so would a fuel injected car. None of what you've had to do has ANYTHING to do with EFI. And from 1996 on up, diagnostics is a lot less of a "black art".

Reply to
clare

How do you figure 100% overload? Even my little Ranger will haul

1600lbs. (5260-3606). Well, I wouldn't do it now that it's 12yo but I have carried over 1000lbs (1/2yd of stone), many times; didn't even faze it.
Reply to
krw

Not so! Especially with some mfg's.

Here's an excellent example:

formatting link
Yes, I know it's long... runs just over 40 minutes... make some popcorn & kick back.

We see stuff like this more often than you'd think... scan tools really have to be taken with a grain of salt. You really have to be careful, or you can end up eating very expensive parts, and/or blowing more time than you could ever bill for.

This is why I say buy 'real' car's & trucks.

Erik

PS, Incidentally, this 'ScannerDanner' guy has many superb automotive computer related troubleshooting video's up on YouTube.

Reply to
Erik

Like I said - the scanner does not tell you what to replace. It tells you what is wrong. It says the right bank is lean, or the left bank is rich, or the left bank front O2 sensor is slow, or reading low.. It is up to the mechanic to KNOW what will cause those problems. And how to find / eliminate the possibilities without throwing the parts department at it. Do you have a bad injector? or a vacuum leak? Or is the engine burning oil?

Or the scanner tells you you have an intermittent misfire. Or a misfire on cyl 5. What is causing the misfire? A bad plug, a bad wire, a bad coil, a vacuum leak, a bad injector, a bad valve? At least you know to look at #5 cyl, not 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 (or 7 or 8) It is the combination of codes and/or other symptoms, together with the history of the vehicle, and knowing what goes wrong on certain vehicles.

You did not have that ability on the older cars - Yes, you could hook a scope to it - and if you knew how to read both the primary and secondary patterns, the vacuum guage, the dynamic compression test, etc it COULD give you most of the information. But not everyone had the money and space to have an analyzer scope. Every DIY shadetree mechanic can afford a basic OBD2 scanner, and it will fit in the glove compartment (or even the ash tray)

The mid-year stuff - electronic controls but pre 1996 (pre OBD2) every vehicle needed it's own specific scan tester - some gave lots of good information, and others were almost useless. Some would blink the CEL when you connected the right combination of pins/wires on the test plug to spell out the code.

Reply to
clare

In trying to fix a 1995 olds with OBD 1.5 , had troubles. First was question on reading the computer. Later found it faulty, replaced with junk yard $35 unit. I had trouble trying reading first computer as well as shops. Intermittent problem giving codes. Sure the intake gaskets first needed replaced. Intermittent. Giving crank sensor codes. Still problem. Turned out to be intermittent spark control module. The sensors go to the spark control module.

I bought OBD 1.5 USB plug in, but had trouble communication. Never got to test again after computer was replaced. Shop took over.

Pre 1995 gm vehicles had less computer info. To add confusion, there was more than one version of OBD 1.5

Greg

Reply to
gregz

I guess I had the good engine. Over 200k miles and it still runs well. This is the first I heard about this problem. The one thing about them, they never have the best power on hills, and that was disgussed in a STW discussion group I found on the web some years ago. They said it was because the shape of the cam, which made for better gas milage, but a little low in power. I live in a hilly area, so at times it is a bit doggy, but I've had this car for many years. I'm just used to it, and take the trans out of OD on those hills, and take my time getting to the top on the real big hills.

Too bad yours was stolen, bet it would still be running.

Reply to
homeowner

Actually, I could read MORE information from my 1988 Chrysler and 1990 Aerostar than I can get off the new OBD2 vehicles - but it was raw data that I had to interpret by myself. I could read the value of every sensor - but the scanner had no idea what was correct, or within range, so it didn't give a code saying "check this"

Actually, officially, no such thing as 1.5 You had all the non-standards that were machine specific that fell loosely into OBD1 - then there was draft OBD2 or what we in the trade called "pre-2" - basically just GM trying to get a jump on the technology, then OBD2. Anything before the full OBD2 of 1996 was a bit hit or miss. My Auto X Ray scanner has 5 lead kits -OBD2,OBD2 manufacturer specific, GM, Ford and Chrysler. Each of the imports had their own "flavour" as well

- I didn't bother buying any of them The "manufacturer specific" was for 1995 GM vehicles with OBD2 plugs that were not fully OBD2 compliant.

Reply to
clare

On Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:16:56 -0800, Erik wrote:

Good vid for tech geeks. What, a couple hours reading meters, flowcharts, schematics, tracing wires, thinking, speculating, thinking. All to find an obviously hosed wiring harness that should have been evident after about 10 minutes of inspection. That's what I do first with all electrical faults, unless experience tells me otherwise. Especially if I see a leaky valve cover gasket has soaked a harness with oil. BTW, you can throw a cam sensor, crank sensor and TPS at that engine for less than $75, and about an hour labor. Not saying do that, but it's a viable strategy for a DIY'er. All these sensors and other electrical components degrade over time, so new is usually best. My wife's Lumina 3100 just threw a PO300, was chugging when hot, and she smelled hot metal. BTDT with other 3100's. Bad coil or spark module. Didn't even consider finding out which coil pack, or if it was the spark module. Put all new in. Done, finished. I can't believe he even considered replacing the ECU without checking the wiring first. He probably knew the harness was bad earlier than he said but held that so he'd have a good vid. Probably too good to make that mistake. But his purpose is to show scanner troubleshooting, whether it's needed or not. Good catch for geeks knowing the ECU sources 12v to cam and crank on a shared circuit. But that engine is basically a no-brainer for a moderately competent DIYer since parts are cheap to throw at it. Anything but an ECU fault or a hidden harness short is no big deal.

That's why I think the guy making the vid didn't charge for all the "diagnostic" time he put into it. ODB codes are great, and either pinpoint the problem, or give you a starting point

And which "real" car can't suffer degraded wiring due to neglecting an oil leak?

Reply to
Vic Smith

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.