atomicmecha
I hate rust
Give the typhoon a tune up they said... it'll be good for it they said... it'll run much better they said. :shoot:
Today has been awful. :bad-word:
So the idea was to give the typhoon a tune up. Brought a new MSD cap, roter, and coil. NKG plugs. Set of Taylor Wires. Even got a roll of new vacuum hose to replace some of the dried up ones.
So first thing, the dude I got this typhoon from said he tuned up a few months before selling it to me. From the looks of it, that only involved a new cap. Or so I hope, because who ever replaced the plugs last needs to never touch a car again.
First thing, 5 of the plugs were gapped at 0.45(ish). note the "ish" because none of them were 0.45 on the mark. One plug was different than the others and gapped at 0.50. :squint: Luckly they weren't fouled or anything. Just really burnt.
Whatever. I gapped all of the new ones at 0.30 based on a recommendation from here since I'm going to be running higher boost and the ultimate chip program on my G3.
Moving on. Old wires were... old. So was the cap. It shattered when i tried to pull it off. Again, what ever.
New plugs in. Wires run. New coil installed. Time for the cap. Turns out one of the screws is stripped on the distributor tower. ****. What about the other one? No thats fine. Ah shit it just stripped the hole as well. Now my cap wont stay put. Ok, new slightly larger screws. Re-threaded the cap and the mounting holes. So far so go. Got one started, lets get the other one going. And dropped it. :roll: Can't find it. Spent an hour with an air gun and a magnet on a stick looking for it. Gone. Now what. Well let me tighten this other one down and see how it is. No, thats too loose. But maybe it'll be ok.
This has already take several hours just for the cap. :rant: Tried the old one again, no luck. So now I'm wondering what to do. I don't really have the money at the moment to get an entirely new distributor tower.
Would it be a problem to just drill the damn thing out and use a set of bolts to clamp it down?
Now my other issue is that its running badly now. I started driving it home and it died about half a mile from my friends hose as soon as i tried to give a little gas. tach went ballistic when i did. wiggled the cap and gave it a moment and it came back to life. drove it a bit further and suddenly BAM. big old backfire and i'm dead again. Did this several times on my 4 mile trip back home. I'm hoping its doing this because of the loose distributor and the computer going into limp mode. I'm hoping. :?
Also, the vacuum lines on these things are a bloody nightmare. 4 different sizes. 3 connectors. Jesus. I wanna slap a GMC designer from the 90's for this bullshit. :tdown:
So help please. Is my backfire/horrible running/sluggish/random dying/CEL all cause of a loose distributor cap? Or did I break something else?
Oh and one more thing... did a compression check on everything while i had the plugs out. Got the following:
1 -- 150
2 -- 125
3 -- 145
4 -- 145
5 -- 130
6 -- 115
I'm thinking I've got some bad valves. Not enough of a drop to say a bad ring. I think. Would explain why I get a puff of blue smoke at start up and then clear after that. So... time for a top end rebuild? :dunno:
Today has been awful. :bad-word:
So the idea was to give the typhoon a tune up. Brought a new MSD cap, roter, and coil. NKG plugs. Set of Taylor Wires. Even got a roll of new vacuum hose to replace some of the dried up ones.
So first thing, the dude I got this typhoon from said he tuned up a few months before selling it to me. From the looks of it, that only involved a new cap. Or so I hope, because who ever replaced the plugs last needs to never touch a car again.
First thing, 5 of the plugs were gapped at 0.45(ish). note the "ish" because none of them were 0.45 on the mark. One plug was different than the others and gapped at 0.50. :squint: Luckly they weren't fouled or anything. Just really burnt.
Whatever. I gapped all of the new ones at 0.30 based on a recommendation from here since I'm going to be running higher boost and the ultimate chip program on my G3.
Moving on. Old wires were... old. So was the cap. It shattered when i tried to pull it off. Again, what ever.
New plugs in. Wires run. New coil installed. Time for the cap. Turns out one of the screws is stripped on the distributor tower. ****. What about the other one? No thats fine. Ah shit it just stripped the hole as well. Now my cap wont stay put. Ok, new slightly larger screws. Re-threaded the cap and the mounting holes. So far so go. Got one started, lets get the other one going. And dropped it. :roll: Can't find it. Spent an hour with an air gun and a magnet on a stick looking for it. Gone. Now what. Well let me tighten this other one down and see how it is. No, thats too loose. But maybe it'll be ok.
This has already take several hours just for the cap. :rant: Tried the old one again, no luck. So now I'm wondering what to do. I don't really have the money at the moment to get an entirely new distributor tower.
Would it be a problem to just drill the damn thing out and use a set of bolts to clamp it down?
Now my other issue is that its running badly now. I started driving it home and it died about half a mile from my friends hose as soon as i tried to give a little gas. tach went ballistic when i did. wiggled the cap and gave it a moment and it came back to life. drove it a bit further and suddenly BAM. big old backfire and i'm dead again. Did this several times on my 4 mile trip back home. I'm hoping its doing this because of the loose distributor and the computer going into limp mode. I'm hoping. :?
Also, the vacuum lines on these things are a bloody nightmare. 4 different sizes. 3 connectors. Jesus. I wanna slap a GMC designer from the 90's for this bullshit. :tdown:
So help please. Is my backfire/horrible running/sluggish/random dying/CEL all cause of a loose distributor cap? Or did I break something else?
Oh and one more thing... did a compression check on everything while i had the plugs out. Got the following:
1 -- 150
2 -- 125
3 -- 145
4 -- 145
5 -- 130
6 -- 115
I'm thinking I've got some bad valves. Not enough of a drop to say a bad ring. I think. Would explain why I get a puff of blue smoke at start up and then clear after that. So... time for a top end rebuild? :dunno: