1986, 2.5L, 4 speed, 19X,XXX miles
A little backstory:
Bought it from a friend after he pulled the motor to put new rings(it was smoking) in. He bought another project and never really messed with it once the motor was pulled. Pulled it home with a bucket of bolts and everything from the engine compartment riding in the cargo area. I finished tearing it down, had it bored, and bought a rebuild kit and put it back together. It was alot of work having no idea where everything went and figuring out which bolts went where. I literally took apart every single peice of the engine, intake, throttle body (took the tps off cleaned it because it was dirty and put it back on, which i think could have miss adjusted/calibrated it) every bolt. Once we dropped it back in and used our best guesses as to where everything we (vacuum hoses, ground wire, etc) couldnt get it to start. The problem was that we has the dist. 180 degrees out. Once we fixed the it ran. It had a high idle, but it ran smooth and idled pretty good. We didnt drive it though because we had clutch issues. Sometime while we we fixng the clutch i went back over the vacuum line and found that we had some wrong. I was going by the manual and not the diagram on the firewall. Im positive that all the vacuum line are right now. That brings us to the problems I have now.
Problems:
1. The idle is low (I dont have a tach)
2. It smells like it is running rich
3. It has a ROUGH idle, but sometimes it will idle good for a few seconds then back to the rough idle.
4. When you first crank it up it will drive decently, feels like it is not running as good as it should though.
5. If i turn it off for a few mins (like when im getting gas) and then crank it up, it will run terrible. It bogs, misses, skips, acts like it is starved for fuel, or like the coil stops working. Then a couple of mins later it will run decently. The longer it sits the less of a chance it will do that.
6. Sometimes it will have the problems from 5 even if I havent turned it off. It happens at totally random timeswith no predictability, and it might not even happen at all.
7. Its likes to miss, skip, bog, under really light throttle when im just cruising.
Bonus Problems:
1. Gas gauge reads way above full all the time.
2. Sometimes the low fuel light will come on even when it has alot of gas. Sometimes it stays off for days.
3. Temp gauge never moves, except for when Im turning the key to crank it. I read somewhere that if i were to pull the cap off and ground it and it goes all the way to the right, then it is the sender. It does do that.
It has:
new filters
new plugs
new wires
new rotor and cap
What ive done to fix it:
1. I made new grounds using 4 gauge wire. I even made a ground going from the battery to the frame.
2. Made positive all the vaccume line are exact according to the firewall diagram.
3. Checked and replaced any vacuum line that looked suspect.
4. Checked the timing at idle, it was around 15 advanced. If i reved it it would advance to past measurable. I know youre not supposed to even check it because the computer controls it.
5.Tested the Coolant Temp Sensor- It tested out exactly like lunghd.com said it should.
6. MAP sensor tested out right too.
7. I tried to test the TPS but i the instructions from lunghd.com didnt match my TPS. Maybe because its a 2.5L. Any ideas?
8. Used a stethoscope to check for vacuum leaks at the intake manifold. And everywhere else i could.
9. Tested the oxygen sensor and it was good.
10. I havent checked the egr solenoid, the IAC, or the TPS. Well I kinda checked the TPS. The terminals that lunghd said to check were different than mine. I did have a 5 volt signal in one of the though, just not the one that site said it should be.
What I think?
1. When I was building it i took the TPS off and didnt pay much attention to it. I have recently learned that even a new one has to adjusted. Is it possible I got it out of adjustment?
2. I dont think this would cause problems, but I have a pretty good exhaust leak where the exhaust manifold connects to the exhaust pipe. I dont have a donut gasket on there. Is it supposed to have one?
3. I was thinking about removing the grounds that ground to the dipstick tube. Extending the wires and grounding them directly to the battery in hopes that it would help. Good idea? Bad idea? I know that one of them is for the computer so I was hoping it might help out.
4. I dont think my symptoms (mine starts pretty easy) match the CPS so I didnt even check that.
Im at the end of my rope. I am open to any suggestion or idea that yall might have. Please ask me anything you can possibly think of no matter how obvious it may seem. Maybe I overlooked it. Shoot me any idea and I will give it a shot. Thank you in advance, and sorry that the post was so long. And congrats if you actually read the whole thing Haha.
A little backstory:
Bought it from a friend after he pulled the motor to put new rings(it was smoking) in. He bought another project and never really messed with it once the motor was pulled. Pulled it home with a bucket of bolts and everything from the engine compartment riding in the cargo area. I finished tearing it down, had it bored, and bought a rebuild kit and put it back together. It was alot of work having no idea where everything went and figuring out which bolts went where. I literally took apart every single peice of the engine, intake, throttle body (took the tps off cleaned it because it was dirty and put it back on, which i think could have miss adjusted/calibrated it) every bolt. Once we dropped it back in and used our best guesses as to where everything we (vacuum hoses, ground wire, etc) couldnt get it to start. The problem was that we has the dist. 180 degrees out. Once we fixed the it ran. It had a high idle, but it ran smooth and idled pretty good. We didnt drive it though because we had clutch issues. Sometime while we we fixng the clutch i went back over the vacuum line and found that we had some wrong. I was going by the manual and not the diagram on the firewall. Im positive that all the vacuum line are right now. That brings us to the problems I have now.
Problems:
1. The idle is low (I dont have a tach)
2. It smells like it is running rich
3. It has a ROUGH idle, but sometimes it will idle good for a few seconds then back to the rough idle.
4. When you first crank it up it will drive decently, feels like it is not running as good as it should though.
5. If i turn it off for a few mins (like when im getting gas) and then crank it up, it will run terrible. It bogs, misses, skips, acts like it is starved for fuel, or like the coil stops working. Then a couple of mins later it will run decently. The longer it sits the less of a chance it will do that.
6. Sometimes it will have the problems from 5 even if I havent turned it off. It happens at totally random timeswith no predictability, and it might not even happen at all.
7. Its likes to miss, skip, bog, under really light throttle when im just cruising.
Bonus Problems:
1. Gas gauge reads way above full all the time.
2. Sometimes the low fuel light will come on even when it has alot of gas. Sometimes it stays off for days.
3. Temp gauge never moves, except for when Im turning the key to crank it. I read somewhere that if i were to pull the cap off and ground it and it goes all the way to the right, then it is the sender. It does do that.
It has:
new filters
new plugs
new wires
new rotor and cap
What ive done to fix it:
1. I made new grounds using 4 gauge wire. I even made a ground going from the battery to the frame.
2. Made positive all the vaccume line are exact according to the firewall diagram.
3. Checked and replaced any vacuum line that looked suspect.
4. Checked the timing at idle, it was around 15 advanced. If i reved it it would advance to past measurable. I know youre not supposed to even check it because the computer controls it.
5.Tested the Coolant Temp Sensor- It tested out exactly like lunghd.com said it should.
6. MAP sensor tested out right too.
7. I tried to test the TPS but i the instructions from lunghd.com didnt match my TPS. Maybe because its a 2.5L. Any ideas?
8. Used a stethoscope to check for vacuum leaks at the intake manifold. And everywhere else i could.
9. Tested the oxygen sensor and it was good.
10. I havent checked the egr solenoid, the IAC, or the TPS. Well I kinda checked the TPS. The terminals that lunghd said to check were different than mine. I did have a 5 volt signal in one of the though, just not the one that site said it should be.
What I think?
1. When I was building it i took the TPS off and didnt pay much attention to it. I have recently learned that even a new one has to adjusted. Is it possible I got it out of adjustment?
2. I dont think this would cause problems, but I have a pretty good exhaust leak where the exhaust manifold connects to the exhaust pipe. I dont have a donut gasket on there. Is it supposed to have one?
3. I was thinking about removing the grounds that ground to the dipstick tube. Extending the wires and grounding them directly to the battery in hopes that it would help. Good idea? Bad idea? I know that one of them is for the computer so I was hoping it might help out.
4. I dont think my symptoms (mine starts pretty easy) match the CPS so I didnt even check that.
Im at the end of my rope. I am open to any suggestion or idea that yall might have. Please ask me anything you can possibly think of no matter how obvious it may seem. Maybe I overlooked it. Shoot me any idea and I will give it a shot. Thank you in advance, and sorry that the post was so long. And congrats if you actually read the whole thing Haha.