I have not had a lot of time to work on the car the past couple of days. I did get a bit of work in on Wednesday, but that was because I swapped my regular day in the office with Thursday -- so nothing got done Thursday, and today it is really cold again. I can't wait until the weather is a bit more reliable.
I did take some time to look around the car a bit more and found two more things I am going to need to contend with. The first is the the air metering plate does not move -- at all. When the air metering plate moves down, it pushes a plunger up inside of the fuel distributor enabling more gas to get to the injectors. I am guessing that the reason my air metering plate isn't moving is because the plunger is stuck. The fuel distributor is one of the most expensive components on the car, so I am hoping I can fix it. Yes, I know, according to the manual it is not a serviceable part! This isn't entirely true. If it is not too bad, I should be able to remove the fuel distributor and pull the plunger out and clean it up in some acetone, and then use a Q-tip dipped in acetone to clean up the inside of the sleeve where the plunger moves inside of the fuel distributor. Unless of course it is completely rusted in place, which is also possible with what I've seen inside the fuel tank. There was a lot of water in the tank, and if someone tried to turn the car over before the fuel pump failed they could have filled the entire fuel system with water.
The other oddity I found was an extra fuel supply line -- not hooked up to the fuel distributor. Ofcourse there is another fuel supply line that is hooked up to the fuel distributor. I did not follow both of these lines under the car, but it is going to be something else to investigate. If anyone has any guesses on why this might be, I'd love to hear them.
The previous owner of the car told me that the reason they parked the car was due to issues with the fuel system. He said that he had a mechanic working on the fuel system, and shortly after that when he was driving the car it just seemed like it was loosing power. If you check out the picture on the right you can see why. This injector has nearly fallen out! There is another on the other side that is almost as bad. He is lucky he stopped driving because with one more mile, and one more bump this could have popped right out and caused an engine fire. All that is holding the injector in now is a bit of rust, but I was able to break it free by tapping it a little but and turning it with a wrench. So why did this happen? The previous mechanic didn't put ANY of the injector clips back on. I will need to add a set of injector clips to my next parts order. This injector is also pretty damaged by the rust, so I might also need to replace some injectors but fortunately I have a spare set of those.
I have also been trying to figure out how long its going to take to get the car back on the road. My goal is to get the car running first and then move on to the cosmetic issues. When I have time I or need a break from the mechanics I'll do a little consmetic work so that at least I am doing something. I had hoped to have this project wrapped up by the time the snow starts flying again but as I continually find more things I need to do I'm not sure if that is a realistic goal anymore. On average I only have 6 - 8 hours during the week to work on the car, and weekends when something else isn't going on. Did I mention I have a 2 year old daughter? I guess only time will tell at this point.
I did take some time to look around the car a bit more and found two more things I am going to need to contend with. The first is the the air metering plate does not move -- at all. When the air metering plate moves down, it pushes a plunger up inside of the fuel distributor enabling more gas to get to the injectors. I am guessing that the reason my air metering plate isn't moving is because the plunger is stuck. The fuel distributor is one of the most expensive components on the car, so I am hoping I can fix it. Yes, I know, according to the manual it is not a serviceable part! This isn't entirely true. If it is not too bad, I should be able to remove the fuel distributor and pull the plunger out and clean it up in some acetone, and then use a Q-tip dipped in acetone to clean up the inside of the sleeve where the plunger moves inside of the fuel distributor. Unless of course it is completely rusted in place, which is also possible with what I've seen inside the fuel tank. There was a lot of water in the tank, and if someone tried to turn the car over before the fuel pump failed they could have filled the entire fuel system with water.
The other oddity I found was an extra fuel supply line -- not hooked up to the fuel distributor. Ofcourse there is another fuel supply line that is hooked up to the fuel distributor. I did not follow both of these lines under the car, but it is going to be something else to investigate. If anyone has any guesses on why this might be, I'd love to hear them.
The previous owner of the car told me that the reason they parked the car was due to issues with the fuel system. He said that he had a mechanic working on the fuel system, and shortly after that when he was driving the car it just seemed like it was loosing power. If you check out the picture on the right you can see why. This injector has nearly fallen out! There is another on the other side that is almost as bad. He is lucky he stopped driving because with one more mile, and one more bump this could have popped right out and caused an engine fire. All that is holding the injector in now is a bit of rust, but I was able to break it free by tapping it a little but and turning it with a wrench. So why did this happen? The previous mechanic didn't put ANY of the injector clips back on. I will need to add a set of injector clips to my next parts order. This injector is also pretty damaged by the rust, so I might also need to replace some injectors but fortunately I have a spare set of those.I have also been trying to figure out how long its going to take to get the car back on the road. My goal is to get the car running first and then move on to the cosmetic issues. When I have time I or need a break from the mechanics I'll do a little consmetic work so that at least I am doing something. I had hoped to have this project wrapped up by the time the snow starts flying again but as I continually find more things I need to do I'm not sure if that is a realistic goal anymore. On average I only have 6 - 8 hours during the week to work on the car, and weekends when something else isn't going on. Did I mention I have a 2 year old daughter? I guess only time will tell at this point.
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