Fairtax4me

Woah, woah..... Woah! 1. Check the drain plug first. Is it tight? 2. If it is the front seal, pull the trans and replace the seal. It's not that hard. All you need is a floor jack and jack stands. 3. I dont see how putting sealer around the input shaft would work. You can't get to the seal to apply sealer without splitting the case. Not to mention the oil drips from the weep hole in the case at the lowest point of the seal housing. If you seal over the weep hole the oil will eventually fill up the housing and start pouring out onto the pressure plate, which will then ruin the clutch disc. So you spend 4 hours removing and reinstalling the trans to get what? A few thousand miles maybe, if youre lucky, without a leak, then you have to replace the clutch, when it only takes another hour, maybe two, to split the case and put a new seal in. Search for Gloyale's easy transmission front seal replacement thread.

Welcome back! Name sure seems familiar. I think I've seen it pop up in search results once or twice. Where are you in VA?

Felpro head gaskets at autozone were $20 each last time I checked. Exact same parts as you would get from a dealer, 1/3 the cost.

Restore does no good for this issue and may have made it worse. The oil control rings may not be the issue. There are small holes in the pistons that allow oil to drain out from the oil rings and the holes can tend to clog with infrequent oil changes. I would recommend switching to Valvoline High Mileage synthetic blend oil. 5w30 is all I run in mine. With 205k miles and a scored #4 cylinder wall I burn almost NO oil between changes. I run 3000 - 4000 mile intervals and MIGHT lose 1/4 quart in that span. It's probably not even that much. Change the oil to something with stronger detergents to clean the rings, and change it more frequently. Your oil should not come out black when it is drained, it should be dark, more like a molasses color, but not black. If its coming out black you have oil building varnish in the engine before it gets drained. This leads to clogged ports and stuck rings.

Water pump was replaced because...?????? It blew a head gasket and started overheating. Water pump got blamed. I'd be willing to bet it overheated more than once. Swap it or put rod bearings in it. It probably needs them now.

Texan beat me to it, but I'm gonna post it any way. Owls? Parking brake still a drum on the rears or does your car have the integrated calipers?

It's a very close tolerance fit between the head and cap. If any dirt or sludge is between the flanges it can be very difficult to remove. Try the prybar approach.

Injectors have not been swapped. Though I suppose I could try my spare set, I don't think anything is wrong with the current ones. Looking at pictures of the SSM1 plug I remembered seeing a similar plug under the dash of my car. Sure enough there's a yellow 9 pin plug with 4 wires in the right places. I'm trying to figure out if the wires go to the right places on the ECU, but the I/O pinouts I can find for the ECU don't show anything about the SSM plug. Presslab thanks a ton for the links. I've been to tinkering with the idea for a long time to hook up a laptop in the car, but haven't found the right resources and info to do it. I'm looking forward to getting this put together now.

This really makes no sense because the radio head unit shouldn't be transmitting anything. It's just a receiver, and at that the frequencies it uses shouldn't even be the same as what the remote entry system uses. There is a lot more going on with the new HD radio stuff now though. I suppose the thing to do would be to find the antenna/receiver module for the alarm system and unplug it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/251191691349 Did not know these could be bought for so cheap. I need some to adjust the caster angle on my rear struts after the lift. Add them to "the list".

RPM is one of the parameters I look at the most while driving around. I make sure to keep that on the scanner along with spark advance, TPS %, MAP, MAF, and Load %, and sometimes ECT or O2 sensor voltage or fuel trims. Haven't noticed any anomalies with the RPM reading, but ill keep an extra eye on that next time I notice it acting up. Don't have an SSM1 cable, but I've been looking around for a good setup. (Cable and software) Building a cable myself isn't a problem, and seems like it would be much cheaper than buying the evoscan cable for $50+. I'm just not sure which type exactly I need to build. Obd2 car with a 97 ECU, should be Ssm1 right? Any advice? My buddy with the o-scope knows a lot more about electronics than I do (some of the stuff I've read about all this might as well be Greek) so I'm going to enlist his help with some of this. Connectors were back-probed. I did have to pop the sockets out of the Crank sensor connector because the rubber boots were hard as rocks. Pulled them out and put them back in the connector with paper clips wedged against the back of the crimps at the end of the socket. Hooked up the scope and started the engine, ran it for about 5 minutes at varying RPM, then took it all off. must have deformed the sockets slightly and didn't quite make a good connection after I put them back because the engine wouldn't start and I got codes for the crank sensor. Pulled them back out and made an attempt at tightening them up a bit. Not sure if that had an effect but the engine did at least start after that. I got codes for that immediately though, and it didn't even pretend to start. If there was a loose connection there before I don't see how it could affect the signal without setting a code.

The way you describe it now it kinda sounds eletrical. I know you said there is no CEL but has he scanned it for codes just for giggles?

Try a new radiator cap first.

In that case, flip a coin. Head gaskets are cheap. If you can keep an ear on the engine for funny knocking sounds that get progressively louder, you can slap Sir Frank together and have some fun for a while. It might start knocking right away, might take five or ten thousand miles, maybe it'll run until the car is rusted away. Hard to say. I'd pull the oil pan off while its easy to get to and check real close for metal flakes in the bottom. Some glitter is normal, but if there is an abundance I'd just plan on putting new bearings in it. Another check is to wiggle the rod ends up and down perpendicular to the crankshaft. Any noticable movement is bad news.

They're right next to each other pretty much straight down under the idle control valve.

No news. Haven't done anything to it lately, haven't noticed it doing anything wrong either though. Thought it might have been acting up the other night but figured it was probably because I was riding around with 3 friends in the car. An extra 600 lbs makes a difference in how these things move. Wiring doesn't seem to be an issue on this car for the most part. The only corrosion I've ever really found was on the battery cables. I made sure to get the wire harness tucked out of the way when I put the intake manifold back on last time. This problem has been occurring since long before I did any major work to this car though. I was thinking the other day about how far back I can remember this being an issue, and honestly I think it's been there since I bought the car. I remember there being some minor random losses of power, usually when trying to accelerate uphill, just a few weeks or months after I bought it. Which makes it even more strange that whatever is causing it hasn't completely failed by now.

Tread depth should be the deepest point between each section of tread across the tire. To get an idea if the tread is uneven, measure each section in several places around the circumference of the tire.

This is not how the wiring is done on this model. The headlamp circuits are switched to ground, and are entirely separate from the signal and marker lamp circuits, which are load to ground. The signal lamps are grounded directly to the body. The ground points for the front signal lamps are on the inner frame rails on each side of the car a few inches back from the radiator, easily visible from under the hood. Rear ground points are in the trunk just below the tail lamps. Wagon rear ground points are a few inches towards the front of the car, one on each side behind the side panels.

Well the LEAST inexpensive way I think would be to buy a new car. :-p JK. I agree, bulbs are cheap, new turn signal stalk = $$$. Check cheap stuff first.

Probably the separator plate all along, or the wrist pin access cover on the left side of the rear main. Rear main seals on these will go 300k and never leak a drop. But they often get the blame for the leaks next to them.

Ive heard of this before, there are a couple threads about this kind of problem on the board here. There is an Oring on pump that can dry out and allow air into the pump. This causes the foaming and susbsequent noise. It was either the side fitting or the o ring between the pump and reservoir, I don't recall exactly. I don't think you have to do a full rebuild to fix it. You can get the reservoir and side fitting o rings separate from the rebuild kit. Let me see if I can find one of those threads.

Possibly a bad bulb. See if it does the same with just the parking lights on. Check all of the dual filament marker/ signal bulbs on the left side.

You have two temp sensors on the engine. One is for the ECU, which also runs the fans. The other is for the gauge in the dash. The gauge sensor only has one wire. The way these work is pretty simple, as temperature goes up, resistance of the sensor goes down. Cold = high resistance, hot = low resistance. If the gauge always shows cold that could mean the sensor is bad or there is high resistance between the gauge and sensor. The simple test is to remove the wire from the sensor and ground it. The temp needle should peg hot. If there is a bunch of corrosion on the spade terminal on the sensor that will cause the high resistance which keeps the needle low. Clean it off and cover it with dielectric grease.

Try a new thermostat first, and make sure to fill the system with coolant properly. Compression numbers are all low, which makes me think the test is being done wrong. Not sure what you're looking for with the compression test. Bad head gaskets hardly affect compression. Misfires are usually spark plugs or wires or some kind of fuel problem. Compression should be checked with all spark plugs removed and throttle wide open while cranking. Unplug the coil or the igniter to prevent spark, and unplug the fuel injectors so they can't spray. When refilling with coolant, remove the upper hose from the radiator and fill the engine with coolant before filling the radiator.

That bumper has to go. I can do the headlights, but it needs a bumper that actually works with the car, not against it. I really like that silver foz in the post just above the blue one.