TomRhere

While playing around under the hood yesterday, I noticed the AC compressor mount shaking some while engine idled. Got to checking things and found I forgot a bolt behind the AC drivebelt tensioner. D'OH!!! Got a bolt in there now..... Swapped PS pump out with another spare one. Have had belt squeal if I move the steeringwheel any while sitting still. Was one of the reasons for putting the AC compressor back in. 2 belts are better than one, or so I thought. Used my 3/8" air ratchet to drive pump while I flushed the fluid out. Got some dirty fluid after cranking the wheels stop-to-stop. Put everything back together, and still have some slight belt squeal. Grr! Guess I need to invest into some "new" belts. These look good, but apparently aren't. Pretty much near the end of the adjuster slots for both belts. Hit the gas station, put $50.00 in it (ouch). Pulled into the carwash and gave it it's 1st real bath since I've owned it. Didn't do any washdown under the hood though. Ran out of coinage. But it definetly needs a good spraydown under there.

Wife's '07 HHR has one of these mirrors, kinda like it. Just may get one for the '88 Wagon. TIP: When you are ready to glue the mount button on, rough up the button and the windshield with some emery cloth. No need to get carried away doing so though. Just need a small amount of roughness. I fold the emery over the tip of my finger, put it against the glass and do a few twists of the fingertip. Same with the button. Clean the roughed areas with some rubbing alcohol on a papertowel. Let dry. Apply adhesive, place button and tape it in place, let sit overnight. I've had to remount many a GM mirror over the years, and found the above to work the best.

Ordered oilpan and cam cover gaskets, along with an oilpump reseal kit. Have a newish oilpump, but think I should do the seals before install. Have to order in thru local parts place all of the suspension bushings. Seems rockauto don't carry much for the XT6 anymore.

20 is for the SPFI engines. You have the steps wrote correctly. They say to unhook ,and plug the vac line to the disty to set timing. I don't do so. It's a ported vac source, no vac until throttle is opened more than when it's at idle.

When you remove the trim on the steering column to check the dimmer switch, check the connector for it also. Had the main feed in that connector gety hot and caused me to loose the low-beam lights. Brights worked, but not the lows.

I have a diagram for the adapters needed for Legacy seats in an EA series body. Thought they were EA82 seats to EA81 body, but they're for Legacy seats. Can send it your way. edit; Apparently. I haven't saved your email addy. PM me it and I'll send file.

Swapped the PS headlight housing out today, as it had moisture in it. Finished the last weekend planned oil/filter change today also. Put a few more miles on it than planned after dumping 1/2 bottle of Seafoam in it Sunday. D'Oh! But HLA's seemed to be happy with the fresh oil. Swapped a new bearing into the tensioner pulley for the AC belt and installed that belt. PS pump was not liking the single narrower belt that much, liked to make it squeal abit at 1st start-n-go. Seems better now, just playing with the steeringwheel at idle speed. Morning startup will tell the tale on that one. Thinking I need to get a new oilpan gasket, and cam cover gaskets. Got some leaks going on under there. Need to hit the carwash and give the engine bay a good washdowm 1st. See where/what is making the mess.....

Swapped out the main accessory drive belt, for a narrower one. Got rid of the annoying noise from that. Got the Wagon up on ramps and reset the PS camber some. Tire looked to be way left of center with a lean looking at it from the front. Looks and drives a bit better now. Dumped 1/2 can of seafoam in the oil, going to let it be until I get back home from work tomorrow and do an oil/filter change. Really thinking I should get a reseal kit for the oilpump though. Got some TOD going on, comes and goes, but more so at cold start than when it's at op temp. Had other things on the "to-do list" for the Wagon this weekend, but helped Christopher get his Buick LaSabre back on the road yesterday. Wound up replacing the upper intake manifold on it. OEM was warped, kept flooding engine with coolant. All better now. He's fixing to move out of the house, so need to get one of his 2 vehicles somewhat reliable for him. The '91 Chevy 2500 needs a trans, no can afford that right now.

Be the weekend before I order anything from rockauto.... And no, I haven't done the "drown the engine with seafoam" treatment yet. Have ran a can or two thru the tank with less than 1/3 tank showing on gauge. That's a very strong mixture of it in the fuel. Need to pick up a can of MAF cleaner, do that, and clean the IAC too. PCV really looks like it was replaced, just before I bought the '92 parts Wagon. But.............................. Judging by the condition of the sparkplugs that were in it, not to sure about any "prior maintenance". So, as/when I can save a penny or two on my meager budgit, I'm doing what I can to get this here Wagon in good shape. She is running good, or seems to be. Just don't understand why such a big drop in mileage. Last tank was basically the same as that 1st one as far as trips made here and there go.

Had to put more gas into the tank yesterday. Trip meter showing just over 300 miles, gauge sitting about 1/2 the needles width above empty mark. Looks like I lost about 70 miles on this tank. Seems to be running decently, haven't noticed anything different as far as performance goes on this tank. Hoping to get a few frontend/suspension parts ordered out of todays paycheck. Need to get a new altenator drive belt. This ones a bit to wide and it be signing the blues. Don't have a proper size spare laying around, got every other size though.....

Nice patch job. Looks good.

To me, you got a good deal for all of those parts. I'd cut all of the rust out of that tailgate, weld in new metal. Be sure the drain holes are open along the bottom. Seems that's the cause of rust along the bottom edge.

Thinking it is an off the shelf bearing. Most of the others on these vehicles are. Unlike a few "other makes". Had to change driving habit a bit yesterday. Got used to taking off somewhat hard pulling into traffic. FT4WD trans will get you launched fairly well. Where as just running with the front wheels driven, will make them front tires spin attempting the same launch..

You do need to make sure that the rotor is pointing to the #1 tower position on the cap when you drop it in. Put a mark on the disty housing where #1 is before removing cap. Take the cap off, drop disty in, repalce cap/wires. Start it up, warm it up, set timing. You may have to readjust idle speed.

Hmmm. Seems this carrierbearing isn't in to much better shape. Probally from sitting from the past 10+ years. Felt ok spinning it by hand, and no real sideways movment of the rubber isolator, so I deemed it good. Seems that may have been a bit premature. Got a lowspeed vibration now that wasn't there before swapping things. Oh well. I can live with it for now. I'll try to disassemble the other carrier housing, see if I can replace the various parts. Would be nice to find that the bearing itself is a shelf item. Then I'll just swap a new one into the better isolator/mount.

Yep, pretty much as you wrote. You can set the flywheel mark at 8* and drop disty in so that the clampbolt is centered in the slot. Gives the advantage of going for more timing advance. I've ran the Weber carb with timing at 12* and 16* on different engines. So it's basically what your particular engine wants for timing.

Seems I have gas gauge issue now. Trip meter was showing 150+ and around 1/2 tank of gas left from recent fill-up. Noticed on errand run the AM, that the gauge would move from above 1/2 to below 1/2, straight level roads traveled for the most part. Arrrrggggg! Squeaky-squeak from the rear got worse today, so I pulled the driveshaft out. All 3 u-joints have issues. Got out the spare one, and it has issues on the rear 2 u-joints. Auggh!!!! Split the spare, and installed just the front 1/2. Had to lock the center diff lock to move it. But no more squeaky-squeak. Time to order new u-joints from Rockford.

Just nuetered the Wagon from FT4WD to FWD. Bad u-joints and carrier bearing was reason. Spare driveshaft had bad u-joints also. So just the front section is in now. Had to lock the center-diff-lock to be able to drive it. But no more squeaky squeak going down the road now.

They got to see the difference between the EA81 and EA82 tanks today. Was a pleasure to meet you.

From fuse #9, Red wire is power to PS lights. From fuse #10, Red/Blue wire is power to DS lights. Red/White is for the Hi-beams. Red/Black is for the Low-beams. This is at the headlight connectors themselves. Need 2 seperate relays here. R/W to the relay coils - for Hi-beam. R/B to the relay coils - for Low-beam. Fused battery + from fuse panel feeds both relay coils + side for each circuit, and does the headlight bulbs themselves.. Or, a seperately fuzed supply could be wired in for just the bulbs themselves. It is easier than it sounds. I could do this in a few minutes, provided the car was here, and I had all items needed. Which I do, just need car here.

That is the way mine were. Pull the trim panels and check your connections for the dimmer switch. Main feed to the dimmer had gotten hot and discolored the connector body. Connector terminals themselves had been softened due to the heat from resistance, so they lost the connection. I just cut the affected wires and crimped a set of bullet connectors onto them, plugged them together. Got lights!!!!!

If you're at the end of the slot for timing the disty, someone may have had the disty out and installed it a tooth or two off. Mines that way, at the end of the slot. Just,, made 20* BTDC. Plan is to reset disty, but not right now. Got other issues to adress 1st.

Using the stock headlight wiring to run relays for better lighting options, is the way to go.

Yea, you're creating a backflow thru the wiring by having those extra 3 pin bulbs where a 2 pin should be. With sealed beams, they are all pinned differntly between the styles, quad rectangle, quad round, single rectangle, single round. Unplug the ones that would be normal hi-beams, try your lights again, both low and hi. If those work right, you need to get proper bulb for hi-beam. or wire in 3-pin connectors for those, tying into the hi/low circuit of the other lights.

Well, all of that looks good from here. Mine definetly had bad contacts in that White connector. Wondering now, if you haven't lost the ground between dimmer switch and battery. Automotive wiring does some crazy stuff when grounds get lost. Power is fed from key-on fuse, thru relays, to headlights, back to dimmer switch, then ground. Headlight On/Off switch just controls the relays that feed juice to the headlights.