ErikAnderson

I can tow a 4x4 GL wagon with a dolly as long as I'm towing the front and have 4wd disengaged right??? There is no magical bits along the line hidden away that I'm overlooking that will get tater'd right?

Subaru nut: I bought new plugs today and made sure the gap was right. I took the wires from my working 84 DL along with me. I never thought of a vac leak, could something like that prevent a car from starting?

Heh, I did not check the oil.... Face palm... Gosh I gotta think it has oil. I'll check them valves

I'll do a compression test at home. Can't rent a truck till Monday and if the compression is dicked she ain't going anywhere. Good suggestion though I'll check it. With the lid to the air filter off I can see fuel vapor puffing out of the carb/filter assembly when I crank it with the throttle fully down I put cyl 1 at TDC as indicated on the flywheel indicating a position of zero. The rotor inside the disty looks like it would have been touching or a little past the cyl 1 disty point. I put in new plugs and wires. I verified spark on the plug from the coil to the disty. It was super bright out but it looked like an orangish spark that pulsed along at regular intervals. When turning the engine with a breaker bar I order to get it at cyl 1 TDC it felt like quite a bit of resistance and then was al out zero resistance once it got close to TDC. I fact I overshot the mark and had to go back. I'm 100% out of my depth in this department. My knowledge of engine internals can be summed up by this: "lots of spinny bits move about in a reasonable amount of order". So I got no idea what a motor should feel like when you're tirning it aside from it should not be locked up.. I'm going to try to tow it in on Monday. At least it will be on my property.

About to head back out. No cell coverage out there, anyone have any other ideas before I go?

Rain man, I did not think of #4, I've never done that before so I'll have to check up on how to do that. It would be a good indication of whats firing and when right? Where should the position of the rotor be? That may sound like a really stupid question but I'm curious. Prior owner did mess around with the Disty earlier and maybe set it back together wrong?

Today was a bust. Here is what I did / learned. The plugs are getting a spark. I pulled plug 3 (pass side all the way back) I believe, I'm tired.... and after grounding the body to the vehicle I got sparks when trying to start. I got fuel past the filter in the engine bay, however I did try to start it by putting both starting fluid and a bit of fuel in the carb. I metered the primary and secondary sides of the coil, the one in the car was just a liiiiiitle bit low so I put in the one that worked just fine in my 84DL, no joy. I pulled the entire Distributer assembly and slid the working one from my DL inside making sure that the rotor was in about the same position, when It did not start up I slowly rotated the disty through it's range of motion while cranking. Oh, I threw a new / different alternator in at the end of the day just because I like cutting up my hands. I pulled the #3 plug again and added starter fluid directly to the cyl (not sure if this is a smart thing to do, but I was pissed, tired, frustrated) put the plug back in, tried to fire it up just to hear anything, no joy. I checked those fuse/wire things on the pass side of the engine bay, two red, one green. All ohmed good. The car cranks, the RPMs jump, I can feel the damn motor turning, I'm getting spark, I KNOW I'm getting fuel past the filter, I poured some starting fluid and later some gas (about a tsp...) down the carb.. Am I getting a weak spark? The spark was not bright balls-rump roast white, but I've never checked a spark like that before so I don't know what it should look like. It was purple, orange, white ish.... Though it was a very sunny day. I talked with the owner, the initial Symptom is as followed: While coasting along or under low power demand the car just turned off/stopped (not motion, but the motor activity) He coasted it to a parking spot, and after that only got it to run for about 30 seconds. What am I missing / doing wrong?!?!?!?!? Oh, the plugs were not overly wet.... I seem to recall that they kind of get that way when you're trying to do a lot of starting, maybe I'm just making that up?>? They smelled a bit like fuel though. I threw in a "working" plug from my DL that I brought with me into that same CYL I'd been messing with, no joy. I'm going to have to tow her home soon.

I have a working distributer on my other 84, an 84DL wagon. I'm 99% sure there is no difference, I'll take it with me. Funny thing is that the list on facebook was $300, then when I showed up he only wanted $250, at that point he said he would be happy with $200, I figured that $300 was way more than fair and that I'd be struck by a comet if I tried to twist this guy's arm. He said that he was considering sending it to the scrap heap.

No timing belt. fuel flow and spark are what I'm most concerned about. It takes 2 min to make sure your fuel pump works, I got a manual next to me, I'll see what can be said about the anti dieseling solenoid. Thanks a lot

Hey guys, I just bought a 84GL in great condition for $300, it died on its owner two weeks ago and he did not want to mess with it. It was his daily driver and pretty well maintained for 10+ years. I got a few days to troubleshoot it at his house before I need to tow it, and since it's on the bottom of the island and I live on the top, I'd rather not mess with that. Basically I have a list of things I'm going to check and I was hoping that you folks could either correct my troubleshooting, or add new things on. Symptom: While cruising down the road the car lost power, prior owner cruised it downhill to his destination. He tried to compression start it with no joy. Car has a full tank of gas. He did not mention any abnormal sounds. Prior troubleshooting: New battery, Coil, and Dist cap. Currently: The vehicle will crank but not start. Prior owner mentioned that it started up once for about five seconds and then died. My Plan: .5) check all fuses 1) Spray starting fluid into intake, if car starts up and dies, its a fuel problem 2)check fuel, remove fuel line, turn on accessory (I don't need to crank right?) and see if fuel comes out. 3) Spark test a plug... I'm going to be working on this alone so I'm thinking take some jumper cables, one end of cables to plug, one end to neg term, and crank???? I'll try to record it with my phone... Got any better Ideas? To me this sounds like a fuel issue, I'm not all that smart but it sounds like a fuel pump took a crap. I know I'm missing a lot here... Do you folks have any other quick tests that I can do in this guy's driveway? I'm keeping notes and would love to drive this baby home, she's a sweet little girl. Oh, the wiring to the battery looks like poop. But I guess doing a spark test will let me know if I need to go that direction. Thanks a lot Erik

Was searching for info on this today and came upon this thread. My DL has nearly 296xxx miles and I'm pretty sure stock shocks.... The car just kind of floats along. Also has what I'm thinking to be bad CV joint/s I'm getting that thumping when I turn. I don't think it is the wheel bearings because I replaced them about 10k miles ago. Fun fun!!!

Yeah I've been pecking around there and other places. In my secret fantasy I wanted to believe there was a big warehouse like at the end of Indiana Jones And The Lost Ark, you know where the camera just keeps pulling out and out and out through this sea of boxes and deep in the middle is the Ark? I wanted to believe that there was a place like this, in the desert of course, full of interior carpeting for random vehicles. The truth is not so much.

HAH, my friends mom had a maxima with bitchin betty inside of it. Even at our young ages back then we knew this was NOT the future of automotive technology

I'm out in the gulf of mexico right now, I appreciate the suggestions. The prior owner was a smoker and the interior shows it, I gave it a pretty deep cleaning right before I left and am looking at options now for replacement of the carpet. In my mind's eye I never pictured anything other than a molded drop-in carpet, I wonder how hard it is to get a normal carpet to do what you want it to do?

Bump, nobody? I'm the only one with carpet that looks like the swamp from lambryth? I'm gonna rent an extractor and see where that gets me. Not trying to be a baby but I know horrific carpet when I see it.

Because tyranny.

Awesome guys! I will check those door switches!

The carpeting on my DL is trashed. In a perfect world I'd trot off and buy a new drop-in molded carpet and be done with it. However I'm not finding many leads... What do you guys do to fix this problem? Pretty much open to anything right now.. Thanks!

Went through a list of issues with my Silver Bullet today, the last one has me stumped and had half the dash taken apart at one point. Basically, my dome light did not work. I was getting good power to the socket, and had a good bulb, but I was only getting good power to a chassis ground, not to the ground wire. I've looked in the schematic and it was less than helpful I went on a wire chasing spree and lost the wire when it went into the display console. In the end I cheated and ran the ground wire straight to the chassis above the headliner. The light does not come on when the doors open, but it can turn on when I need it, and it does not pull an amp load when turned off, I checked. Does anyone know where I should look next to get this thing working properly? Thanks, Erik

Car: 1984 DL Just installed a hitachi manifold and carb, worried about clearance with the stock air intake housing. The old carb was the "bad" kind of webber, the useless 1 barrel. I would like to put on something small and low profile and am curious as to what you guys are using. I'm offshore right now and away from the car, it would be great to order now and have the parts waiting for me when I get back in a month Thanks, Erik

Offshore and working (making money) again, i am going to try to track down one of these carbs. Hopefully it will spark up some new life in my car. Thanks again.

Hey thanks for the ideas. The choke is closing, i am unsure what you mean by "accelerator pump shot". Thanks for the heads up on rebuilt carbs, i think that is my next step, i should just need that and a mounting gasket right? I will try to pick one up next time i get back from offshore, i head out soon. The webber idea looks a little too expensive, and i am much more fond of a plug and play solution. I spent today putting brakes on my wrx and cleaning it's headlights off. Pretty cool process, took my old foggy headlights and made them new again. erik

is a weber carb a direct replacement? I will start doing some research on how to do that swap. Thanks

Couple issues i am trying to nail down with this car. I am pretty sure i have more than one problem... but, here goes. 1) is it safe to assume i have a hitachi carb? 2) car is highly reluctant to start up when cold, once it starts it wants to idle way down low and will often stall when extra throttle is given before it warms up. As it warms up the idle speeds up as well. 3) The throttle always has to be bounced in order to accelerate the car. If i simply stomp on it then it will bog down and at times stall, if it does not stall it just sits down at an almost useless RPM and i turn in to "that guy" who is doing 18 in a 30. Typical acceleration procedure is to go WOT for half a second, and then feather it back up to desired throttle position. 4) i have lost much of my top speed. I remember this car easily doing 75mph, hell it was doing 65 up the pass. Now i am lucky to get it up to 50. Once up to it's max speed it will often slowwwwwwwly lose power even though i am WOT (hey, that kind of sounds like a fuel filter now that i type it out). i was thinking of doing these things in this order: 1) fuel filter 2) plugs/wires 3) stand in front of my carb and scratch my head. any other suggestions? i learn (and forget) fast, and have a technical job and mindset so if i have instructions i can handle most tasks. I would love to have my little wagon back.

yeah i am sure that's what i did, i was just so positive that i put it back right where it was, or atleast CLOSE, not a full 90deg turn. Sorry for sounding like a moron, i am good at the details but can overlook the obvious due to lack of familiarity. Thanks for pounding the truth home. I am sure i will have plenty more "no ************ sherlock" questions in the future, your patience is appreciated.