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Poll : Fix it or junk it?


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Just got my 85 GL-10 2wd Sedan running well. Re-sealed the engine and a bunch of other stuff. My brother needed a ride untill I fixed his damn ford, drove it about 250 miles in one day, for the last ten miles it ran without water because of a hose leak he ignored. The thing overheated and blew the intake and head gaskets for 1-3. I figure there is a good chance that the head is completely %$#%$ I had a spare set of intake gaskets lying around so replaced those and ran the engine, not good. Should I even take the time to do the head gasket and find the head to be useless or should I just try and fine a used 85 MPFI which would be hard from what I understand. Input would help...

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Just got my 85 GL-10 2wd Sedan running well. Re-sealed the engine and a bunch of other stuff. My brother needed a ride untill I fixed his damn ford, drove it about 250 miles in one day, for the last ten miles it ran without water because of a hose leak he ignored. The thing overheated and blew the intake and head gaskets for 1-3. I figure there is a good chance that the head is completely %$#%$ I had a spare set of intake gaskets lying around so replaced those and ran the engine, not good. Should I even take the time to do the head gasket and find the head to be useless or should I just try and fine a used 85 MPFI which would be hard from what I understand. Input would help...

 

Unless you have good reson to suspect the bottom end, I would take a stab at building up what you got

 

A set of heads should be an easy score, considering the parts availablity in your part of the country . You'll have to spend some $$ for machine shop work, but your chances for sucess are pretty high.

 

Unless you cone into a better motor, I would do the HG job.

 

good luck, John

 

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Mudisfun, the time has come for your Brother to learn a little about cars!

 

Make him help you swap the head gasket, he will gain a little understanding and maybe he will not abuse another engine or ignore a mechanical cry of pain again.

 

Then, and only then would I fix his bloody ford!

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I'd fix it if it isn't rusted out - MPFI N/A's are pretty rare - for that matter so are 1985 MY GL-10's - nice potential convert to 4WD D/R .... especially if the body is half decent

 

I would not necessarily count the head as being shot either - things like that are hard to tell until it is off - and the 1-3 head is not as difficult to remove as the other side for that matter .....

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FYI, you can use an engine out of any 4cyl nonturbo XT. You will have to swap the intake (unless you want to do conversion work) and all belt driven accessories/pulleys.

 

Should make locating an engine a lot easier if that's the route you choose.

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Okay, I'll fix the engine. :grin: When I made the first post I was not in a good mood. Right now there is a EA81 taken apart and waiting for rings in my small apt. I know when I get some other projects done I'll be more then happy to take the head off and figure out what happened. Ya, she's worth it...

 

 

 

8346Speed-med.JPG

 

 

I will make my brother clean the gasket at least! :lol:

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  • 1 month later...

I'm gonna defend the brother a bit here because ''I've been there''.

 

When I very first got my car, it had a water leak, and I DID check the overflow often, so I thought it was just not leaking very fast because the overflow would barely change, if at all. I had changed out the radiator (obvious leak in it), hoses, and new gasket on the water pump, so I thought we had it ''fixed''. What I did not know was that the overflow was CLOGGED (presumably from block seal when previous owner tried to ''fix'' the radiator leak) and wasn't supplying the radiator when the coolant leaked out. I DID watch the temp guage and it showed nothing abnormal and I did have the fan on. The cooland level was too low to register hot on the temp guage though, so I cooked the engine. It got so hot that the t-belt covers were literally dripping black plastic and melted right on top of the t-belts. We didn't bother trying to fix it, we just plunked in a different motor from a wrecked wagon that cost us $50. Lesson learned the hard way - don't trust the overflow level or the temp guage! They might be fooling you!!! We all have lessons to learn, but it doesn't make us stupid. Even the smartest people make mistakes!

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well i'm by no means mechanically smart/inclinded... but the temp gauge wasn't doing it's thing so i was stoping every half hour or so just to be sure... the car started acting kinda goofy (wierd pshhh sound when i went past 60) so i pulled off at the next exit and she died on the off ramp... me not knowing what to do because as i said earlier not mechanically inclided pushed it to a park and ride and hitched a ride home...

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