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today i flushed the coolant. it took over an hour to stop the rust. ran the garden hose into the knock sensor. i avoided removing the thermostat by running the car for a while to open it, then drained it while filling at the top. did this 6 times and finally in the last time water was fairly clear. drained, then filled with vinegar. will be draining in 30min. then flushing with water again. will do compression test tomorrow to see if we are talking head gasket or intake gasket as i suspect. the reason i suspect this is i do not have any issues with my oil being contaminated.
thanks VT.
it has two knock sensors do both.
oops 85 not sure if it has two or not.
Last edited by antfarmer2; 11-08-2015 at 11:47 PM.
my 85 has one on the RH side. left side port plumbs into the oil cooler.
question for OP - how many miles on the 85? not really sure if it's a time, mileage, or maintenance thing, but on my 85, the steel shim head gaskets, were rusting causing coolant seepage into #7. basically, a 30 year old car, w/ 155K on the clock, and at least over the last 20 years, had regular and routine cooling system maintenance. the area around the #7 cylinder, you could actually see the rust tracking it's way to the cylinder.
44k miles. Every friggin seal on the car has dried out and i have almost replaced them all.
Re garding your steel shim: To tell you the truth, i posted pics a a year ago of the bottom side of this engine when i replaced the oil pan gasket. It was pristine, except for 7, what i didnt mention in that post, is that i saw rusty discoloration on cylinder 7, and only 7.
When you were diagnosing yours, did you have bad compression leakdown on 7?
That is my next test.
There may be a chance that the PO fixed any head gasket issues because when i look into the topside of the intake manifold i see what looks like a relatively new piece of blue gasket sticking out. unfortunately I know for sure i have an intake gasket leak, confirmed with smoke test. perhaps he also did the head gasket.
What I am currently trying to find out is if i have a head gasket leak as well. as i pull the plug for compression testing, i will also photograph and document the plugs.
I do have white smoke coming out the pipes but its not steam, and its not sweet. its caustic acidic smoke that makes your eyes sting, and your clothes smell so bad my wife makes me strip down before i come inside the house!
i am stillllll waiting for my scanner cable to tell me if i have a lean condition (air sucking in through intake gasket) which would explain the inability to maintain smooth idle, and perhaps explain the acrid acidic smell if extra fuel is being dumped in to compensate for the extra 02 the o2 sensor is (maybe!) reading.
oh, one other thing about the smell, i googled more last night on the smell, because there is no way it is coolant. ive heard coolant described as sweet and warm caramel and pankake syrup. pankake syrup doesnt make your eyes sting and clothes smell! somebody said that timing can affect your nox levels. cant remember if it is advanced or retarded timing, but its the direction that makes the car accelerate faster anyway. one thing we have always noticed about this 85 is that it has far more sotp power than my 87. like, it feels like this 85 has a supercharger on it compared to my 87.
PERHAPS when i do the compression test i will find good compression, which will lead me to check timing, and change the intake gasket, and all will be fixed! who knows! enjoying the process though and appreciate anybodies comments and experiences.
Originally Posted by Joe C
my 85 has one on the RH side. left side port plumbs into the oil cooler.
question for OP - how many miles on the 85? not really sure if it's a time, mileage, or maintenance thing, but on my 85, the steel shim head gaskets, were rusting causing coolant seepage into #7. basically, a 30 year old car, w/ 155K on the clock, and at least over the last 20 years, had regular and routine cooling system maintenance. the area around the #7 cylinder, you could actually see the rust tracking it's way to the cylinder.
Last edited by VikingTrad3r; 11-09-2015 at 11:39 AM.
44k miles. Every friggin seal on the car has dried out and i have almost replaced them all.
Re garding your steel shim: To tell you the truth, i posted pics a a year ago of the bottom side of this engine when i replaced the oil pan gasket. It was pristine, except for 7, what i didnt mention in that post, is that i saw rusty discoloration on cylinder 7, and only 7.
When you were diagnosing yours, did you have bad compression leakdown on 7?
it was pretty much dumb luck I found the problem. i did run a compression test about 5 years ago, and everything seemed good - (IIRC) about 167 average, low around 155, high 173 - still within specs, but barely. the last time i drove the car, it seemed to be running good. i started working on the car, and one thing led to another, and i decided to do a valve job. good thing i did - i was running on borrowed time. my leak was minimal - i'd guess i didn't have more than a few drops of coolant in the cylinder, but it was fairly obvious it was caused by the head gasket. i was lucky that the cylinder wall had no significant rust damage. both valves had rust damage on the valve face. the #7 cylinder combustion chamber had some rust, but that I/E ports looked good. anyway, everything cleaned up good. all indications was it had been leaking for some time. good thing - i caught it in the nick of time.
when you took your heads off, did you get them re-surfaced?
what is that all about anyway? like how much do they shave off? do i have to get a thicker gasket afterwards?
no, I didn't have them resurfaced. I cleaned and reconditioned everything in my home shop. I check the flatness with a quality straight edge, and to me, they seemed to be well within rebuild specs. my engine has 155K miles, and I didn't want to invest a large amount of cash in heads at this time. my 85 seemed to be running fine before I pulled the heads, so I cleaned and reconditioned the heads without the use of a machine shop. I've done valve jobs without using shops before - mostly back in my H.S. days when I didn't have any money anyway, and to be honest, really never had any serious issues. you can get carried away with a lot of stuff - the important thing is to use a little common sense, with proper procedures and techniques.
and to answer your question - "what is that all about anyway?" - here's a little cut and paste...
Cylinder heads and blocks may need to be resurfaced to restore flatness or to improve the surface finish, or milled to change the deck height for a variety of reasons.
The deck surface on the head or block may need to be resurfaced if the surface isn’t smooth or flat. A head may need to be resurfaced after welds or other repairs have been made, or milled to increase the compression ratio. The manifold surfaces on a head may need to be cleaned up due to corrosion or erosion, or the angle changed slightly to better align with an aftermarket intake manifold. The deck surface on the block may also need to be resurfaced. Whatever the reason is for resurfacing these parts, you want to do it quickly, efficiently and correctly. Mistakes here can be very expensive, because once metal has been removed there is no putting it back.
So, i blew harder and used more smoke. Had my brother there to help watch the smoke.
I used almost a 1/4 can of wd40 diailing in the vac leak. i had seen smoke from the driver side but when i started blowing harder it really came out.
As you can see from these photos, the po thought that a bright red blob of rtv was ok looking, and my guess is he was trying to fix the same vac leak. Problem is that it was the wrong side of the hose. it made a slurping sound on my wd40 assault and jacked the rpm.
The vac leak is coming from the intake manifold nipple to the pvc hose.
this explains why i was seeing some oil on the too of the intake in that area.
So, i will be attempting to remove only the driverside runners and ill replace the hose and put actual hose clamps on both sides.
while i was at it, i discovered a torx bolt that was so loose i could thread it by hand.
pics attached.
flat head screwdriver touching the pcv inlet hose to the intake manifold. the far side of this hose sucked my wd40 right up and jacked the rpm of the car. This is probably my crap idle culprit.
top middle, you can see the hose where it sits over the nipple that is threaded into the intake.
this torx screw was loose, you can see it was partially backed out in this shot. i think it is coincedence that it is right above the leaky hose.
Last edited by VikingTrad3r; 11-15-2015 at 08:04 PM.
So, i blew harder and used more smoke. Had my brother there to help watch the smoke.
I used almost a 1/4 can of wd40 diailing in the vac leak. i had seen smoke from the driver side but when i started blowing harder it really came out.
As you can see from these photos, the po thought that a bright red blob of rtv was ok looking, and my guess is he was trying to fix the same vac leak. Problem is that it was the wrong side of the hose. it made a slurping sound on my wd40 assault and jacked the rpm.
The vac leak is coming from the intake manifold nipple to the pvc hose.
this explains why i was seeing some oil on the too of the intake in that area.
So, i will be attempting to remove only the driverside runners and ill replace the hose and put actual hose clamps on both sides.
while i was at it, i discovered a torx bolt that was so loose i could thread it by hand.
pics attached.
flat head screwdriver touching the pcv inlet hose to the intake manifold. the far side of this hose sucked my wd40 right up and jacked the rpm of the car. This is probably my crap idle culprit.
top middle, you can see the hose where it sits over the nipple that is threaded into the intake.
this torx screw was loose, you can see it was partially backed out in this shot. i think it is coincedence that it is right above the leaky hose.
Yup, I`ve had a leak there before. I`m sure you will, but re-torque all of your runner bolts. It doesn't take much of a vacuum leak to throw these cars off.
in the end its easiest to just pull the throttle body. gotta clean it anyway.
Might as well get a gasket set and put fresh gaskets on. The runners are a pain when you don't know how to do them. I found the easiest way was to get gasket adhesive and glue them to the runners. Then put everything together loosely and slowly work from the center out tightening both sides equally. Hope that makes sense. As for the broken bolt you can try an EZ out. I've had good success with them. Mix some acetone and atf 50/50 and let it soak in a bit and it should come right out.
have not got the runners out yet. the top part (plenum?) is out. tb is aprt, was pretty clean actually. gives me more confidence in my diagnosis that this pcv hose was the primary vac culprit.
ill post if i have more questions. ill see if i can get my gaskets in time for tomorrow night.
Originally Posted by Dt86
Might as well get a gasket set and put fresh gaskets on. The runners are a pain when you don't know how to do them. I found the easiest way was to get gasket adhesive and glue them to the runners. Then put everything together loosely and slowly work from the center out tightening both sides equally. Hope that makes sense. As for the bmroken bolt you can try an EZ out. I've had good success with them. Mix some acetone and atf 50/50 and let it soak in a bit and it should come right out.
got most of the way through reinstalling the runners tonight. while in was in there with tb off, i replaced the coolant temp sensor , quickly unfastened the air pump system to get access.
i have a crap idle w/ exhaust so rich it'll make your eyes burn and your clothes smell for days so im going after whatever i can that would affect the air/fuel ratio.
should be done tomorrow night and have a good sood steady idle!
Originally Posted by VikingTrad3r
thanks, got the hose off.
have not got the runners out yet. the top part (plenum?) is out. tb is aprt, was pretty clean actually. gives me more confidence in my diagnosis that this pcv hose was the primary vac culprit.
ill post if i have more questions. ill see if i can get my gaskets in time for tomorrow night.
got most of the way through reinstalling the runners tonight. while in was in there with tb off, i replaced the coolant temp sensor , quickly unfastened the air pump system to get access.
i have a crap idle w/ exhaust so rich it'll make your eyes burn and your clothes smell for days so im going after whatever i can that would affect the air/fuel ratio.
should be done tomorrow night and have a good sood steady idle!
Remove the IAC, IAC Housing, clean passages and IAC Pintle, NEW GASKETS, set timing, set IAC with scanner via counts and not the FSM aka lazy method and the TPS.
[QUOTE=aklim;1590921503]Remove the IAC, IAC Housing, clean passages and IAC Pintle, NEW GASKETS, set timing, set IAC with scanner via counts and not the FSM aka lazy method and the TPS.[/QUOTE
yup the whole meal deal and 3 new gaskts.
not sure i can set the min idle with help of scanner on my 85 Ak? Unless i am missing something, (ive asked this question over in scan/tune) i cant read the iac in anything other than diagnostic mode which kicks the car up to 1000rpm open loop so iac not at idle setting.
please correct me if im wrong for the 6870 ecm on the 85.
Last edited by VikingTrad3r; 11-17-2015 at 08:27 AM.
Remove the IAC, IAC Housing, clean passages and IAC Pintle, NEW GASKETS, set timing, set IAC with scanner via counts and not the FSM aka lazy method and the TPS.[/QUOTE
yup the whole meal deal and 3 new gaskts.
not sure i can set the min idle with help of scanner on my 85 Ak? Unless i am missing something, (ive asked this question over in scan/tune) i cant read the iac in anything other than diagnostic mode which kicks the car up to 1000rpm open loop so iac not at idle setting.
please correct me if im wrong for the 6870 ecm on the 85.
OK. That I don't know. I have not used TunerPro. Is there a way you can get an Autozone to lend you their scanner? I know I can. Their scanner may have a way. Otherwise, you have to check RPM and see how far off the tach is and use the FSM way which I absolutely hate.
well, the huge vac leak solved the hunting idle, but did not solve the rich smelling exhaust or the stalling out when feathering the gas pedal at a stop or lulling into a prking stall.
what i mean is that say you are behind somebody at a red light. turns green so u touch ur gas pedal and start moving fwd for a split second. then u slam the brakes cause the guy in front of u is asleep or txting and hasnt started moving fwd.
thise are the situations that lead the car to stall. like little tiny blips up in the rpm from 550 where it idles in gear with the brake applied up to 800 then take ur foot off the gas and it will drop back down beyond the 550 and either recover up to 550 or stall out.
pretty frustrated. thought for sure that big vac leak was the issue. it was sooo big.
Ak, i will set the min idle using the iac but im pretty sure its not the issue.
because of the rich stinky exhaust, blms of 120 and int of between 125 and 119 i am thinking i have a rich condition.
my maf seems low at idle at 4.5. (this is the 1985).
there is no pressure leakdown on the fuel system.
im frustrated, really thought i had this licked.
is it possible that injectors are dumping too much fuel in so the ecu is pulling back on the fuel? how about the maf reading?
[QUOTE=aklim;1590921819]
Originally Posted by VikingTrad3r
OK. That I don't know. I have not used TunerPro. Is there a way you can get an Autozone to lend you their scanner? I know I can. Their scanner may have a way. Otherwise, you have to check RPM and see how far off the tach is and use the FSM way which I absolutely hate.
Remove the IAC, IAC Housing, clean passages and IAC Pintle, NEW GASKETS, set timing, set IAC with scanner via counts and not the FSM aka lazy method and the TPS.[/QUOTE
yup the whole meal deal and 3 new gaskts.
not sure i can set the min idle with help of scanner on my 85 Ak? Unless i am missing something, (ive asked this question over in scan/tune) i cant read the iac in anything other than diagnostic mode which kicks the car up to 1000rpm open loop so iac not at idle setting.
please correct me if im wrong for the 6870 ecm on the 85.
11-08-2015, 11:42 PM
