All I can say is "wow". It's amazing how these things can last upwards of 80k+ miles as mine did. It was in relatively good shape internally. All except for the rotor contact from the coil wire was very worn out and there was some oil absorbtion into the unit from the timing cover crank seal. Believe it or not, the end of the "rotor" and the contact points for the plug wires were in very good shape!

Funny thing with the timing cover crank seal is that it was replaced when cam/heads were installed. It leaked almost immediately after the install. I'm guessing it's because the crank snout (for the balancer) has a rough finish where the seal meets it thereby slinging oil as the crank rotates. It's minimal seapage.. I'm talking I only get a drop on the garage floor every time I park it. Still an annoyance though!

So anyway, the oil infiltration into the unit ultimately appeared to be the culprit in the destruction of the optispark. We took a hacksaw, yes a hacksaw, to open up the old unit. I only took off one of John's (RexRuby) fingers while he was holding it in the vise.. He lived to tell to about it! A slight amount of oil was inside the whole thing.. just enough to put a film on a couple of the pancake pieces.

Oh well, job well done! We carefully labelled all the plug wires upon disconnection, put the new opti in, regasketed and reinstalled the water pump, and wa-la! It fired right up! A happy ending to a most troublesome problem!










[Modified by EricVonHa, 11:53 PM 5/17/2002]

 

Must be nice to have an optispark that lasts 80k miles....in my opinion its a POS

 

What Kind of lubricant is in that can in the upper left hand corner, coke? :U
Did you do the modification to the new style cap and rotor?

[Modified by abigfoot, 8:28 PM 5/18/2002]


[Modified by abigfoot, 8:31 PM 5/18/2002]

 

Yep, Coke was the fluid of choice that evening... ran out of Yuengling. What can I say?

No, the updated optispark was NOT installed and the special venting system WAS NOT installed. Why?

Well, the original optispark lasted beyond 80k miles. A true miracle of technology! I've always been very careful of cleaning the motor compartement. No open hose water on the motor, unless it's towards the firewall only.

When you look at the way the casing and the metal back plate are constructed for the opti, it does have a little room for improvement. The improvement that I made was to take a high temp permatex and seal the areas that were most prone to be penetrated by oil or water. I did not reseal the whole unit. I'm guessing that letting it breath a little is probably a good thing. The only reason mine truly failed was that it soaked up minimal oil from the crank snout opening in the timing cover. Nothing else was really wrong with the unit, other than the center point for the voltage to enter the "distributor" from the coil pack was a little toasted.

I've read the stuff about "Yeah, you gotta at least do the vacuum vent mod to your opti!" :bs Did you ever throw open a garage door while there is a 20 degree difference in temp and high humidity outside (compared to inside) and everything that's (cold) metal flashes with condensation?? Well, in order for your opti to survive that, you must start your car and drive away. That's the extremity of the situation, but any car that is parked in any changing climate will see similar effects. Though, I'm sure the "vented" upgrade system is a little better at elongating the lifespan of this electronic device, it's benefit is only marginal.

Realisticly? This is a 3 hour job if that. I chose not to hack up any vacuum lines or install any extraneous stuff on mine! :D

 

That was fun :lol: Ready to do one of mine when the weather gets cold :cheers:

 

:cool: