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I had gotten used to driving it at 'reduced engine performance'. Installing the new knock sensors was a HUGE increase in acceleration. I let it roll up to the second gear shift at about 15 mph, then floored it to see what would happen, go or codes. It downshifted to first, took off like I have never seen before, shifted to second around 70 mph, and I backed out at 100 mph still in second gear. Convinced me. Gas mileage seems to be better too. I drove a half tank out in two days of cruising to see if the knock sensor replacement would fix it. I don't remember it pulling this hard with the old sensors before one failed
I had gotten used to driving it at 'reduced engine performance'. Installing the new knock sensors was a HUGE increase in acceleration. I let it roll up to the second gear shift at about 15 mph, then floored it to see what would happen, go or codes. It downshifted to first, took off like I have never seen before, shifted to second around 70 mph, and I backed out at 100 mph still in second gear. Convinced me. Gas mileage seems to be better too. I drove a half tank out in two days of cruising to see if the knock sensor replacement would fix it. I don't remember it pulling this hard with the old sensors before one failed
Wow this is great news for you. Hope you can get your alternator lined out next. Thanks for sharing your experience. My next trip to the parts store will be a Napa to order new knock sensors!
Another day of driving with no engine codes. Burned almost 1/2 tank of gas today. Some other codes no longer appear. I ordered a new alternator today. The rebuilder didn't want to get involved.The old one has 22 years on it and a lot of miles, plus it looks like crap under my hood.
Still no knock sensor codes, I replaced the alternator, but the only effect was the over voltage (14.8 volts) that the scanner reported is no longer there. The new one delivers 14.3 volts. I expected that it wouldn't fix the anti-lock problem so my reason for changing it is that the new alternator looks a lot better than the grungy old one. I replaced the water pump for the same reason last year. That and there was no sense tearing it down to replace the cracked radiator with out renewing everything that COULD go wrong afterwards. One of the new radiator transmission tube fittings had a very slight fluid leak. Then the loss of transmission fluid from the old radiator dictated a transmission service, the tranny shop repaired the fluid leak also. I got the list of ground locations from this forum and went through all 13 grounds and the inline ground connectors cleaning out some corrosion I found in a couple of them. The anti-lock DID become a little more functional, but seems to check out and set codes about an hour after a cold start. This could indicate something like a coil or resister going open circuit when it heats up. A huge plus is that it no longer does the annoying and dangerous brake pedal buzz that prevents normal brake operation.
I removed the AB module from the pump assembly, cleaned a little corrosion I found on one plug terminal, and re- soldered six circuit board connections that MIGHT have been cold solder joints. Removing the AB module isn't difficult at all, but I was discouraged to find that the one in my car looks completely different from the ones in all the AB repair videos I found on youtube. I don't think it is possible to do a non-destructive disassembly on it, but I am considering trying to remove the relay covers to clean the internal contacts. The only way to do that is to use my electric knife to cut through the cover retaining tabs, then gluing the covers back on afterwards. Examination of the AB module shows that the component side of the circuit board is embedded in solid epoxy. I may try to remove the board from its case by applying enough heat to melt the epoxy, tricky, because the board has a flexible plastic sheet with traces that might be ruined by too much heat. I'll clean the relays before trying that.
Next, once it was back on the road, the driver's window began screeching when raising or lowering the window. I bought a new ACdelco window motor and regulator assembly from Amazon (not cheap), then went into the door to replace the regulator. What I found was evidence of some mechanic's incompetence, he (or she) had left one of the electric motor mount nuts off and the motor had torqued itself enough to crack the fiberglass inner door panel and break off part of the motor's gear box. There should have been parts of the gearbox and the missing nut inside the door, I found no trace of any broken parts in there. The window motor replacement itself was easy to do, but the door handle bezel retaining clips are worn badly from being removed too many times. Many of the car parts I have replaced show evidence of shoddy mechanic's work, one of the worst was the battery replacement that cracked the battery case and leaked acid on all the parts below the battery. I have been replacing car batteries since the late 1950's and never broke a battery myself, I can't understand how such a simple job can be screwed up. I had two batteries blow up on me when I opened the car's hood and looked at the battery. Wearing safety glasses prevented a nasty eye burn but I got the shirts off in record time. Both shirts fell apart while I was hosing myself off. It was all worth it when I enjoyed a nice evening drive in my C5. This is the best ride I have owned.
