'84 Grab Bag

I think my favorite thing about this car is the drive computer. I always liked BMW's wildly swinging dial, but a digital drive computer displaying interval'd MPG is dope. I like seeing it at  60+ when I'm decelerating up to a light in neutral. Seem to be getting around 25-30mpg cruising around town in 4th @ 40mph. 

The only thing that doesn't work is distance to empty. Nothing shows up on the display when I have that selected.

Man, I'd love to have a drive computer. It's so 80's!

This car is so damn annoying.

Swapped out a TPS yesterday and changed a vacuum line that comes off of the back of the intake and runs to one of the diaphragm deals on the back of the fuel rail. Not sure what it did but it idled better when I changed the old cracked hose. I also tried to bring the idle down to 8-900 rpm by adjusting the screw just above the radiator.

Go to drive home and it sounds like my ignition timing is off. The car kind of thuds down the road. Then I lose all power and drove home @ 25mph in third with my foot down netting a solid 3.3 mpg on the display.

Humbling stuff.

I messed with the TPS angle yesterday and today but can't tell if it's making a difference or my problem. Doubt replacing that vacuum hose caused my issue, unless it did. I also messed with some other stuff that seems to have improved the driveability but not the root cause.

Probably going to learn how to use a timing light in the next few days.

Timing light is easy to use, hook up the lead to the number one intake plug wire, hook the side to a solid ground, point and shoot lol

Resuscitated the Grab Bag yesterday. As always, I'm not sure what exactly it was that fixed it.

Step 1: New Battery

Step 2: Pulled the distributor (clean contacts on cap/rotor with abrasive emery board)

Step 3: Removed exhaust side spark plug #1

Step 4: turned the crank by hand until the piston appeared to be at its highest point of  travel - good advice somebody gave in another thread - thanks

Step 5: Buttoned everything back up and it just spun without trying to fire

Step 6: STARTING FLUID STARTING FLUID STARTING FLUID  - my dad thought it would help, I didn't think it would hurt... got a little crazy with it. POP. Backfire that blew my air filter clean off and across the garage. lol stuff

Step 7: Pull distributor and reset to TDC at the crank pulley marks (noticed the cam gear can be 180 degrees off (is this what you meant a while back Sideways?) while the crank pulley is dead nuts TDC at the tang - do another rotation by hand at the crank and it lines up right)

Step 8: Re-stab dizzy and fiddle futz with its rotational adjustment - bob's your uncle.

Weird thing now is that the distributor wants to rest at its most clockwise position, whereas before it ran best at its most counterclockwise adjustment position. Weird. Either way, let it warm up and adjusted idle - put ten miles on it test driving up to 60 mph and it didn't stall out, drop idle at lights, or do its weird unhappy backfire at 3k rpm in 3rd as it did before. I can tell not all the same power was there as before, so the timing obviously isn't perfect as I was making adjustments by ear, but shit, it runs again. May try to fine tune the timing with a light today and clean out the interior if it ever gets above freezing.

Unexpected progress. I only intended to file taxes and do laundry yesterday.

Yep.  They key to the #1 piston being at the highest point of travel is that it must be on the compression stroke.  So either plug the spark plug hole with your thumb until you feel the air being forced out/your compression gauge is read pressure, or with the valve cover off you see the intake valve close just before the upstroke starts.  Any of those ensure TDC instead of 180° off.  Glad to hear it is running again.

I should re-name this car "Uncertain Future"

Decided to take it to an exhaust shop yesterday and now I'm putting at least 1/3 of its overall worth into a new system. So... I'm keeping it? Or now standing more firm on the original asking price? Who knows... I don't.

Exigence for this decision was meeting up with a guy who wanted to trade his Taurus SHO. Dude's exhaust was also rusted out and I felt myself thinking "Is that what I sound like? That's not a good look."

Hoping that the additional back pressure helps the running condition. If not, at least I won't be a rattling clunky nuisance as I putter on down the road with my metronome valves.

I'm glad to see that you still have this lol Honestly, a lot of that rust isn't as bad as I thought, at least in the pics.

Right? And that's really all of the rust I've found on the car. I'm changing my mind every day about what I want it to be used for. Today I'm leaning towards using it to learn some bodywork and more mechanical skills - turn it into a race car kinda deal. A little counter-intuitive being that my other car will have the better motor, but hell, this one's already something I wouldn't mind dinging up further. It isn't supposed to be pretty and I've already gotten my money's worth out of it in terms of being able to daily it as I had originally intended (minus a few weeks of downtime because I'm lazy). It's taught me a whole lot by force already.

It's to the point where I feel like I'm the only one within a buyer's radius that's going to keep this 18et running and appreciate the chassis, so why not do just that until something breaks for good? I keep telling myself "It's just money. You'll make more."

I already want to put an 18det in there just for the experience. Definitely not a good idea, but I still want to.

This is my issue. https://youtu.be/21_ysfXkQPw

It cracks me up what is considered bad or not bad rust across the country. On the west coast that would be considered a lot of rust but for back east I am sure it is probably not that bad. I kinda forget how good we have it out here. The vast majority of 80's/90's cars around here have little to no rust. It just isn't something I normally associate with older cars having haha. A big side benefit of having mild often snow less winters and not salting the roads I suppose.

As for your slow revving issue I don't really have any specific ideas other then engine swap. Sounds facetious but its the truth. Annoying issues like that were more the norm then the exception when I had the 18et. After the head gasket blew I dropped over a grand on fixing it only to have the end product still be unsatisfying. Sure it ran better but the feeling of the engine was still just completely lackluster. The coolest part of having the 18et was hearing the turbo spool up though you barely even felt a difference when on boost. Not long after fixing it I sourced a ka-de and swapped it for about the same price it cost me to do the head gasket job. I really kicked myself afterwards not just going with the ka after the head gasket blew. Felt like I just flushed a grand down the toilet (not to mention the time and work replacing the head gasket and lots of other small things). 5 years later I couldn't be happier going with the ka. Actually having usable torque, good throttle response and solid reliability was well worth the swap.

If I had space to undertake a swap I definitely would have done it by now. I always like the idea of throwing an 18det in there just because it would still look reasonably stock and produce decent power, but at the same time it's kind of a minimal gain for a motor I'd still have a harder time getting parts for than anything domestic.

As for the rust, yeah... I'm not so used to it that I accept it. The next car I buy (assuming it isn't an s12 - please god, don't let me buy any more of these in my life unless it's a clean GP) will have zero rust. Any bubbling or surface rust SHOULD be a deal breaker. It's just that kind of becomes the catalyzing factor in being able to get cars reasonably cheap around here. "Oh, it's got rust." is am automatic $500- 1k bargaining chip on sale price that can totally work in your favor. I can live with it on these cars because I've got love for the chassis, but anything else.. forget it.

New ignition coil and it's idling better than it ever has and I no longer have a flat spot at 3k rpm. Boom.
Post Merge

Long time no update. Car is pending sale unless somebody rings in higher than my current offer.

It had stopped running on me the day before I got my '85 back so I wasn't too motivated to fix it. I was driving and the car just shut off. Dead. Done. Ca-puts. No final gasp or shout for life whatsoever. Tried dumping the clutch to bump start it and maybe it would start for another ten seconds. Limped that bitch back to work and parked it- got a ride home from some strange Uber driver, Kent.

Assumed it was an ignition coil because the tach shutting clean off the way it did, seemed to lead the death march, and knowing that the primary coil drives the tach. Anyhow, got a new coil and didn't put it in. Instead I sanded the bottom of the coil bracket and ground wire ring terminal, then re-routed it to between the bolt and the bracket instead of the bracket and the body.

Did some idle adjustment and it runs like a lifter-tickin', oil-burning, clutch-slippin sunnuva gun. The dude who's interested in buying the car has a mandate to make a profile on this site and continue the Grab Bag's story.