A Total Novice's Start with a 1984 4x4 SR5 -- Advice Thread

[Petros]

Back when I took auto shop in high school the instructor had a very interesting technique in scaring all of the students (many in the 15 to 16 year old range) into following the auto shop safety procedures.

he would describe how to operate each machine, or do each repair procedure, warning us about proper safety protocols in the process, and in between tells us about a "friend" or "former student" who did do this..or that.. and goes into mater of fact, very gory details about the injury that occurred (a hand being crushed, and than amputated, head being crushed when he used a jack, rather than a jack stand, and similar such stories). I still remember all the gory details 40 plus years later every time I jack up a car. Now I kind of wonder if these stories were actually true, or if he embellished the stories to make sure we all remembered and paid attention when handling dangerous machinery. What ever the truth, it worked: I have never violated those safety rules because of the "visual" memories of those stories from my old auto shop teacher.

I try and do the same thing here when I write about safety procedures, though by now I have accumulated a lot of stories that are actually true.

[lucafusi]

Sound advice, Petros.. I'm definitely hesitant to think about doing any work that involves the car being over my head for a little while. Can't even imagine the danger I'd put myself in without being totally sure of how to work a jack. It'll come in time, I guess.

Random new thing that's popped up today: the clutch pedal squeaks when pushed in. The car's been out and unused for a couple of days, and it's been wet. It calmed down after a few hours' use today, but does that sound like something I could oil / lube up?

[lucafusi]

Random new thing that's popped up today: the clutch pedal squeaks when pushed in. The car's been out and unused for a couple of days, and it's been wet. It calmed down after a few hours' use today, but does that sound like something I could oil / lube up?

Noticing that this was only going on on some of the colder days--yesterday, it seemed pretty quiet. Checking the manual's clutch section references a couple of springs that might be the culprit down the line.

So I went through all the vac hoses and plugged back the ones that seemed off. Two easy culprits, though I don't know what reattaching either would've gained me. The reattachments I did are the pink arrows, here:

• What differences should I expect from having reconnected those two?

And two new questions!

• This hose, here, looks a little cracked and frayed. What's it for and what might replacing it get me? This is the driver's side of the car, very front of the engine:
  
  
• I'm seeing a slow drip from the oil well underneath the car. I haven't done the change yet, but when I do, will I want to have purchased a replacement gasket / fastener before I re-tighten? Is that something that'd help the seal on that drainage nut?

Cheers, as always, for your guys' help..

[irowiki]

That's just the rubber coating on the AC line, you can ignore it.

[marlinh]

It isn't a bad idea to have a spare drain plug gasket on hand. Inspect yours and replace it if it is damaged or leaking. It is a real drag to get caught without one when you are doing an oil change and you live an hour from the nearest parts store.

[Petros]

the drain plug gasket is only about $0.50, but I reuse mine (if not too ripped up) and put a light coat of form-a-gasket on both sides of it after I clean off the drain plug and old gasket.

A leak could be from a number of places (do a search), but the drain plug gasket is as typical a place to find a leak. I have seen sometime where people leave off the drain plug gasket (looks like a copper washer), and it almost always leaks.

Those two vac lines will act like a vac leak if just left off. On the other hand, if the distributor vac advance and the AAP have leaks, they should be left off and the line capped at both ends. It will run fine capped off.

The vac advance improves fuel economy slightly when at part throttle steady speeds, if it has a punctured advance diaframe it will just act like a leak, and you will not notice any difference in drivablity to cap it off. To test, put a hose on the vac advance and try and suck through it, if you get air it is bad, cap off both ends, ad well as all the other lines going to it.

to check the AAP, pull the line after it is running and inspect for fuel. If you get fuel leaking into the line it means the AAP is leaking fuel into the intake manifold. That will greatly affect fuel economy, and make it smell like gas when it is running. If that is the case cap it off at both ends again. It only comes on when you try and accelerarte when it is cold to prevent it stumbling a bit. after the engine warms up it does nothing, so it will run normal after warm up. It is easy to replace, but you should not drive it around leaking fuel into the intake manifold. You likely will not even notice it is capped off.

[lucafusi]

The vac advance improves fuel economy slightly when at part throttle steady speeds, if it has a punctured advance diaframe it will just act like a leak, and you will not notice any difference in drivablity to cap it off. To test, put a hose on the vac advance and try and suck through it, if you get air it is bad, cap off both ends, ad well as all the other lines going to it.

to check the AAP, pull the line after it is running and inspect for fuel. If you get fuel leaking into the line it means the AAP is leaking fuel into the intake manifold. That will greatly affect fuel economy, and make it smell like gas when it is running. If that is the case cap it off at both ends again. It only comes on when you try and accelerarte when it is cold to prevent it stumbling a bit. after the engine warms up it does nothing, so it will run normal after warm up. It is easy to replace, but you should not drive it around leaking fuel into the intake manifold. You likely will not even notice it is capped off.

These are great tests--thank you so much!

[lucafusi]

Hi All,

Still going through the general tune-up phase and wanted to check in. Main things I'm still concerned about are fuel economy (last tank was ~20.88mpg, no real improvement after the fuel filter change / making sure vacuum lines were attached process) and how this thing feels starting up / before it's warmed up a bit.

• It's incredibly rough and chuggy around ignition, sometimes taking a long while to start up (with the engine cranked), sometimes needing the gas pedal actually held down to get there, sometimes stalling after falling out of the fast idle.
• If I don't leave it on and idling around the 2kRPM fast idle for about a minute or two, it has the likelihood to stall as soon as I try to get into those first Reverse / 1st gears, unless I really fight it with gas.

This stuff mostly disappears when warmed up.

Anyways, today the following were done:

• Compression test - all cylinders reading around 110PSI / 120PSI (dry / wet fire). I had to run out front to check it, as I didn't have a buddy around, so if anything, these numbers could've been a tiny bit higher and fallen in the ~2 seconds it took me to get out. Unlikely, though--the gauge seemed to be holding readings pretty well. My initial wet tests on each cylinder were looking like 90PSI until I let the engine turn over a good 8-10 solid times on the last one and read ~120 on a second test; I then went back through and wet tested 2 and 3 as well. 4 was such a pain to get the threaded adapter into that I didn't make a second go-round, but just assumed I hadn't let the engine turn over enough that first time through.
• Changed spark plugs out. Old ones did look a little 'spent', but I don't know what a totally trashed spark plug looks like, so I'm thinking they were probably pretty okay. Old spark plugs were DENSO WW16EXR-Us, new ones are NGK V-POWERS. Pictures:
  
  New
  
  
  Old
  
  
  Supposedly they're platinum, so not a gigantic performance upgrade, but a step up from stock. They were gapped at O'Reilly's by the dude who looked everything up for me. I used a little grease packet to hit the threads before putting them in, and tightened them just until snug, no further. If I was supposed to tighten them to a very specific pressure, I don't know..

I was preparing to set the ignition timing to 10 degrees BTDC but didn't know exactly what I needed to disassemble to do it after multiple readthroughs of the forums here--eventually got it. Took the distributor cap off in the process of it all and, per a thread on here, verified that the distributor rotor was roughly pointed at 10:30. Put the cap back on. Loosed the distributor bolt (the 12mm one, at the bottom 'front' of the distributor--or I guess on the bottom left of it depending on how you're oriented) and realized "Hey, this is the one they said to loosen when it's time to point the timing light in." Tightened it back up.

Here's the thing. Starting and performance feels a little weird now. See video--never had it turn over this much. And I don't know how much of this is placebo of "something being wrong" vs. reality, but the engine feels like it's "pulling" a little bit now, or lurching a tiny bit in the lower gears. Like throttling it down feels "muffled" somehow, as if it doesn't want to open all the way up. I'm sorry that's not super scientific!

Video of a start after me coming back in from grocery shopping--car'd been sitting for ~15min in the lot after having being just driven. Clutch was down, I'd 'primed' it with a step on the gas before turning anything.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q1vonvysrpg5p ... 1.mov?dl=0

I want to list the stuff I did today that I think could contribute to that problem--see if you have any thoughts.

1) I accidentally let the end of a ratchet hit the positive battery terminal while tightening spark plug #2. There was a spark and a pop. Looking at the fresh, bright, gleamy little metal 'scar' on the terminal itself, I'm pretty damn sure that's where the spark and pop happened. But.. part of me is also nervous that it happened at that connection point on the alternator that's closest to the positive terminal.
2) Per a thread on here, I tried turning the distributor rotor a little bit myself, just to see if it'd "free flow" when nudged. Had seen that these things can get gummed up and resist proper timings after so long. So what my genius ass did to 'lube' it (since it felt a little tensiony) was to take a medicine dropper of 10W-40 and stick it horizontally into the hole on the distributor (cap off), where there's a little window into what looks like the metal rod that the rotor spins on, and drop a few drops of motor oil in there to try to lube it up. This wasn't recommended anywhere as the way to do it and I'm kinda freaked that I might've burned my distributor somehow by doing this.
3) I had spark plug leads 3/4 swapped on initial re-assembly after the new plugs, causing a really rough and shitty misfire / attempted start for several seconds. I quickly realized what was wrong and corrected the issues.
4) I didn't manually 'rotate' the distributor (how does it work? Will I physically grab the whole damn thing, red cap and wires and all, with my hand in a claw and turn it clockwise as I want to adjust timings?) before re-tightening the distributor bolt, but who knows, maybe it moved a tiny bit in the loosening. If that could've bumped engine timings and screwed something up, I guess that's a factor.

Oh, and I connected a brand new big ol' hose from that bottom carburetor port that runs hot air from the exhaust up.

Is it possible that the new plugs are bad? Not what I want? Gapped incorrectly? That one of my 4 potential missteps above is newly fucking things up? Or I am just crazy?

Staying calm because this board is so awesome and because it's only through making mistakes that we learn! I don't consider that I could've destroyed a machine like this in one afternoon's tinkering.

Oh, here's another darn drag--my butt managed to get a few light smears of engine grease on the gorgeous Toyota blue plaid seat when coming in and out, though I hadn't though my butt'd bumped the engine all day. Thing is that seat had a little bit of discoloration on it from a drip on the driver's side door that's pooled stanky water on it on occasion, so I planned on scrubbing it down eventually.. but I'm thinking just to hit the seat cover with some light Oxi-Clean solution and hot water, let it set, scrub gently and see what mileage I can get out of that before I do the entire seat cover tear-out and wash-down.

Thanks, as always for being so awesome, guys.

Next two days will see my first oil change and adjusting the ignition timing, at the least. Want to check the AAP as well, per Petros' suggestion.

[irowiki]

If I don't leave it on and idling around the 2kRPM fast idle for about a minute or two, it has the likelihood to stall as soon as I try to get into those first Reverse / 1st gears, unless I really fight it with gas.

This is actually normal for a carb car.

[lucafusi]

If I don't leave it on and idling around the 2kRPM fast idle for about a minute or two, it has the likelihood to stall as soon as I try to get into those first Reverse / 1st gears, unless I really fight it with gas.

This is actually normal for a carb car.

I figured that to an extent but am just overly nervous about having screwed something up on my first day! Video seem about right?

[irowiki]

Can't watch it now, screaming baby. Will look in a bit!

[lucafusi]

Tool-wise, I ended up scoring a Crafstman set from a year when they were still made around the USA off a Craigslist guy for $150.

Piecemealing it out from Sears etc. was already starting to kill me with what I'd bought last week, and the flexibility of having the wrenches (which I hadn't bought yet) and some extra sockets is already coming in handy! I ended up needing the 20mm to help get the compression tester adapter into the spark plug holes, as I couldn't really get into #4 to finger-tighten it. Honestly, attempting to thread hole #4 on the compression test took up most of my afternoon, ha ha.

I have realized that I want some u-joints. Getting to one of those distributor cap screws, even with the 8mm wrench, was a little annoying!

[lucafusi]

Adjusted the ignition timings today. Least, I think I did.

• Capped these two:
  
• Loosed the distro bolt with a 12mm, connected the timing light and started her up, looking around for the marks. Found em, I think! Little white tick, right? Almost like a distinct speck of dust.
• It was tough to read the physical marks from up above, but they kinda looked like this:
  
  15 10 5 0 5
• So I grabbed the distributor and pushed it until the little white guy was sitting roughly underneath '10' (this pushed the mark leftwards). Gonna take her for a test drive now to see if everything's still okay..

(There's no way I accidentally set it to 10 degrees AFTER top dead center, right?)

Also ran two of Petros' tests.

• To check the distributor vac advance for leakage, I left the cap on the distributor itself and removed it from the actual cord, then tried to suck through.
• No air movement. All good there?

• To check the AAP for leakage--disconnected this hose here:
  
• Started the car, let it run for a bit, verified there's no fuel dripping out of that line. Does that confirm no ruptured diaphram?

[lucafusi]

More stuff I'm gonna document just for my own sake.

Power response seems much better with the ignition timing adjusted, esp. on the highway.

• There's a new and subtle and occasional rattle under the hood. Not worth stressing until I can figure out what's triggering it. I definitely retightened everything after adjusting the ignition timings, only thing that went weird during that experiences was a few instances of one of the belts grinding against the plastic edge of the timing light for a microsecond (tough to aim that guy)--hope none of the belts got weirdly worn..
• There's a disconcerting, occasional, low static-like "pop pop pop" that I heard for the first time earlier today while on the highway (before adjusting ignition timings), and in several instances since, mostly when going up hills. It's not the radio! And it weirdly feels like it's coming from behind me when I'm sitting in the driver's seat. My brain wants to say it's electrical, but who knows.. anyways, it kinda scares me.
• Realized today that because of the replacement battery in my engine compartment, which is roughly bungee'd into place but slipping leftwards, the negative battery terminal's been in pretty much constant contact with a piece of metal piping (the one that the AC hose you guys told me not to stress is over). I moved the battery a bit so that terminal's not hitting anything, but the big ol' black box of it is still tilted and resting against the alternator.
• Which brings me to the alternator. I said yesterday that part of me was worried the 'pop' I heard when my ratchet end hit the positive battery terminal could've come from that. Here's a picture of the alternator connector closest to that terminal with what I think are some concerning frays / bare spots:
  
  
  
  And another:
  
  
  
  Does this look bad? Think it could have anything to do with my new noises?

You fix one thing, another springs loose--gotta love amateur mechanics! Hope you're all having a good weekend..

[Notmikeb]

That pop pop is detonation. Occasional detonation under heavy load will happen every now and then but if it is every time you are under load (up a hill for example) it is not good for the engine and can lead to permanent damage if it goes unchecked. Your timing is probably now too far advanced. Try backing the distributor timing down a few degrees and see if that makes that noise go away.

The alternator just looks like the rubber boot is torn. Not the end of the world and isn't likely causing you any problems. It helps prevent accidental contact with an electrical ground (I've hit it with an extension while changing spark plugs. Loud pop and a little bit of smoke. It's just plain missing on mine.). As long as the wire it covers is in decent shape it is fine.

On that note, get yourself a proper battery tie down system. A bungee cord is NOT a proper system. A battery that is moving around the engine compartment is a big problem waiting to happen. Like a "your car burned to the ground" big problem! If the positive terminal contacts anything grounded (like the hood) it will get very hot very quickly. The battery should be held down tight and shouldn't be easy to move at all (it should feel like part of the car). If the factory hold down clamp is missing you can adapt a universal hold down kit (available in any auto parts store) by drilling a few holes in the battery tray. If it isn't clear how to do so, let me know and I can take pictures of my setup as that was one of the first things I had to do when I got mine.