New wagon issues...

[Petros]

a bad vacuum leak could make it weak and jerky on first acceleration, check all the vac lines for correct routing from the vac diagram, and verify all hoses are good and connected. When I look at neglected Tercels, I always seem to find several hanging loose in the engine compartment. Also, marginal spark plugs or spark plug wires would also cause it to run weak and jerky at low rpm, check those too(easy fix).

One other thing that might make it act this way is a bad clutch, causing chatter. that is not so much an engine issue but the whole car kind of shudders right when you let out the clutch, makes jerky contact with the flywheel. that means it has to be changed, perhaps the rear main seal leaked oil on it, which should get changed when you replace the clutch if that turns out to be the cause.

Make sure the gear oil is topped up in the trans, low gear oil is likely the reason it is whining.

that compression is really low, you might try giving it a Seafoam treatment to unstick and ungum the rings, see if it helps. If it runs okay low compression will not really harm anything other than to be down on power, if the seafoam does not help compression, a rebuild might be in your future. However, as long as it is not burning too much engine oil, it can run a long time with low compression.

If you try and describe the way it shutters or jerks in more detail and perhaps we can narrow it down further.

Good luck.

[4wdEconoBox]

I'll check for any vacuum leaks, but it idles wayyyy to smoothly, I think, to be a vac leak. But you never know, it could be sucking in air under load.

It really really makes me thing its a sort of clutch issue, but the clutch is strong, and the pedal is stiffer than my other car with a new clutch. I was told the clutch was replaced in 2009. I'm just wondering if they reused the old pressure plate/flywheel, and maybe one of them is warped or has hot spots?

Thats what surprised me, I was running 70mph on the interstate on the way home, and it still had power, could go up hills and actually increase in speed! I definitely think a seafoam treatment needed, I'll pick some up tomorrow.

I'll go out and drive it just in front of the house today and see if it'll do it again so that I might be able to describe it better.

Thanks!

[4wdEconoBox]

Ok, well I definitely need a new one of these

All it needed at first was a new spring, but I tried to fix mine by rebending the spring, and broke a plastic piece so now I need all new pieces inside it, does anyone have a spare one laying around?

I'm just going to leave it taken apart until u get a new one

[4wdEconoBox]

An update on the shuddering/jerking problem, it only did it once really bad on my first take off in first gear, after that it wasn't no where near as bad and was just a barely noticeable vibration. I'm thinking something is leaking on the clutch after it sits for a while, engine oil, gear oil, or possibly just condensation?

Also the clutch has a lot of "bite", like just revving to 1500 to 2000 rpms and slowly letting off the clutch in first is guaranteed to spin or bark the tires... It may not have anything to do with it, but thought I'd mention it anyway

Edit: just replaced valve cover and gasket, broke the plastic oil breather thing on the old one, luckily I had another valve cover. While I was doing all of this I found one of vacuum hoses was disconnected from the dizzy vacuum advance, and the advance diaphragm was leaking so I just plugged the line up. Idles just a bit lower now 850 rpms or so. The rest of the vacuum lines look like they are routed right with no clearly visible leaks

[xirdneh]

Ok, well I definitely need a new one of these

I'm just going to leave it taken apart until u get a new one

seems like rockauto had those once

[4wdEconoBox]

Really, what would you even call that?

Edit: found it, ignition starter switch, $20 w/o shipping, if no one has one if these used I'll order one. I need to make a post of all the little things I need in the parts I guess haha.

[BaileySims]

I remember I had this problem on my 01 corolla. To save money back in the day, I just bought some switches and a panel and rigged it up to run a push button start. I was thinking about doing it to the trek but with the way it looks, someone would definitely break a window and drive away with it if I left it somewhere for too long. Haha.

[dlb]

you might be on to something re: leaking rear main seal on the engine or leaking input shaft seal on the trans, and the jerking. if you have a lot of oil leaking down there it will be hard to tell until you clean it up.

[4wdEconoBox]

I'm thinking about doing the same thing Bailey, I'll just wire up a hidden "on" switch somewhere. I think that would look and work pretty cool too. And buy one of those cool push start buttons off eBay. I'm just not sure what wires I would need to hook up, ya know? Plus I would have to find a way where the steering wouldn't lock up, since the key would be in ya know

It was definitely leaking from the valve cover gasket in the rear, right over the tranny, so I cleaned up somewhat back there, I'm going to see if that helps any. I've got to replace the input shaft bearing soon, so I'll look at everything good when I take that task on. Also since I plugged the leaking vacuum advance line the rest of the start of vibration is gone!!!

Plus I just did old fuel sending unit fix. And it worked!!!! Yayyyy!!

[Petros]

if it is clutch chatter caused by oil leaking on the clutch, stopping the leak will sometimes clear up the chatter. if you think the rear main oil seal is leaking, or the trans input seal, you can try putting stop leak in it. Usually the rear main will not get on the clutch, it is on the other side of the flywheel, but it can happen.

I had an old Mercedes 240D that had bad clutch chatter when I bought it, the manual trans was also difficult to shift, so I changed the oil (they used AFT if the manual trans on that model), what came out was 90 wt gear oil, very much the wrong weight oil. once I changed it the shift problem went away, and so did the clutch chatter. The heavy wt oil was getting past the seals out the input shaft and soaking the clutch in gear oil. six months later the clutch bundled up, it was all full of fatigue cracks and broke apart. so long term chatter is bad for the clutch.

sounds like perhaps a combination of problems were all contributing to make for a jerky start.

[4wdEconoBox]

I'm hoping that it'll clear up, idk if the leaky valve cover gasket would've caused it, but it was leaking anyway, so never hurts to replace it.

That's crazy petros, I didn't get gear oil today, but I will tomorrow and see if that helps out too, it definitely can't hurt! I'm hoping that there wasn't too much damage already done to the clutch, I guess we'll see!

That's what I'm thinking too, it seems to be pretty good now.

I have 2 more super small issues that I thought I should mention.

When I put it in 5th gear it feels like it's not really going into gear, if that makes sense. It goes into gear but it just feels loose or doesn't feel like it goes on all the way.

And I was told the power steering didn't work so I left it at that. Well I just put power steering fluid in it and the power steering works so-so. But it makes a loud whine when I turn and kind pulls the steering wheel back and forth when I hold it to the left or right. Is my pump just completely gone or it there a way to fix it easily?

[Petros]

these power steering pumps are pretty durable, usually run forever unless it was run dry. typically a seal or hose developed a leak and it was run dry. A few times mine got noisy, so I topped up the fluid, I have never changed it, at 380k miles or so, it still works. You should be able to tell if it is working when you are making slow speed turns, like in a parking lot. it may not be working at all, it is rather stiff to turn when doing low speed turns on hard surface roads/parking lots without power steering. Otherwise at hwy speeds you will not know a difference.

If yours leaks or is bad, best take the belt off of it so it does not run dry. If it is chewed up, a wrecking yard power steering pump is a good bet if it was connected and full of fluid. there are companies that sell rebuilt power steering pumps for the Tercel (I think they are the same as the other similar year toyota models). If your rack or any of the hoses leak, no point in replacing the pump until you fix the leak. You can also buy rebuilt racks (costly) and have the hose replaced (you can even have the factory hoses rebuilt with new hose using the old fittings, there are shops that can swage on new hydraulic lines to your fittings).

It is a light enough car you can get by without power steering, but if you drive a lot of rough rocky roads like I do, or spend a lot of time in heavy traffic, the power steering helps a lot.

[4wdEconoBox]

I mean, it seems like its working since I added fluid to it, I can turn the wheel pretty easily while I'm sitting still, or going slow, but it makes a god awful noise! haha, and it wasn't bone dry, but it didn't show any fluid on the dipstick either.

I will check for leaks though, the cap sits on it very loose and wobbly, so perhaps it leaked from there and none was added over the years? Because just from a quick once over I didn't see any leaks from any power steering areas that I could see, but I didn't look super close... I did notice that the belt seemed a lot looser than my other one, which may have accounted for some of the noise I heard.

This car is prolly just going to be my fun, weekend driver anyway, so it doesn't have to be perfect, but I'm just trying to fix everything I can, without putting too much money in it, ya know?

[Mattel]

Is the noise from the belt slipping because it is so loose perhaps? also, does anyone know how to change the fluid on the power stearing? I'm sure that could help

[dlb]

i used this method for changing the PS fluid in my friend's 4wd corolla: disconnect the hose from the outlet port on the PS pump; position a container to catch fluid that will be coming out of there; have a friend start the car and turn the steering back and forth to full lock at both sides while you continuously pour fresh PS in the reservoir; continue doing this until the fluid going into the container appears clean. stop the engine, remove the container, reconnect the hose to the outlet port, top up the PS fluid, and test it out.