Sigh... Tercel again

Typrus · Post by **Typrus** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:07 am

I'm still thinking about getting a Weber. My mileage is taking a dive again. I was thinking it was about the aggressive street tires, but I'm not the only one with wider and SLIGHTLY taller tires. I'm thinking my stock carb is tired or that having the proper gaps on side-gapped, indexed plugs is not the right idea. I might swap my fuel filter for the heck of it as well. Air filter was just replaced. We'll have to see what the hell is going on. I have a lot more investigation to do, and I'll try to keep you posted, but I really want to get this figured out.

One test I'll try is to put my old tires back on for a tank.

takza · Post by **takza** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 3:49 am

Around Oct 1st in most places in the north is when they go to winter gas...which is a little more volatile and results in a loss of at least 2% or more in mpg.

Typrus · Post by **Typrus** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 11:24 pm

HAHAHAHA... I never checked the tires I got out of the yard for pressure... All were around 22 PSI out of 44 on the Kumho's and 35 on the Yoko's. Think that might help? lol.
We'll see how drastic a difference that makes.

takza · Post by **takza** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 4:12 am

I run my Kumho 60's at 44 PSI...22 is almost flat. Lots of traction though. Need to watch how much traction you have left when raising pressures!!!!!!

http://fueleconomytips.com/content/view/66/2/

Typrus · Post by **Typrus** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 1:26 pm

Well, my starter crapped out on me. Battery has a good charge, but all the starter wants to do is click away. I'm going to go out and look to see if my starter off the 86 will fit. If it will, its going on in short order.

Gasoline Fumes · Post by **Gasoline Fumes** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:09 pm

Make sure you have a good connection between the battery and starter. Check the battery terminals and the big terminal on the starter. If they're loose or corroded, you could get the symptoms you have.

Typrus · Post by **Typrus** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:05 pm

And Fumes wins the prize!! Lol.. I swapped the starter, it still didn't work, so I tested the other starter with the battery charger at 2 amps and it cranked away. So I cranked down on the terminal bolts and it fired right up. I'll be putting my money into a new battery support tray and connection terminals next $$check.

waynehoc · Post by **waynehoc** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:40 am

Apparently these starters are notorious for literally wearing away the two copper lugs inside the unit that a big copper washer contacts - all inside the starter. When this gets to an advanced stage, you will get the click(ing) you described. In this case the only remedy is to remove and disassemble the starter and change out the two copper lugs. I've had to do this twice on my '87 FWD Wagon with 247,000 km on the clock. Hope that you only had loose/dirty contacts in your case this time.