need to buy a carburetor

[blackjackbottlecap]

I have a 1981 Toyota Tercel. It's not a 4wd. Sorry It does have a 3ac It needs a carburetor and I'm wondering if I can borrow your expertise. If I were to buy a new carb or remanufactured carb where should I look and what should I look for. I want to get the best quality carb I can get. I'm willing to spend 400 dollars but would rather spend 300. Can anyone help me with a suggestion? Is anyone in Austin, Texas?

[Petros]

Welcome to the list blackjack,

There are a number of carb companies that will sell you a re-manufactured carb, they are costly, and they can be of mixed quality and a bit of a hassle to get corrected if they send you a bad one. Even the better ones will take some time to fix problems. I think the remans are too costly, and I do not think you can buy new carbs any longer. If you do need a carb, you can rebuild it yourself and save a lot of money. It is not that hard.

Yes, you have the same engine as our 4wd TErcels. so you came to the right place! first of all, how do you know that you actually need a carb? many times the vacuum operated emissions controls could be giving you trouble and it is not part of the carb, also there are many vac lines that if leaky or mis-routed would make you think the carb is the problem. Go to the Factory Service Manual link and down load the vac diagram for your engine (should be a Federal emissions version and likely without the High Altitude Compensator, or HAC). There should be a sticker under the hood that shows it to, but I would be surprised if it was still legible after all these years. Trace all of your vac lines to verify they are routed correctly, and there are no leaks. A weak spark can also appear to be a carb problem, so verify you have spark and the timing is correct (recommend 10 deg BTDC rather than the factory 5 deg BTDC).

So just make sure you diagnose the problem properly before you replace the carb. Tells us what the symtoms are that make you think you need a new carb.

It it turns out you do need a carb it is actually not too bad a job to rebuild it yourself using a kit. Kits are available from Rockauto.com for a good deal, or you can order one from Autozone, which you have in Austin. You just need a places to take the carb apart with some clean paper so you can spread out the all the small parts so you can put them back in the proper order. You clean out all the passages with carb cleaner spray, and than carefully put it back together with the new gasket, seals and parts. It should only take about an hour or two. It will save you about $300 to do it yourself. You just follow the procedure in the FSM, and check all the adjustments. You will likely do a better job than the reman companies that do not test the carbs. All you need is a 12mm socket plus exention to remove the carb, philips screw driver, a 10mm wrench, and a 9 mm deep socket in 1/4" drive (to remove one internal jet). It is about the only 9 mm fastener on the whole car. I would just buy the socket, not a whole set.

Good luck.

[ARCHINSTL]

Welcome to the Club.
I had good luck with a reman from National down in FL - the last time I looked, they were still around $170 plus core.
That said, I eventually went with a Weber to get rid of the ills asssociated with the emission spaghetti and continual headaches with annoying problems.
Tom M.

[blackjackbottlecap]

Thanks guys. The problem is that I often have a rough idle on a cold start. It almost seems worse when I have a full tank of gas. And if I replace the plugs it starts up and idles fine then gets progressively worse, over say a couple of months. I don't do any highway driving or I very infrequently do. Lots of stop and go traffic and lots of revving the engine when I'm trying to rush through the rough idle/car will die problem (which I think is what might be shortening my plug life). The rough idle at cold start doesn't happen all the time. If the car has sat for a few days then it almost always happens. I will start the car and I really have to give it the gas or it will die. I leave my foot on the accelerator and it will shake some times severely for at most a couple of minutes but then once it heats up it idles fairly normally. I do get an exhaust smell when it has the rough idle. I'm pretty much of a novice at these things but I'm trying to make more sense of it. Any ideas?

[Petros]

sounds like it is too rich. You might check out the Auxiliary Acceleration Pump diaphragm (AAP). Easy check, pull off the vac line that goes to it, if it is full of fuel you have a leaky AAP. you can cap it off for now, it only operates when cold giving the car some extra fuel when you accelerate. If that is all that is wrong you can remove the AAP cover and just replace that diaphragm, you can buy them separately from a complete kit. You do not even have to remove the carb to replace the AAP, fixing this is faster than replacing the whole carb.

Slight chance it is a vac leak, so check for those, you may have them and they need to be fixed anyway. but the fuel small and the fouling spark plugs are sign of too rich at idle.

It is important you diagnose the problem before you replace any parts. Your symptoms are not necessarily due to a bad carb, but just a few specific items that can be by-passed or replaced by themselves. It will save you a lot of time and money to find what is wrong and just repair/replace those items than to randomly replace parts until the problem is solved.

[blackjackbottlecap]

Thanks!!!! I capped the AAP diaphragm and problem solved! I'm going to replace the diaphragm next week. Really glad I didn't end up replacing the carb.

[toughtercel]

Yes it might be to rich , for the last three years I bought three Tercel ,two of them had the mixture control screw was way out , I had to screw it in till the Idle starting to become rough then then back it out 1/4-1/2 turn then it fine . Just remind that all cars are runs on Fuel Injection, most mechanic are train with fuel injection not Carb , most mechanic think they know what they are doing . BUT few do know !

[blackjackbottlecap]

I sealed off the line to the aap for a few days and never experienced the rough idle at cold start during those few days. I then replaced the aap diaphragm and two days later, this morning, I had an intensely rough idle on start up this morning. It shook like crazy and if I took my foot of the gas it would die. I also had some whitish steam coughing out the tailpipe. I held my foot on the gas and after a few minutes it smoothed out and the steam went away. I had a more knowledgeable carb guy look at it and tell me that the choke pull off is not getting vacuum. Someone before me bent the plate to resolve this, I think anyway. Don't know if this is related to my rough idle on cold start. It happens intermittently and is worse when the temperature drops. Last night was the coldest night of the year so far, only 30 degrees. Any ideas?

[Petros]

might be unrelated. the choke pull off will not affect idle, it only purpose is to open the choke when you stop on the gas pedal when the choke is on so you get enough air to run the engine, once it is warm it dose nothing.

white steam looking smoke is sign of leaky head gasket, coolant gets vaporized in the combustion chamber and goes out the back as steam. are you loosing coolant? if so, likely you need a new head gasket. this can also causes rough idle.

If the smoke is bluish white, it would be motor oil smoke. could be bad rings or old valve stem seals. Valve stem seals usually only smoke on start up, the most amount of leakage occurs than. Neither are a big deal, it just means the engine is worn, just keep your motor oil topped up. Valve stems seals can be replaced without pulling apart the engine, replaced from the top. Usually this will not cause a rough idle unless the oil leak is bad.

do a compression test to see if the head gasket is bad or not. good luck.

[blackjackbottlecap]

The smoke is intermittent and not heavy. But could a choke pull off not working make it idle rough on a cold start?

[Petros]

I stated above, it should not affect idle. It only operates when you are accelerating hard when the car is moving, not at idle.

[blackjackbottlecap]

Okay, Thanks. Could a bad plug or improperly gapped plug cause a rough idle on cold start? I'm trying to figure out what to check other than the aap diaphragm.

[dlb]

Okay, Thanks. Could a bad plug or improperly gapped plug cause a rough idle on cold start? I'm trying to figure out what to check other than the aap diaphragm.

no, a bad or improperly gapped plug would be bad throughout the heat range.

have you done a compression test yet? your description of white smoke and rough running does sound like a head gasket, which is a fairly big job but nothing to throw a car away over. if you have the tools to do it yourself and just buy the parts you need it can be done for around $100. might take you a weekend but if you're fast you can have it done in an afternoon.

if you don't have a compression tester, just remove the spark plugs and crank the engine with them out. if you see coolant come flying out, your head gasket is definitely the issue.

[Petros]

here is a quick test: with engine running pull each of the spark plug wires in turn (loosen them ahead of time), use insulated pliers or thick rubber gloves. Each one should drop the idle speed the same amount, or nearly stall out the engine. If you find one that does little or nothing, you need to investigate condition of the wire, spark plug and contacts in the cap and rotor of that cylinder. if those check out, than do the compression test.

Yes actually a marginal plug or wire can cause a rough idle, the intermittent nature is not as noticeable at higher rpm. If it was fully bad the test above would tell you, and as DLB pointed out, you will feel it all rpms and it will be down on power.

[blackjackbottlecap]

In an attempt to fix a vacuum link to the choke pull off, I've now developed another problem. Now it wont' drop down to idle but stays on fast idle after engine started even after several minutes. When I put it into drive the idle seems to drop. Another vacuum leak?