tercel wagon having lack of power and hesitating.

[danieldialtone]

My 1985 tercel wagon has been kinda sluggish and has been hesitant when you hit the gas and does not seem like it has had the power that it should have.
also when you accelerate it sometimes sounds like its got one of those cherry bomb glasspacks on it and i want to fix that too. maybe its a muffler going bad?. but could any of these issues be related to vacuum leaks and/or exhaust leaks?
any ideas??

[dlb]

hey ddt. what do you mean about the cherry bomb glasspack? do you mean the muffler just sounds crappy, or does it pop and backfire? if it's backfiring, it could be vacuum leaks but i would check your ignition timing. also a good idea to remove the distributor cap and try turning the rotor counterclockwise. there should be a small amount of spring-loaded play. if there is no play, the grease in the distributor has dried and gummed up the advance mechanism. it's pretty easy to remove and service it if that's the case but check for leaks, check the timing, and check the rotor for spring-loaded play first.

if your muffler and catalytic converter are super old, they could both be clogged, but check for the other things first.

[danieldialtone]

dlb. what i mean by the cherry bomb glasspacks is when i press on the gas sometimes it get really loud but when i let off it sounds normal again. it does not allways do that. i know there is a leak before the catalytic converter and i was thinking that may have something to do with that. but the noise is coming from the muffler for sure. it just sounds like a bad muffler and then sounds like a good muffler.

[Petros]

unless the muffler (or catalytic converter) is bundled up, it would not cause a loss of power. if it was plugged up it would not be loud most likely, unless there is a big hole in it (have you inspected the exhaust system?).

Do a compression test, if you have a damaged exhaust valve it could act like that. if you have little/no compression in once cylinder than unfortuantly the head has to come off and I would replace all the exhaust valves. This unfortuatly is not and uncommon problem if you use factory 5 deg timing settings. set timing at 10 deg BTDC to avoid this and improve performace slightly.

Anyway, do not start throwing parts at it without a proper diagnosis, know what is wrong before you try to fix it. A quick test is to pull one spark plug wire one at a time while it is at fast idle. Each one should slow the engine the same amount. if one does not it means something is wrong with that cylinder. check spark plug and wire, do compression test. If engine checks out than look for a plugged exhaust system. My catalystic converter was all plugged up, finally blew out and ran good again, put in a straight pipe.