engine swapping

[Red88]

I just bought an 88 tercel wagon and it is smoking badly. Is replacing the motor cheaper than rebuilding the current one?
The engine is a 3A. Dont know if it is a ff or fr.
Do I have to put the same 1.5L in there or are there
other peppier engines can I match up with the tranny? Like 20R or 22R?
Thanks
Rich
Oregon

[dlb]

welcome, rich. if you read the FAQ in the general section it will cover a few of your questions. however, if your engine is burning lots of oil i would do a compression test first and if the #s are pretty decent (say, 150 psi and up, and all cylinders within a 10% difference of each other, or something close to that) i would try adding seafoam to the oil, running it for one or two tanks, and doing an oil change. that has worked miracles for me a few times.

[Petros]

welcome to the forum!

DBL is correct, it could also be bad valve stem seals that are only about $20 for the set and fairly easy to replace without taking the engine apart (you can rent a valve spring compressor from Autozone for no charge and do it in a saturday by just removing the valve cover and rocker arm shaft). Sometimes adding STP, Smoke Stop or Restore to the engine oil might help so you can drive it until you find a suitable replacement engine.

So if the compression is fairly good, I would not rebuild it.

A do-it-yourself rebuilt will cost you anywhere from $500-1000, you can buy good running used engines for about $400, but you do not really know the condition until you drive it. So you buy a used engine, even with a warranty and you risk a lot of work to find out it is no better than the one you took out.

Personally I plan on keep my car for a long time and would rather to a complete overhaul and have it last a long time. You can also do a few tweaks to improve performance and economy as well if you want. But it will cost more to do it, and will take longer.

If you can locate a rebuildable 4ac, you can rebuilt it while you drive on your current engine, and than swap it out on a weekend. If you want more power, the 4ac is the easiest way to go since it is a larger more powerful engine (almost 50 percent more power, from 62hp to 90 hp), and it is a direct bolt in replacement after you swap over the flywheel, engine mounts, accessories, etc.

[marlinh]

I just did a seafoam treatment on my daily driver with a bit of trepidation. It used to smoke on start up, and under certain load conditions. I am happy to report that I can't see any more smoking and my oil consumption has dropped. Haven't driven enough to know exactly by how much, but I am very pleased with the outcome.

[irowiki]

marlin, Did you do the seafoam in the engine oil, or through the brake booster?

[marlinh]

I put it in the engine oil as dlb suggested and like I said, I was nervous. It is only a few ounces, the exact measurement I got from their website. It seems to have worked though. Sucking it through the brake booster would clean the intake and valves, but I would use a smaller hose to prevent hydraulic lock.

[irowiki]

How long did you leave it in the oil? The wagon I'm about to buy burns some oil too so I think I'll do the same.

[dlb]

i leave the seafoam in the oil for one or two tanks of gas. that gives it lots of time to break stuff down. glad to hear the seafoam in the oil seemed to work for you too, marlene.

on a similar note, i recently did my first 'steam cleaning' of a combustion chamber and it worked really well. this was on my wife's FI civic. i removed the air filter housing so i could spray right into the manifold but with the tercel's carb, you could just remove the lid of the housing and spray down the throat of the carb. i took a regular spray bottle full of water, started the car and held the throttle at about 3000 rpm, and kept spraying until the smoke coming out the exhaust changed from grey and black to white (grey/black indicates oil deposit buildup, white indicates just water). took maybe 5 minutes. i liked this method with the spray bottle because it's such a small amount of water and delivered in a mist, making hydrolock extremely unlikely. with pouring anything in, water or otherwise, i really worry about hydrolock.

[irowiki]

Interesting, so say, put some in when I'm two tanks from home (coloradoish) then change the oil when I get home! The engine will be getting a serious workout going through the San Juan Mountains too.

Just a few ounces of normal seafoam? Any advantage to the deep creep stuff?

[dlb]

i've only used the motor treatment so i've got no idea about any of their other products.

[marlinh]

http://seafoamsales.com/using-in-crankcase-oil/

This is the information I used about quantity to use. I don't know about the deep creep, except that i think it is used as a penetrating oil.

[irowiki]

Excellent! Thank you~

Amusing that they say to only leave it in for 100 miles though

[dlb]

http://seafoamsales.com/using-in-crankcase-oil/

This is the information I used about quantity to use.

Amusing that they say to only leave it in for 100 miles though

dang, i never saw that page. i've left it in for much longer than that but i've never had any problems. i have been very careful about how much i've added though. i was worried about it thinning the oil.

[irowiki]

I suspect it is a CYA (cover your ass) on their part.

As far as thinning the oil, how about putting it in with something like STP additive that thickens the oil, it might cancel each other out?

[dlb]

as long as you stick to the amount specified on the seafoam can or website, i wouldn't worry about thinning the oil. you don't add very much. i just meant that i was careful about measuring how much to put in so that i avoided thinning the oil, even though i completely neglected to note how long it should be left in for.