Wiring, general questions..

[HortonHearsAWho]

Hi,

Living in Corvallis, OR and on a limited budget. Would anyone be able to help, give advice or recommend someone to help me get my car reliable and running properly?

Anyhoo, thanks in advance for your help!

cliff notes: carb running rich?/blew main fuse last night/small oil leak?/not starting & idling properly

New 84' SR5 4wd Toyoata Tercel wagon named Horton (hears a who?). Drove it from Colorado to Oregon a couple months ago. Changed oil, timing, rear diff. oil, and just had to replace the alternator (under warranty two weeks ago).

Yesterday eve. I started the car up and it made a noise in the engine compartment when I turned it on. I drove it home (7 mins) and as I pulled into the garage the main fuse blew and the dash/lights/everything began to dim and the car died.

My gf is picking up some fuses tonight. I read the thread "lost power" and noticed a burning smell in the engine bay when I threw my battery on a trickle charger as it was almost dead. It seems I might have a small oil leak as well b/c my engine bay is pretty messy on the right side.

I'm also having some carb issues and it's not wanting to start easily and when it does I have to manually idle it or it stalls. (running too rich?) Sadly, I'm not that mechanically inclined & have limited tools. I don't have the $ to get a weber currently so I need to just make do.

Cheers,
Horton

[Gottolovem]

If your car has an external voltage regulator It may be bad.
Look next to the battery on the fender wall there a small box with wires running to it.
If there is no box on the fender wall as described your regulator is internal (inside the alternator).
If you blew main fuse I would start there.
Good luck

[Petros]

welcome to the forum,

sorry to hear about your problems, might be voltage regulator or alternator as noted above, but usually that will not blow the main 30 amp fuse. It could also be a short in the main wiring harness. Best track it down before you try fixing it, inspect your wire bundles for melted insulation or overheated contacts. I once had a wire bundle short out under the black plastic cover because the insulation under it was stiff an brittle, cracked off and allowed two wires to make contact and melt the wire bundle before it blew the main fuse.

Always diagnose the problem before you try and fix it. check over the wires from the battery to all the other components where they lead, look for overheated wires or melted insulation. Cut open the bundle and inspected for shorted wires if you see melted insulation, it can usually be fixed with several layers of electrical tape. If the wires all look good, many auto parts stores will test your alternator for free if you remove it and take it to them (you will need a 14 mm, and a 12mm open end wrench or sockets to get it off). If the alternator is good than likely you have a short somewhere else, if the alternator is bad (or it has a internal short which occationally happens). If the alternator is bad you might find another one from a wrecking yard, they are usually reliable and a wrecking yard alternator is a good bet and much cheaper than buying a new one.

[garyfish]

A few years back I blew a main fuse on an '87 T4WD daily driver I once owned... discovered the problem was melted insulation and shorted wires in the engine compartment where a wire bundle was right next to the motor.

I'll try to describe the location: Left (driver's) side of the engine, below the distributor and kinda between the starter and oil filter. There's a small bundle of wires running horizontally, almost directly against the engine, and apparently the heat caused the melting and shorting. To compound matters, oil that had been leaking from a worn-out distributor o-ring had saturated the area.

To fix the problem, first disconnect the negative terminal from the battery. I cleaned as much oil off as I could, separated the wires where insulation had melted, and wrapped all the damaged sections with electrical tape. I then pulled that portion of the wire bundle away from the engine using a zip-tie, in hopes of lessening its exposure to heat. I installed a new main fuse, hooked up the battery -- and Voila! -- she fired right up.

Oh yeah... lastly, I replaced the distributor o-ring.

[Petros]

that is exactly where my wire bundle also failed, it melted the insulation off and it started a plastic fire. when I opened the hood I could see the wires were glowing like a light bulb through the smoke! I did a temp fix by separating the wires (which were now bare but not broken) and wrapping with electrical tape, and than I wrapped the blown fuse with a foil gum wrapper and was back on the road. got my daughter to school only about 10 min late.

I later fixed with a good fuse and replacing all the wires with fresh wires and new connectors.

[HortonHearsAWho]

Hey everyone,

Thanks so much for all the replies!!! You'd think MacGuyver would have driven this vehicle on that old tv show the way you guys keep it running on the fly!

I actually didn't blow any fuses but it was my 60amp yellow fusable link that had some burn characteristics on the bottom, NOT the main. Sorry! It didn't actually blow the fuse. I bought a new one and put it in. Couldn't find any burnt wires, etc? Seems like electrical isn't the main problem.

I had my battery tested as I'm not getting enough juice to turn over the starter the way it normally does. The alternator is new and checked out good when I put it in last week. I'm replacing the battery today. The choke seems to be sticking a bit and used some carb cleaner to free that up.

I also looked at the radiator yesterday morning and it had old watery hot chocolate in there. I flushed it 3-4 times with hose water with the heater on full blast. There was a small amount of bubbles coming up when revving and ran it dry before putting new coolant in. The engine seems to have a small lope in it but is running better after the coolant change. I pulled the first plug and it started to run better? I switched the first two plugs as plug 1 was gunked up and will be buying new plugs today.

I put two gallons of non-ethanol gas in the gas tank with a little bit less than half a can of Sea Foam. Drove it around for 30 mins last night around 65 miles per hour, high revs, etc. Seems like there might be a small head gasket leak? I started up the car early this morning and it seemed to be a little bit smokey in the exhaust but not too bad. I meant to check the radiator cap and look for oil but forgot.

I'll post some photos of Horton and a general introduction soon. Any pointers on here? A guy is helping me here in a neighboring town. He also said he would help me do a head gasket for around $75 labor and is allowing me to do partial work trade. Any thoughts? Thanks so much for all the feedback on here Petros, garyfish, Gottalovem. Happy Holidays to everyone...love the site and thanks for helping me with Horton!

[Gottolovem]

It sounds like it's the head gasket.
Petros has a detailed wright up in the repair section of this forum USE IT it's not as hard as you might think.
I would NOT use the (head gasket repair sauce) fixing it right the first time will save you headaches down the road.
Good luck.
https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6059

I would replace the radiator to there only a hundred bucks.

[Petros]

you have a slowly failing head gasket. It will be drivable for a while, keep topping up the coolant, and check your oil for the "choclet milk" look (coolant contamination). But it will fail all together and could be come undrivable without warning, so best replace the head gasket ASAP. Get all the parts together and you can do it in a day. You also might consider installing new valve stem seals, having the valves reground, and replace the exhaust valves while you have the head off (you will have to add a day or so to give time for an automotive machine shop to do these things for you, arrange it ahead of time if you want to have this done). This adds cost, but if you have more than about 180k miles on the engine, it will make it last much longer and run better.

here is the link for my instructions for replacing the head gasket: https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6059

[HortonHearsAWho]

So I was buying a head gasket for my car and it's distributor cap was the one off of a 87 Corolla. I knew the engine was new but I wasn't told it wasn't a 3ac.

I bought plugs, head gasket, distributor cap (should I return this and just try to use the old one? The guy I'm working with recommended I buy this..) oil, oil filter, coolant and read the write up by you petros, thanks btw!

Looks like I have my work cut out for me. The engine was supposed to have less than 10k on it. The front right CV joint? just starting making noise as well. Hmmm, these projects are coming at a bad time financially ^__^ It's making a shifting noise for the first time in the front right bottom of the car when I start from a stand still. Any ideas on this??

Thanks for all your help, will keep everyone posted. Feel free to add any comments, info as I'm trying to get my car as reliable as possible.

Cheers~

[Gottolovem]

If your really strapped for money you can probably return the distributor cap.
Make sure the gasket is felpro brand. Don't get intimidated the job is not that bad take it one step at a time. Petros wright up will walk you through every single step.
I printed it up so I had it next to me through the job.
Good luck

Get the engine done before you worry about the axle. On step at a time

[Petros]

distributor caps last a long time, so unless you know yours is bad you likely can get by without buy a new one. You can also go to picknpull and likely find a good used one for only a few $ (much less than a new one for sure).

if the head gasket blew on a low mile engine than you need to keep an eye on what ever caused it to over heat in the first place. Unless the head gasket was improperly installed, it will only fail if the engine was overheated. Look for leaky rad hoses, heater hoses, bad or leaky radiator or bad thermostat, or radiator cap. Do not replace these things unless they are actually bad unless you want to do it as a preventive measure.

Clunking from the front suspension is not likely CV axle (unless it is really bad, even than it would only clunk in hard accelerating turns). If it is single clunk upon acceleration it is likely either one of the rubber bushings or a ball joint or tie rod end. Unless it is really bad it is not an emergency, the parts are just worn with some play but most likely will not fail suddenly. So get the engine running good and than take your time looking over the suspension when you have a chance, and you have the money to fix it. Most suspension repairs are not too difficult if you have basic tools, and most of the parts are relatively cheap too.