Just picked up my first 1986 tercel wagon 4x4

[Paultercel]

Naw the ignitor in the dizzy. Thanks for the tip on the test. There are so many hoses and charcoal canisters and what have yous that it seems a little overbearing!!! I will check on all that tomorrow.

[Petros]

do not be intimidated by the hoses and vac operated thingies. go read the chapter on the emissions control and the fuel system in the service manual. work your way though the trouble shooting guide, most of the system checks are real simple and take only a min. to check. do one system at a time, check all the hoses are routed correctly and are not cracked or leaking. you work your way through it once, next time it will only take about 20 min to check everything out.

it is most important you test everything systematically, one at a time. Otherwise you will be chasing your tail trying too many things at once, perhaps creating new problems. And not knowing what is wrong at all.

There is nothing to be intimidated about, each system is rather simple. Just follow the directions. It is intimidating because there are so many of them and it is easy to get overwhelmed. they are not so bad once you are familiar with them all. learn your fuel system and your ignition system, there will be nothing on this car that you will not be able to fix in short order.

good luck.

This reminds me of a story. when my daughter was in high school a number of years ago, I bought an old fixer of a Honda CRX and rebuilt it for her. she drove it daily to her job in a fast food joint, getting out at 9 pm when it closed. one night she called me and said it would not start, I asked a few question about what happens when she turnes the key (nothing, but the dash lights were on). Several guys has stopped to help her, one even presumed to have knowlage of the CRX because his ex-girlfriend had one. all took one look at the "plate of spaggetti" vac operated system (about 3 or 4 times as many vac lines as our Tercels!). once even said the starter was "toast". I drove there to see if I can help, going over all systems in my mind and decided to check the solonid wire first. I got there, the hood was open and my daughter and several other well wishers were standing around in the parking lot. I walked up, reached in to push the connector on the solnoid in further (it was loose like I suspected), and than turned the key and it fired to life. The look of stunned admiration on my daughter's face was priceless. "what did you do?!?!", my quick "touch" under the hood must have looked like magic. I just told her I speak the language of men and machinery, her car talked to me and I fixed it. She was so impressed that she wanted to be able to do that too, I told her I can teach her, but unless she really wants to learn how to "talk" to machinery, it will be a lot of hard work.

She lives half a country away now, over 2000 miles. But if any machinery in her life "gives up the ghost", the very first thing she does is call me and asks me what I think.

[Paultercel]

Ok So it turned out to be a bad alternator and the battery the previous owner had on it was complete rubbish and a size too small, after putting on the new alternator and battery, shes running real nicely! the only problem now is that when I first start her up and get her warmed there is some grey smoke coming from the tailpipe until she gets fully warm. I did a compression test on all four cylinders and they are reading in the 155-160 range so there is good compression there... I am thinking now that it is the valve guide's... Any body out there have any tips on tackling this project, I'd hate to start tearing into her and find out I was wrong...

Best,
Paul

[Paultercel]

Also, mildly overheating when turning on the heater while drove last night... Any idea why that could be happening??

[Paultercel]

That's a great Story, Petros!

The first (and only thing) they taught us in community college:
READ THE BOOK.

Lol every system is a little different but your right if you become familiarized with the inner workings of the machine, you learn the language of the system.

Very cool story,
Hopefully I get this thing up and running perfectly!

[Paultercel]

It is a nice little car. Here is a few pictures of it:

[Paultercel]

3d

[dlb]

looks really nice! i like the pin stripe. manual trans or automatic?

i'm not sure on the grey exhaust on start up. it's normal for exhaust to be slightly grey or white while an engine is warming but generally speaking, white smoke = burning coolant (which means a bad head gasket), blue smoke = burning oil (which means worn rings and/or valve stem seals), black smoke = running rich/burning off carbon deposits. so it's tough to definitively say where grey smoke would fall in there.

how high did the temp gauge read when you had the heater on? if it's running quite hot then, coupled with the grey smoke, i would guess the head gasket is going, but there are some tests to determine that. easiest way is to first, make sure there are no external coolant leaks. then second, fill the rad and make sure the overflow reservoir is filled exactly to the 'full' line when the engine is stone cold. keep checking the level in the overflow reservoir over the next few days or weeks. if you notice the coolant level dropping but there are no visible coolant leaks anywhere, your head gasket is the culprit.

besides that, the running hot when the heater was on could be due to a bad radiator, thermostat, or rad cap. i've tried a few tests to determine which of those things is bad when i've had similar symptoms but not found any test to be reliable. at this point, if i have a new-to-me vehicle and i don't know how well the coolant system had been maintained, i won't hesitate to replace the thermostat, hoses, rad, and cap.

[Paultercel]

Its A Manual Transmission. 5 Speed with "Creeper" Gear... I have been keeping an eye on the coolant and it hasn't dropped a bit since I have put it in 4 weeks ago... Hopefully the head gasket is not bad! I don't think I could perform a job like that... I suppose it's blue smoke, my friend told me that it probably needs new valve stems. Because the compression was still pretty good... 160 psi.. Which seemed pretty good to me considering the car is 156k and 28 years old... He and I figured the engine was strong enough and that it didn't need anything as extreme as new piston rings.... Oh buddy now i'm feelin a little afraid if it does need a head job...

Well the radiator is pretty damn chewed up...A friend told me that was probably going to be the next thing that I should Replace... Any idea's on the best way to find a new or good used RAD?

Well, I'm going to be getting prepared to take the valve cover off and replace the stems... I just have to get it down to my buddys shop first...
I figured I may as well just tear her open and look to see what looks worn out and what is salvagable... Hopefully not too big of a trouble... I am a pretty novice mechanic.. BUT i can fix your chainsaw eyes closed!!!!

[dlb]

sounds like your head gasket is probably good since the coolant level has not dropped in a month. and yes, your compression is good. if it's blue smoke on start up, it probably is valve stem seals. that occurs because after the engine has stopped running, oil from the valve train dribbles down past the worn valve stem seals into the combustion chamber. when you start it up, that oil is burnt off right away. i haven't done them before but other guys on here have said it's quite easy.

for a rad, go with new. over time, corrosion builds up so even if they look good on the outside they can be crappy inside.

[Paultercel]

Dude, Thanks a lot DLB,

I will try not to lose my cool while replacing the valve stems... Any idea where I can find those Seals?

[Paultercel]

How do I tell if the engine is 1.5 vs. 1.3

[Paultercel]

If it's not marked it's not an SR5...(?) Confused... Doesn't SR5 mean Sport Racing 5 Speed?

It has all 5 gears and the creeper gear so I guess it has 6...

I figured it was a SR5.

[dlb]

sr5 and dlx are just trim designations. sr5's have nicer more adjustable seats, a tachometer, wider rub strips on the side of the car, and '83 and '84's have an inclinometer (the funny device on the dash that measures the angle of the vehicle).

sr5 and dlx's all have the same 1.5 L 62 hp engine and either 6-spd manual trans or 3-spd auto trans. they all have basically the same carb too but there are different emissions packages for different countries. the biggest change that occurred was differential gear ratios, which you won't have to worry about unless you swap transmissions or diffs.

any parts store should have the valve stem seals. i think irowiki just did this job, or he's going to soon? can't remember. mark did it and said the special tool was a piece of crap. hopefully they will see this thread and chime in, or just search 'valve stem seals' for their posts on them.

[Mark]

I got my valve stem seals at the local Lordco auto parts store. Rockauto had them as well online, but the shipping alone was more than buying them locally. Replacing them on these cars actually isn't as bad as on many other cars. You don't have to remove the camshaft so there's no having to reset the timing after. You just have to remove the rocker arm assembly (a few nuts) to get at the valves.
When the engine is warm and you're sitting at a light idling for awhile and then you accelerate to go, does the exhaust smoke? That's the only time mine would smoke. I never had the smoking problem at startup or when the engine was cold. Maybe if the seals were really bad it would smoke at startup as well.