My '85 MGM, "Maisa"

[gadget73]

hm, what happens if you ground the STI with the key off and then start the engine?

[Arquemann]

Guys!
We have progress!

I checked the spark again, all seems consistent, but:

Unplugging the SPOUT instantly smooths out the idle, I went for a very short drive without romping on it much. It doesn't seem to jerk like usual, though it feels off. A bit uneven but less and in a different way.
SO, TFI bad? Distributor? Or what else affects ignition timing?

[Tiggie]

It will feel off without the SPOUT in because it never advances the timing.

I went though this with a Ranger recently. Mine ended up being the newer TFI was crap. I know you have replaced yours already.

[Arquemann]

I can't get a TFI locally, I'll buy from RA.

Should I go for the Motorcraft one or the cheaper Standard Motor Products? There's another cheaper SMP under "economy" parts.
I dunno about the cheaper random brands.

[87GrandMarq]

I personally would buy a good used one or motorcraft one.


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[Arquemann]

The fast idle did work at some point but does no longer. The mechanism is wrong somehow and it's not engaging and the pull off is leaking too.
I think I'll order the pull off vacuum diaphragm at the same time.

If the TFI module fixes the jerkiness, and with the fast idle making starting easy, I'll have this thing in a really good situation engine-wise.
Only thing really is the EGR acting wonky, but it might fix itself along the way or I might just delete it.
And then the cruise control, definitely.

[gadget73]

The pulloff drops the high idle out, the puck has an internal spring that engages it. Pull the puck off and make sure the tang didn't break off otherwise it won't engage the linkage. You should see a tab sticking into the area where the puck is, and the inside of the puck should have basically a fork that grabs the tab.

Change the pickup too if you're ordering parts. Distributor has to come out and apart to change it. Or just swap the whole thing. You need one with an iron gear. Its not a real difficult teardown, dist comes out, drive out the roll pin on the gear, press the gear off. Remove the roll pin in the metal thing above the gear and slide that off. Shaft comes out through the top. Pickup has I think 2 screws holding it in. Put the distributor back together. Don't beat the gear on with a hammer unless you have absolutely no choice. If you do, make sure you have the top of the dist shaft resting in a block of wood. A press is the much better tool here, if the shaft bends you're not going to be in for a good time.

[Arquemann]

So, I managed to break something again.

Choke spring and the tab are fine, I think I just put the spring in the wrong position when I changed the TPS last summer.

And there in the pic you can see how magnificently I screwed up. The choke pull off screws were kinda tight, I soaked them both in WD-40 from both sides, top one broke loose with big effort. The bottom one was a bit more painful, the screw head started to crumble, I managed to break it loose, then I heard the nice "tink" when something small falls into the depths. But the screw was still on the screwdriver...
As you can see, the corner broke off the choke pull off housing, which seems to be a single piece with the CFI unit. Great.

I think the steel screw had corroded so bad to the aluminium housing, that the 35yo brittle aluminium gave up faster. I found the broken off bit so I might try to fix it with chemical metal or so on.
For sure I can say that no one has ever opened that pull off, ever. The vacuum diaphragm was disintegrating and the shaft is pretty rusty.
Didn't get to snap a pic of the shaft and stuff, the spring was fine atleast.

Instead of cursing about the broken off bit, it started hailing quite a lot, then continued with a lot of snow.



I ordered the choke pull off diaphragm, Motorcraft TFI module and a Cardone Reman distributor from Rockauto. The cardone had a wholesale closeout conveniently, there would've been an autoline version that comes with the module, but I wanted the Motorcraft module.
I decided against buying the dist pickup separately since I don't have a press, I'm a bit uncomfortable hammering anything precise, and the price difference with just the pickup vs the discounted whole distributor was too good to pass up.

[matth825]

It’s a chunk of money but If can’t repair the throttle body:


https://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-OEM-For...kAAOSw2Nhcm-Ik


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[Arquemann]

It’s a chunk of money but If can’t repair the throttle body:


https://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-OEM-For...kAAOSw2Nhcm-Ik


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I think I can find a used injection unit locally.
The choke isn't really a big issue, I'm not going to drive this in the winter anyways.
I'll get to it when I get the engine running properly, maybe someone can tack-weld the corner back, or something like chemical metal or I'll just rig it somehow with a washer or a clamp.
All it needs to do is to hold the diaphragm tight, no torque wrench needed.

[gadget73]

I bet with a little creative fabricobbling you can come up with something to clamp that heater in place. Maybe a tab mounted to something else to give a longer screw something to hold on to. It doesn't need to be anything amazingly stout, just needs to keep the thing from rotating or falling out. Depending on exactly how much space is available behind where that thing mounts, maybe carefully drill through the inside of the heater mount area, use a couple of small screws to attach a tab to the back side of the mount and have that tab stick out the side where you can secure the heater. Just have to make sure the screws and metal bit won't interfere with anything in the high idle mechanism.

If you won't drive it in the cold and don't care about this, just use a piece of wire to hold the high idle cam out of the way. If you want a bit of a hacky in-between, you can wire up a switch to manually control the throttle kicker and get an idle speed bump for cold start use.

[Arquemann]

It's not the heater coil element housing whatever that broke, it's the housing for the fast idle pull off.
Rear half (intact) has the vacuum nipple and the front half which from the shaft comes from is the one broken.
The screws just had to clamp the two sides together with the diaphragm sealing in between.

Sooner or later I'll get around to it. Kinda weird that the throttle kicker and fast idle are completely different entities which do exactly the same thing.

[gadget73]

One is for cold starts, the other is to compensate for the extra load of the AC compressor. Why they didn't just have the ECM control the throttle kicker based off the coolant temp sensor, I don't know. Maybe its a holdover from the earlier EEC-III setup that may not have had enough processor power or outputs to make that work.

[Arquemann]

So I "unexpectedly" tackled a job, that in hindsight, I could have timed a bit better. The leaky trunk.
After the new seal it's really just the passenger rear corner:

The driver side doesn't look that much better, but it doesn't leak, I ended up cleaning it too.

I also found water in the back of both taillights, not inside them.

Someone has tried to seal the seal to the taillights with silicone.

The taillights are a bit of a PITA, long studs attach them to the body, but the long trim piece below the lights needs to be slid out sideways. Best way is to remove the nuts from the center section, so you can get the studs completely out before sliding off the trim. OR just remove the whole rear light section, a dozen 11mm / 7/16" bolts and the light sockets.


Rust, not really that bad, but the metal is very pitted.

After a bit of cleanup:

Rust-proofing primer and white paint (unfortunately the primer happened to be brown, though it won't be visible after all is back together)

Probably the worst driveway paint job many of you've ever seen, I'd be inclined to agree, but the metal is very pitted so the runs won't make it that much worse.
Most of it will be covered by the taillights anyways, and the rest visible only when the trunk is open. Also I can't/won't use bondo. Didn't get any overspray though

I wasn't going to do both sides, but after looking at the rust in the corner and seeing the water in the taillight, off came the driver side too.



My idea was to let the paint dry overnight and then squirt unnecessary amounts of silicone and body sealer in every hole. It was supposed to start raining tomorrow evening. As I putting things back together, came the dark clouds. I realised I need to seal things somehow, so I decided to tape every hole with duct tape.
As I was perfecting my techique of cutting duct tape without scissors, sleet and snow started coming down. According to the forecast, it'll rain every day for the next 7 days...
If the duct tape won't last, I'll throw a tarp over the back of the car.

[gadget73]

Just don't seal things in such a way that its going to trap water and force it in the light socket hole. Originally those had some sort of gooey rubber stuff on the washers that go under the nuts. Butyl I think, its like black bubblegum.