Monday, January 16, 2006

Blue is back running like a champ

As if she just stumbled upon a fountain of youth, old blue is running strong once again. After getting my garage ready to go by rearranging some stuff, getting my tool box out in the garage as opposed to in the basement, getting my stereo out there, I was ready to start trouble shooting. After pondering where to start first I decided upon starting with the most difficult, removal of the spark plugs. As I had stated, I had gapped them to what they came out of the box with, .045. I didn't find out till after the fact that the factory gap was .035, it was even noted on the underside of the hood. Considering I have a higher voltage MSD coil I highly doubted that this larger gap was the problem, as the added spark should have no troubles jumping the larger gap. Still, I figured it would be best to start from the ground up and go from there.

I started removing all of the spark plug wire boots and it wasn't long before I found the problem. The porceline on one of the plugs must have cracked during installation. Something that is VERY easy to do in these cars. With all the emissions stuff, air injection lines, A/C, and other crap, it's a real pain to get to most of the wires. A universal swivel maybe would have made the job easier, but I doubt it. Most of the plugs have very little room to work with, the added length of the swivel would have caused an interference in most cases. Now that I've done it a few times I'm quite quick at it anyways, you just gotta find the right areas to snake your arms and hands into in order to get to each plug. Once you have that mapped out, its not too bad. It is still quite difficult to install a few of them without cracking them though. I broke a good 2 or 3 more during removal and installation.

Once that was complete I thought I'd still replace the dry rotted vacuum lines. That was until I found out that the vacuum line was the incorrect size. It was quite a bit smaller than the hose I needed, so that will have to wait until another day. After getting all the plug wires back on I fired it up. I knew instantly that the problem was solved as it smoothed right out and revved noticably faster. Yesterday I drove downtown to the auto show, it was the first road test, I gotta say that the power is back! What a good feeling, trouble shooting a rough running car can often be very time consuming and often discouraging. When the problem is finally solved there is a high level of satisfaction.

My time in the garage brought me to one conclusion by day's end, I'm making my garage top priority. My house needs plenty of work, though nothing really that is in dire need. My garage is brand new, I want it completely finished and furnished the way I want before digging neck deep into my house again this spring. Considering I should get a nice hefty tax refund soon, I'm gonna get a nice welder (something I've always borrowed but never owned), a workbench, a fridge, tv, and new stereo since my current one has a cd changer that acts up in colder temps. I get all that stuff and I think my garage will pretty much be set and I'll have a shop that has most everything I need.

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