car is driving me crazy ...need help.....

[lcopas]

well .... I have a leak down tester on the way ... I have checked to make sure that the timming belt did not jump a tooth ...it didn't ...
I really am starting to think it's a blown head gasket or burnt valve or hopefully something not worse.
The leak down tester should be here in a couple days.
One thing I noticed the other day when driving to work - I was driving very easy as to not upset anything more - and watching the temp gauge like a hawk - the car was going along pretty good except for the fact that it doesn't idle very good at all and is really lifeless at the lower RPMs anyway, once, just once - I accelerated kinda hard - not really really hard - but I gave it some pedal and it seemed to run preety good still at the higer RPMs as I took my foot off the gas - I had noticed that the temp gauge shot up pretty high - it got to about 3/4 the way up to the hot mark - I kinda freaked out when I saw how fast the temp had shot up - I immediatly turned off the A/C and turned the heater on - the engine never overheated - and as I drove the rest of the way to work - the temp came back down to almost a normal temp - by the time I got to work - things were back to the way they were - almost a normal temp - idles for crap - no power at the low RPMs seems to run ok at the higher RPMs - I have noticed something else too - If I play with the fuel curve by giving it a little more fuel - it really starts run like crap - in all ranges of the RMPs - which I find very unusal, because my car has always run rich -

[waveoff]

Try bleeding the cooling system. Air pockets in the cooling system can cause hot spots which in turn will make the car run like crap.

[lcopas]

I have two small holes drilled in the thermostat - wouldn't that be enough to allow any air pockets to get out ?
Mind you these holes are small and they were there long before I statred ahvong any trouble.
Should I decide to go ahead and bleed the coolant system - it there a recommended prcedure for this ?
I really appreciate all your suggestions !
Thanks again

[waveoff]

I think you mean you have two small holes drilled in your thermostat inside your thermostat housing. If you had two holes drilled in your thermostat housing, coolant would be squirting out into your engine bay. Do you have a Helm's manual or at least a Hane's manual? They both should tell you how to bleed the cooling system. If you don't have either manual to tell you how to do it, here's how. You let your car run with the radiator cap off or loosely in place. Make sure the heater control is on full warm. Let it run until the radiator fan comes on at least twice. Shut the car off. Check the coolant level and add coolant if needed.

I also noticed that you have a leakdown tester on the way. You are aware that you need a compressed air source to do the leakdown test right? The leakdown tester doesn't work like a compression tester.

Also, how did you check to see if the timing belt jumped a tooth? The TDC mark on the crank pulley, the pointer on the "sprocket" under the timing belt cover, and the "UP" line on the cam sprocket...were all three of these lines lined up with the appropriate reference points at the same time with the number one cylinder at TDC?

[lcopas]

I have a good compressor for the leak down tester - the holes are drilled in the thermostat, not the housing [img]wink.gif[/img]
the last time I added coolant - I did it the exact way you had mentioned - I thought there might some special procedure I was not aware of.
I did not investigate the timming belt really really close - I just took the top timming belt cover off - bumped the engine until the up on the cam spocket was up - the looked for the timming mark and the line that's all by itself was lined up with the mark on the lower timming belt cover ....
I could not work on the car this weekend - as we have company - but next weekend - the wife is going to be out of town - I will have the whole weekend to myself - I am going to investigate the timming belt very close - before I yank the head off ... hopefully the leakdown tester will get here before the weekend ....
Thanks again !

[lcopas]

ok ...leak down tester is in hand ... I will post results later today
PS - I think I found out why the car was running a little hotter than normal ... my radiator fan failed - I put a new fan on and all seems well as far as cooling ... doohhh ....

[lcopas]

ok, I'll bet the board will be happy so see this thread end -
Anyway - results of the leak down test are in:
Cylinder 1 tested great, hardly any lead down at all -
Cylinder 2 tested the same - practically no leak down -
Cylinder 3 - horrible - 100% leak down
Cylinder 4 - tested ok too ...
hmmmm .... kinda strange I thought ... so I went back and retested all the holes again - same results -
started to look real close at the valves themselves -- noticed that the intake valves on cylinder 3 were very tight - I could not move them at all when piston was at TDC - no slack at all - so with the piston at TDC and the leak down tester hooked to #3 (still showing 100% leak down) I cracked the lock nuts in the intake valves loose and whatdya know - leak down went from 100% to hardly anything - some dumbass set my valves too tight - and being that I am the only one who works on my car - I guess it must have been ME !
So I reset all my valves and whatdya know - the car idles again ! - it has power again ! - it does not spit, sputter, fart or mis-fire anymore !
Amazed - that little leak down tool is a great addition to my tool box !
My mystery is solved for know - now I have to go back and put my JR Map Mod and my Hypertech Shogun unit back on - I had taken all the piggy back computers and cheats off the car when I thought I was having some sort of electrical failure -
Thanks everyone for you suggestions and your support and your help ! [img]wink.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 01, 2002 04:11 PM: Message edited by: lcopas ]</font>