kimnach

I've run out of colorful metaphors in both english and hungarian...thankfully my boys aren't around when I'm working on my IROC. I swear that any engineer that designs a car should be forced to do routine maintainance on it before the final design is allowed to hit the road!

I finally brought my car out of its 22nd winter storage in June! (Heavy rains & leaky t-tops were the cause of the lateness.)

The car was running rich and running TunerRT Pro on my carputer showed that the O2 sensor was roughly 0.7V at all thottle positions while driving/idling. I'd never changed the O2 sensor in the nearly 23 years that I've owned it; however, with 118k miles on it, it was time.

Yesterday I went to Autozone and picked up a Bosch sensor and an O2 sensor wrench (Part Number: 33625246). When I got home, I told my wife this should take maybe a half-hour or so, and that I'd join her and the boys in the pool then.

I started up the car and let the engine/exhaust manifold warm up. Well, the wrench wouldn't seat properly on the sensor, so I attributed it to cylinder #5 spark plug&boot. Twist the boot, try to pull: no go. Repeat, cuss, climb under car, twist boot, pull, no go, cuss. (Memories of the last tune-up begin to swamp my mind.) I climb out from under the car and demean the Richard Cranium designers, and attempt from the top. After many attempts and pejoratives, the boot lets loose! F&%$##!, the metal sleeve stayed on the plug! Well, now the O2 sensor wrench fits, but there's abolutely no way I can get enough torque to break the sensor loose. Colorful metaphors.

Start up on 7 cylinders and let it idle ugly for a few minutes and try again in hope that I bit more heat....No go.

OK, broken boot implies that it's time for a tune-up (wires, plugs, cap & rotor.) I clean up, grab a a Guiness, and jump in the pool....by this time the kids are in bed, thankfully.

On the way home from work today, I returned the wrench, got a 3/8" drive O2 sensor socket and the tune-up items, and--more importantly--had a better attitude. I figured two hours.

Well, I'll spare you the details, but I've gotten only four of the plugs replaced (1, 3, 5, 7) after many attempts from above and below. There were, of course, an abundance of four-letter words (good thing that the wife took both boys to the younger one's baseball game!).

In spite of my relatively small hands/arms, the even-numbered plugs (passenger side) were just too much for me to attempt in my miffed state, so I proceeded to the cap/rotor.

Off came the cap, then the rotor. Ah the rotor. I couldn't pull it off. I tapped on it with a small hammer & dowel. In the end, I had to use a piece of wood as a level surface to use a hammer to pry off the rotor. It seems that the stem was incredibly rusty ("Rusty and stuck.jpg") and the ground plane (the large metal surface onto which the ignition module is mounted) had a somewhat greasy residue. Maybe it was just a mixture of carbon, moisture, and the silicone from under the ignition module?

Unfortunately, I wiped the residue off and somewhat cleaned-up the shaft with #320 sandpaper on which the rotor mounts prior to taking the attached pictures.

I then noticed that there is a connector to which a vacuum line should be connected. The open tube seems to come from from the EGR, but I don't see any rubber lines in the vicinity which would connect to it ("Missing line highlight.jpg"). Maybe this is why it was running rich????

Could the residue from under the cap be due to bad seal on the distributor shaft? Need I pull the distributor shaft and put new seals? And what is the vacuum line that I'm missing?

It's late. Enough rambling, but I thank you in advance.

UnderCover89TBI

iTrader: (25)

well to make things easier you could have fixed your broken wire. They sell special o2 sensor sockets, some penetrating catalyst soaked into the threads probably would have helped. Overall it looks like the car has been lacking maintenance. The iginition control module has grease underneath of it to soak up the heat produced by the ignition system too much removed and you could be faced with a failing ICM.

The plastic line goes to a rubber boot thing the line you have highlighted is pointed at the boot looks like it slips into that from what I can tell. Hope I have helped somewhat. It wouldnt hurt to change the distributor as maintenance since its destined to fail. But I wouldnt worry about the whole distributor as much as the ICM.

kimnach

Thanks for the help. I'll look more closely at the missing vac line.

Yes, when my first attempt to remove the O2 sensor with the O2 wrench failed, I exchanged the wrench for the O2 deep-well slotted socket yesterday. I also applied Liquid Wrench the first night and then prior to the second day's work.

As for the maintenance: this is the third tune-up (cap/rotor/wires/plugs/timing) that I would be doing on it. The first was at 50k and the last at 97k miles, when I replaced a failed ignition module. The rotor slipped on/off easily each time and the shaft wasn't rusty. Granted, the last time was 7 years ago. (Yes, I've only put on roughly 21k miles in the last seven years.)

Overkill on the replacements this time; however, I didn't look at my log book prior to jumping in. Also, the plugs show that it's been running rich for much longer than I thought.

It hasn't been lacking in general maintainance at all.

UnderCover89TBI

iTrader: (25)

Well hopefully I helped you out somewhat. Did not mean to insult you about the maintenance.

kimnach

a co-worker told me that the distributer suffers from the car being stored for such extended durations (sometimes 7 months). many people will actually bag their cars.

I finally got the oxy sensor off and replaced.

As for the ostensibly missing hose, I looked at another co-worker's '87 IROC and he has the same "connector" without a hose connected to it. This sits at the end of the fuel rail on the passenger side, near the ignition coil.

kingrounds

This should be the EGR regulator.
One goes to the EGR and the other returns to the intake., in my case the TPI.

kimnach

thanks, kingrounds; however, it's not the to the egr. this looks like a 3/16" to 1/4"id hose fits on the ribbed stem. it's highlighted in the second picture of my original post. my post at 11:46am was misleading: it's at the end of the fuel rail, but not on it. the object to the right in the picture is an electrical connector.

i looked at the egr and it's hoses are connected.

again, my co-worker's '87 iroc has the same "missing" connection.

i'll have to look through the shop manual.