My great uncle recently passed leaving me his '85 Berlinetta (plus whatever I wanted from his shop). Not sure if he bought it new or used, but he had it for at least 15-20 years (I remember riding in it as a kid). He did most of the work on it himself, and alot of things are 'jerry-rigged'. I want to try and fix it up to keep it in the family, but don't want to spend a fortune on it either. (The local chain-store mechanics here in CO seem to want 200$+ and a 2 day wait to fix a lightbulb).

The body is in decent shape, has a little bit of rust on the front corners of the good, and some fading on top, not gonna nitpick a 30+ year old car though. The interior is about the same, the drivers seat is missing an ***-shaped chunk of leather from the seat, and getting the drivers door to open requires a bit of voodoo, but again cant complain much. The engine (2.8 V6, fuel injected) starts and runs, and the trans shifts ok.

But I wouldn't be here if everything was peachy, would I?

The beam that holds the steering box is snapped in two, right between the box and the fenderwell. The metal is separated by about an inch downwards, and the fenderwell is a bit ****ed up from the piece smashing into it (looks a bit like a ripped bubble, with the rip at the same angle as the break in the beam). Google tells me I should have someone weld it up (unfortunately I can't find a welder to save my ***), and the local shops either want nothing to do with it, or a kings ransom to fix it (lowest quote i got was 1100$, and they wanted me to cut out the section that I needed from a junkyard).

The dash panel is all but possessed. It blows a fuse if you turn the car over, but not every time (only like 90% of the time). It wont blow a fuse in accessory, but it dims and brightens randomly. (It likes to play this trick when trying to check the engine codes). The shop manual that i got with the car is useless as dick for telling me what is causing this. I could just replace it, but im not sure if that would solve anything. Also, that requires finding a working panel (Thats not the tacky aftermarket pos that google keeps trying to get me to buy).

But wait theres more!

I've had the ****er only 2 weeks and CO is already up my *** about getting the car emissions tested. I've put most of my effort into getting the engine working properly.

I have no idea how long the car sat for, at least a few months but possibly a year or more. Changed the oil, filters, belts, spark plugs, basically anything simple/cheap it got a new one. The tank was near empty when i got it, so I didnt bother draining out the bad gas, (i topped off the tank with some fresh gas, and threw a can of heet in it for good measure), ran it almost dry again (took forever since I cant really drive it). The check engine light codes are only 12, so its not complaining about anything (though im not sure it would unless it actually got driven).

Still im having several issues that are hard to pin down, its not throwing any codes, and im not sure if they will go away when driving.

When the car is warm and i rev it and let go real quick, the rpms drop to ~500 and the car starts sputtering. It will keep running but wont recover unless i rev it a few times (not as high), or restart it. (still wont throw a code)

Another issue is when slowly revving it up, it feels like there is a dead spot in the throttle, and it will stop revving higher until i go over the spot. However If i go over the same spot 'backwards' it revs down fine, and if i go over a little faster it revvs up fine again.

Another small issue is that sometimes when I start the car, i can see a little puff of smoke come from the passenger side firewall. Its a bit of an ******* because if i get someone else to look for it or turn it over while i look it doesnt appear.


Anyhow sorry about the long rant fellas, just decided to chuck everything in here rather than try to peice it out into a hundred separate threads.

 

sure sounds like you have the 'ol third gen frame crack at the steering box-pretty common with these cars-some do it some don't,you will find several threads covering this condition on here-a search will find them.