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Tech / General EngineIs your car making a strange sound or won't start? Thinking of adding power with a new combination? Need other technical information or engine specific advice? Don't see another board for your problem? Post it here!
Hi my name is Shawn, but you can call me Shaun if you like. This is my first post. Though I do admit I have been reading through and enjoying these forums for the last few or so years. I have a 88 TA body with a 85 formula engine. My Grandfather gave it to me roughly 5 to 6 years ago. I have had it in my garage working on it slowly but surely. Again I admit more its been more slowly than surely. I have gutted the inside carpet as it was not even close to being salvageable. The dash was also stripped down due to deterioration and bad upkeepfrom whoever had the car.
The engine only has 30k miles. It was in a formula before the car crashed and damaged its side frame. The engine was taken out and stored in a garage for about ten or so years until a suitable surrogate was found abandoned.
It is my metal baby in many ways. I have been through times where I needed money bad, and someone would come ask to buy it for 2000$ and I wouldnt let it go for the world. I would tell my woman money comes and goes but somethings cant be replaced. She is my first car and will be my children first car. My daughter loves working on it with me I think I might let her have it. she is my eldest. I will prolly get something else for my boy. I stray to far.
This is my first post and figured it wouldn't be in good taste to give some background.
Moving on to the reasons for my post. Im not a novice as much as I am someone who finds it easy to take a bite and difficult to swallow and harder still to chew. I confess this to you now. In fact im the kind of person who if i think to tie my shoe a little too deeply I would probably have my shoe sole, tongue, and thread laid out separately. So, if I told you i want to clean my engine rust and dirt could you imagine the million ways I could screw something up? I have and it is quite terrifying. The kind of terror that is gripping and leaves you motionless. My socket wrench is calling my name, and the rust is like the mucus in those mucinex commercials I cant stand to be taunted especially by an inanimate object.
I have taken pictures of my engine and marked things that I would like to be identified. Some of it is for reassurance some i have no clue what so ever. In order to get to the rusted parts (especially 14) I want to clean and sand I will unfortunately have to disassemble some components. My main scares are unhooking a gas line (I have kids in the house and my garage is attached I dont want spilled gas anywhere in my home) and/or allowing air into the brake system. And what scares me also is that I might not even know what should be scaring me. With all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of this forum enlighten me where you see necessary assume I know nothing about what I am doing. That way I can hope to learn more about what I am doing. And avoid mistakes like throwing off the timing belt (No BS I just shuttered thinking about that mistake).
I will mince no more words and get to the pics I have them numbered to help the process along. Some numbers are repeated on different pics to show it in different angles. Thank you all so much this project means so much to me, and I appreciate you guys help. Ok ok ok you are right! I should say thanks for being the brains of this operation. Albeit I will tell my children I did it all solo but we will know the truth.
In the case i have rambled to much here is a list of my objectives
1. Identify parts so i dont take apart anything that cant be resembled in a working a condition. I know this maybe tedious or trivial and more work in typing than identifying, but appreciate.
2. I want to get the engine looking respectable.
3. I want to know where in these pics I can look to get engine info like vin or engine#.
4. Locate gas and brake lines.
5. Also general info about the engine the pics may show that I dont know. Again assume I know nothing LOl.
P.S their should be a universal Third Gen emblem we can use on our cars to pay homage to this community and spread the love.
I cant get the attachments working will try sending them separately.
Yes the last one worked. 1 more question while im at it. How would I convert my dash display to digital. If i bought a digital dash would I simply have to connect and it would work. Thank you again.
I would deeply appreciate any help on this I can get. I would like to get started on the process. I have to make sure I dont step on my toes. A clean engine bay is only as important as it is a working engine.
I was really hoping for some help, but it is how is no question about it. The whole when a door is closed a window will open thing comes to mind. I have a will there will be a way, no doubt.
Thank you a ton I really appreciate you taking the time to answer those questions. I may have gotten the engine year wrong. I definitely got the engine year wrong then. The formula sat in my driveway growing up for a while until the engine was taken out and the car scrapped. I have been hunting for the engine id numbers havent found any on the engine yet. There is a site called manuals.co that has repair manuals for the birds but without the engine # 's i cant say for sure the exact year and engine specs.
You're welcome. Do you maybe have VIN number of car that engine come from? Or maybe picture of a car? The ID number on the V8 engine is found just below right cylinder head.
Im ready to quit just to go and find that number. And BTW about the site I was saying it has good info. I know a lot of people ppl dont have those service manuals. It has trouble shooting and diagrams and is free to look at. You helped me a lot I was hoping to bring something to the table.
Yeah I know about manuals... Car on the picture must be 87 or 88... What about your trans am, do you have any information about it at all? Like was transmission replaced, rear axle or are oringinal?
As I can se from VIN number, this engine is original for this car even it was replaced, it is the same, LG4. Do you have RPO codes in the car? Should be in center console or in the back in glove box in trunk on the left side. On the drivers doors, you have stickers with some information on, like when the car was built etc...
I will get those codes as soon as I get home. This pic is hard to get the numbers off. Dont worry about it. Im wondering will the numbers on this plate have the RPO. It is the plate right under the front hood. When I get home I will clean that up and get those numbers on here.
The RPO code sticker is typically located in the center console or the lockable rear hatch compartment. It's not uncommon for them to go missing over the years unfortunately.
5 I think is part of the AC system, been a while since I ripped all that out on my car.
10 and 11 are return lines for the vapor canister.
14 is the exhaust manifold. don't worry much about it being rusty, it's cast iron and will rust again very quickly.
15 is something I'm not familiar with. Most likely aftermarket. Alarm or something?
Thanks a million. I just got off work and if i dont call it a night now I will sleep all day. There are not enough hours in a day. I will try to get those codes when i awaken. I was wondering though how diff would it be to take that manifold off and and spray it so that it will not rust. Im sure i can find out how but i was just wondering the difficulty level. Thanks guys your really giving me a lot of motivation to do what I already want to do. Much appreciation.
Much to my dissatisfaction I am as of now unable to locate those codes. Also much to my dissatisfaction I was unable to check the storage in the. I have been working between the hatch glass and spindle bar for the trunk content concealer for the better part of two hours with no joy. I have the worst self inflicted headache. I will be at it again hard over the weekend. If anyone know of a thread that describes how to manually unlock the trunk I would live to know about it. Most of the ones I have come across is correcting the relay or envolves correcting the switch. Thanks
After consideration the risk of taking out the manifold greatly outweigh the benefit of sanding it. With that being said I have found a middle ground. I am wanting to spray the manifold with dry graphite lubricant. Soon though I will want a different material part for the manifold.
Removing manifold bolts is a project. It's pretty common to have a couple heads break off the bolts which is very frustrating. Soaking the bolts with something like PB B'laster every 24 hours or so for a few days before attempting to remove them helps significantly. I managed to get all mine off without breaking any doing it this way.
If you can get them off without breaking any heads off then you'll just need some manifold gaskets and putting them back on shouldn't be difficult. All the bolts do have a retainer tab to lock them in place, getting those bent out of the way to get a wrench/socket on the bolts was probably the most difficult part of the whole process for me.
I personally wouldn't put in the work just to put stock manifolds back on. Thats a lot of rusty metal thats been in place for 20-30 years, things might not go back together perfectly.
Sntiggs - There should be a unlock key cylender behind the license plate frame.
John - your telling me. I literally just came out of the garage. I removed 5 of the manifold bolts on the drivers side and the 5th one broke off. Still fighting to get a socket on the last one closest to the firewall. Cant wait to put headers on this thing. it was hard enough getting all the TPI lines off of them. Firewall 4th tpi tube still connected and cant get that off. glad im not putting that crap back on. Going carb. Probably going to sell the throttle body, plenum, runners, and the rest for spare parts cash. They are all in really good shape.
11-15-2017, 02:29 AM
