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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!
Hey y'all! So I'm super new here... I have a 1984 Camaro Berlinetta with a 305 V8, which I have done very little work to since I've had it. Anyways I recently got it all registered and insured, and I noticed it was idling rough at stop lights, so I took the old QuadraJet carb off and sprayed all the different ports and jets. In addition, I cleaned the different sensors with a sensor cleaner. I don't know if I made things worse, but it idles even rougher than it did before. To the point where it'll shut off if I don't pump the gas... There's also a few sensors that aren't plugged into anything, and I'm stumped as to why it runs so horrible 😬
My mechanical knowledge is that of an 8 year old lol, when I pop the hood it kinda scares me I won't lie. But I want to learn and will take any advice that I can get! (:
That's kind of ... a mess. Several things are wrong with it that are far more significant than the ones you are focused on.
Worst is, you have the Coolant Temp Sensor Of Death. That's the thing in the water outlet (where the upper radiator hose connects). The original one, which you still have, has a sort of "coaxial" looking connector; round, with a center pin, and a ring around it. The connector that they used ALWAYS crumbles to dust and disappears, as yours has. The factory put some kind of strange black gooey spooge on it, that EATS the insulation off the wires, as your clearly has had happen, judging by the amount of electrical tape someone has mummified it with, in spite of which, you can still see bare wire in your photo. Replace it. Get one that comes with a new connector in the box, such as this https://www.autozone.com/p/duralast-...r-su102/248732. Cut the wires back to where they're undamaged and not crumbling before splicing on the new pigtail. DO NOT use the worthless Scotchlock connectors to connect the pigtail; instead, use solder and heat shrink tubing.
Then, there's a vacuum line going to the baro sensor (thing with the bright blue connector above the right valve cover). That sensor is supposed to be measuring barometric pressure, which is the ambient pressure in the atmosphere, and isn't supposed to have a vac line on it at all. The line looks like the one that should go to the EGR valve, which I can't see; it would be a UFO looking thing on the intake manifold behind and to the pass side of the carb. I think it might not be there at all, possibly because somebody changed out the intake manifold and the new one doesn't have provision for it, butt I can't be sure. That's not really a "problem" unless you're in a location that does "visual" emissions inspection such as California, in which case it will fail inspection for it not being visible. Remove that line and plug the port on the carb that it goes to.
The broken yellowed plastic connector remnant next to the carb looks like it used to go to the EGR solenoid, part of the same system discussed above. It also looks like the solenoid is not there anymore. In which case the connector has nothing to plug into anymore either.
The cylindrical thing with a wire coming out of each end above the distributor is a tach filter, to keep radio interference off of the wire going to the tach in the dash. It doesn't look like it has the right connectors for the car's wiring: one wire is supposed to plug into the dist where the white wire now is, next to the pink one, and that white wire is supposed to plug into the other wire of the filter. Not sure what's going on there with the mismatched connectors. Strange, butt not a big deal, as long as the tach works.
Looks suspiciously like you don't have the factory air cleaner. Hard to say what problems that might be causing.
Seems as though when they changed the intake, they left off all of the controls for the charcoal canister, and also the temp sensor for the EFE valve, which would have been in the hole in the water outlet next to the coolant temp sensor, that now has a shiny new Allen head pipe plug in it instead. Hard to say how much of the rest of that system is left, what condition it's in, etc.
The upper radiator hose looks like it's just about to burst, right next to the hose clamp. Change that out while you're working on the coolant temp sensor right next to it.
I see abuncha random red wire somebody graunched in there, over by the right fender. Real sloppy. Not factory. Looks kinda scary. Probably goes to something that doesn't need to be there. I'd investigate that and get rid of it; if it goes to something useful, I'd do a better, neater, more sanitary job, instead of just raw sodomization.
A trip to the quarter (dollar? debit card?) car wash, with acoupla cans of engine degreaser, would be advised; would make it ahelluvalot less unpleasant to work on. At least, I sure don't like working in a giant ball of s*** like that. It's amazing how much less trouble it is to work on something that's clean, and that you see what colors things are and stuff like that. Be careful not to aim the wand directly at anything electrical up close of course, butt other than that, clean it up so you can see what you're working on, and not have to take a shower every time you touch it.
Last edited by sofakingdom; Yesterday at 10:12 AM.
Sofa sure knows these carb'd engines better than I do. So I'll defer to his judgment on everything he mentioned. Just one item of note, and a question.
When running, is there an amber colored check engine or service engine lamp on in the gauge cluster?
Those spark plug wires that say "Packard Delcore" on them.....Packard was GM's captive supplier for wiring harnesses and spark plug wires for many decades. If those have ever been changed, someone went to the trouble to find original manufacturer plug wires. I'd be willing to bet those might be original to the car, meaning they are quite old. Old doesn't necessarily mean bad, but they are a consumable, wear item, as the jacket on the outside of the wire breaks down over time, which can lead to misfires. While not likely to be part of a stalling problem, running 42 year old wires is probably not helping, and if I were you, I'd have replacing them on my near-term to-do list. Change them one at a time, so you don't get them mixed up, and route them as the factory did, through any remaining factory clips and retainers, to keep the wires away from hot or moving objects. No need to go gonzo with "high performance" wire, just a good quality tune-up set will do the trick. Checking plugs while at it would not be unwise also. Cap and rotor for the distributor too. Starting to slide down the full tune-up path here, but it is what it is.
That's kind of ... a mess. Several things are wrong with it that are far more significant than the ones you are focused on.
Worst is, you have the Coolant Temp Sensor Of Death. That's the thing in the water outlet (where the upper radiator hose connects). The original one, which you still have, has a sort of "coaxial" looking connector; round, with a center pin, and a ring around it. The connector that they used ALWAYS crumbles to dust and disappears, as yours has. The factory put some kind of strange black gooey spooge on it, that EATS the insulation off the wires, as your clearly has had happen, judging by the amount of electrical tape someone has mummified it with, in spite of which, you can still see bare wire in your photo. Replace it. Get one that comes with a new connector in the box, such as this https://www.autozone.com/p/duralast-...r-su102/248732. Cut the wires back to where they're undamaged and not crumbling before splicing on the new pigtail. DO NOT use the worthless Scotchlock connectors to connect the pigtail; instead, use solder and heat shrink tubing.
Then, there's a vacuum line going to the baro sensor (thing with the bright blue connector above the right valve cover). That sensor is supposed to be measuring barometric pressure, which is the ambient pressure in the atmosphere, and isn't supposed to have a vac line on it at all. The line looks like the one that should go to the EGR valve, which I can't see; it would be a UFO looking thing on the intake manifold behind and to the pass side of the carb. I think it might not be there at all, possibly because somebody changed out the intake manifold and the new one doesn't have provision for it, butt I can't be sure. That's not really a "problem" unless you're in a location that does "visual" emissions inspection such as California, in which case it will fail inspection for it not being visible. Remove that line and plug the port on the carb that it goes to.
The broken yellowed plastic connector remnant next to the carb looks like it used to go to the EGR solenoid, part of the same system discussed above. It also looks like the solenoid is not there anymore. In which case the connector has nothing to plug into anymore either.
The cylindrical thing with a wire coming out of each end above the distributor is a tach filter, to keep radio interference off of the wire going to the tach in the dash. It doesn't look like it has the right connectors for the car's wiring: one wire is supposed to plug into the dist where the white wire now is, next to the pink one, and that white wire is supposed to plug into the other wire of the filter. Not sure what's going on there with the mismatched connectors. Strange, butt not a big deal, as long as the tach works.
Looks suspiciously like you don't have the factory air cleaner. Hard to say what problems that might be causing.
Seems as though when they changed the intake, they left off all of the controls for the charcoal canister, and also the temp sensor for the EFE valve, which would have been in the hole in the water outlet next to the coolant temp sensor, that now has a shiny new Allen head pipe plug in it instead. Hard to say how much of the rest of that system is left, what condition it's in, etc.
The upper radiator hose looks like it's just about to burst, right next to the hose clamp. Change that out while you're working on the coolant temp sensor right next to it.
I see abuncha random red wire somebody graunched in there, over by the right fender. Real sloppy. Not factory. Looks kinda scary. Probably goes to something that doesn't need to be there. I'd investigate that and get rid of it; if it goes to something useful, I'd do a better, neater, more sanitary job, instead of just raw sodomization.
A trip to the quarter (dollar? debit card?) car wash, with acoupla cans of engine degreaser, would be advised; would make it ahelluvalot less unpleasant to work on. At least, I sure don't like working in a giant ball of s*** like that. It's amazing how much less trouble it is to work on something that's clean, and that you see what colors things are and stuff like that. Be careful not to aim the wand directly at anything electrical up close of course, butt other than that, clean it up so you can see what you're working on, and not have to take a shower every time you touch it.
I picked up that exact coolant sensor at autozone on my lunch break just a bit ago! I'm gonna go get some shrink connectors and see if I can fix it.
I appreciate the feedback man! This gives me some hope hahah
Last edited by EliasSchermy117; Yesterday at 04:07 PM.
Sofa sure knows these carb'd engines better than I do. So I'll defer to his judgment on everything he mentioned. Just one item of note, and a question.
When running, is there an amber colored check engine or service engine lamp on in the gauge cluster?
Those spark plug wires that say "Packard Delcore" on them.....Packard was GM's captive supplier for wiring harnesses and spark plug wires for many decades. If those have ever been changed, someone went to the trouble to find original manufacturer plug wires. I'd be willing to bet those might be original to the car, meaning they are quite old. Old doesn't necessarily mean bad, but they are a consumable, wear item, as the jacket on the outside of the wire breaks down over time, which can lead to misfires. While not likely to be part of a stalling problem, running 42 year old wires is probably not helping, and if I were you, I'd have replacing them on my near-term to-do list. Change them one at a time, so you don't get them mixed up, and route them as the factory did, through any remaining factory clips and retainers, to keep the wires away from hot or moving objects. No need to go gonzo with "high performance" wire, just a good quality tune-up set will do the trick. Checking plugs while at it would not be unwise also. Cap and rotor for the distributor too. Starting to slide down the full tune-up path here, but it is what it is.
It only has 60,000 miles, and sat in a driveway basically it's entire life... So I believe the wires are original. Would it be best to buy an entire spark kit? And kinda just do it all at once?
Never heard of any such thing. Of course, I'm only just starting out in this hobby, with only a half century or maybe more of experience; so who knows. Maybe it's just been introduced?
Cap, rotor, and plugs are kinda the "standard" tune-up for a motor like this. Plug wires are a good add-on when they seem old, damaged, burnt, etc. Any of the top-line ignition parts brands (Standard, B-W, AC Delco, etc.) are fine for tune-up parts, as well as any of the other OEM grade brands (Motorcraft, Denso, NGK, Champion, Bosch, etc.) for plugs. AC Delco is no better than any of those others, and no worse; don't fall for the hype and lighten your wallet for nothing. Avoid anything cheeeeeeep. Avoid "gimmick" plugs. Remember, all that any of the precious metals (platinum, rhodium, etc.) do for plugs, is increase longevity; as far as "working" or any of that, they add NOTHING. Don't fall for the hype. Also, don't fall for the wide gap hype; of all the things that determine how an engine runs, plug gap is WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY down at the bottom of the list. Increasing the gap also increase the stress on EVERYTHING ELSE in the ignition system, so don't do it. Keep the gap around .040" - .045".
Wires are a bit of a problem. The stock configuration for that engine has 2 straight ends at the plugs on #2 & #4 and 6 90° ends on all the others, plus of course, a WIDE variety of lengths. Impossible to get as a "set" except by putting out ALOT of long green and I'm not even totally sure it's available that way anymore from anyone at any price. Plus, their routing is very difficult, especially on the driver's side, where they go underneath the exh manifold. I'd suggest waiting on those until/unless you find you ABSOLUTELY MUST replace them. Be VERY careful removing them from the plugs and the cap; treat them with great delicacy and care; and use a bit of dielectric grease just inside the boots, both to seal them against water, and so that they come off again easier in the future. Do the cap, wire, and plugs, and don't replace the wires until you're sure they need it, and you're ready.
Last edited by sofakingdom; Yesterday at 05:50 PM.
