Tom,
We picked up my sons 88 in North Carolina this past weekend. I was a little nervous about driving the car 1,000 back miles to Oklahoma. But, alas, no problems.
Question 1.
when connected, the headlight motors spin, but do not open or retract. This sounds like the dreaded worn nylon gear, right?
Q2.
It quit idling after we got it home. Searched your threads about cleaning the IAC. It works! But shouldn't I thoroughly flush the plenum/manifold free of Carbon? If so, does someone make a good cleaner? Any recommendations?
Q3.
Ran codes and got 32 and 34. Will replace the "original" EGR, but looks as though previous owner installed a reman MAF. Disconnected battery, lights on to drain ECM, still codes 34. So, any suggestions here?
Q4.
How do I post a picture of the car in my future threads?

Are you sure you're not a mechanic? You sure give great advice.

Later Dude,

 

The whirring motor means that the bearings inside the gears have disintegrated. You're going to have to replace them with steel ones, or something comparable. On the Body & Interior board, there is a guy, Steve Scauffel, goes by scauffel, or scauffiel, however he spells it. Anyways, he has a tech article on how to replace the bearings. It takes maybe a couple hours of your time, max, and the cost is less than $5. If I can find it, I'll post the article here for you.

 

89V6, yeah, if you can find that article, let us know!

89V6 covered that one. A fun tip, 82-86 headlight actuator motors are 3-wire units, 87-92 are 2-wire ones. Some parts might not interchange between the two.

I note this under my Major TuneUp messages; I use "Throttle body and intake cleaner for fuel injected engines" by GumOut. I've also seen "tuneup spray for fuel injected engines". As long as the label says "fuel-injected engines", and not "carb-cleaner", the cleaner will be safe. You spray it into the TB with the engine running. Spray in bursts, like, say, a minute long, while working the throttle, then let the engine idle for a bit. Otherwise, you can overheat (and damage) your catalytic convertor.


If you can work a voltmeter/multimeter, sure, I've got an answer! It's not as bad as it looks, print it out, and go through it with a red pen: https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...threadid=61033

As to code 32, if you search for it (upper right hand corner of this screen, make sure to choose "V6 Forum"), you'll find some hints. It might just be that a vacuum line in the EGR circuit is cracked.

When you reply, look below the "message" area, below the gray "options" area, you'll see "attach file". Browse to your comptuer's hard drive, and click on the filename of your pic.

And thanks, I try... I'm not a professional mechanic- I could never deal with some people's attitudes. I've seen some mechanics take some serious crap from people, people who were obviously wrong, and they just sucked it up. Granted, they have to, but I'd be the idiot telling them "if you don't like it, then get your f'ing car out of my f'ing shop and never come back!" and then I'd have no customers. But the car's my hobby, and so far, I've had everything out except my motor and the whole (door-to-door) dashboard. I swapped a friend's 2.8 for another 2.8 ( http://www.geocities.com/tomp_3rdgen ) if that counts! Plus I hate to hear people spending $500 at a dealership for something they could do themselves for $100. One of the things I pride myself in is that even though I may "just have a V6", I know a hell of a lot more than most of the V8 owners I've seen- and those V8 owners are usually teh guys that say "why don't you just put a V8 in?" The "gearhead" v8 owners never seem to say that. But there's a lot of other people in here that know a boatload, too, so you might not want to address a message just to me. Guys like 89V6 might take offense, and not bother to read your message, even though they have an answer.

Let us All know how it goes!

 

Thanks 89V6 & TomP.
As for the headlight issue, yes I would like to see the thread on replacing the bearings if thats what is req'd. I have not seen these work in action correctly, maybe I should find a local 3rd Gen Bird owner to see how. The motors spin the manual raise ***** at a pretty good speed, but do not make what I consider excessive "whirrring" sound? I'll search the threads as suggested.

This is really one fun car to drive.

We average 27+ mpg through the mountains of North Carlonis and East Tennessee. We actually got 30.2 the rest of the way. Not bad for a tame sports car, huh?

Thanks again guys,

Later Dude

 

AA88Fbird, you got a nice lookin 'bird there. Keep it shining, what color red is that?

I posted steve's article on my website, I hope he doesn't get mad, but I lost the bookmark for his page. It's exactly the same as he wrote it though.

http://www.geocities.com/fire089/HeadlightRepair.htm

Enjoy guys.

 

My son refers to it as "ARREST-ME-RED"!

 

Haha my car looks the same as yours, except my rims look gay >:|

 

while we're at it:

 

and den:

 

and..... check out my clean engine bay Spent a long time on that. Simple Green works wounders! With the garden hose (I put a bag over the dist, made sure the engine wasnt warm, and didnt get the alt too wet) Resaults:

 

and

 

TomP & 89V6,
Ran the vacuum line check as advised and "voila", vacuum line was cracked and taped off by previous owner/mechanic. The suspect line ran from a diaghram under the plenum to a double vacuum line port next to the IAC. So far, no SES light. Will give it a few days to "stableize" the computer.

Also checked the recommended headlight repair sites and have the required parts. Will attempt a headlight motor overhaul one night this week.

Thanks again guys...

 

Glad to hear the code's fixed! Yeah, that diapragm is the fuel pressure regulator; you'll see a ton of "performance" messages about it in here Let us know how the headlight rebuild goes!

 

Hey TomP and 89V6,

The headlight fix went great. The thread 89V6 suggested worked like a charm. The "suspected" ball bearings were totally shot and pulverized into little tiny granules. I've been an airline mechanic for nearly twenty years and never seen a bearing failure like that. Of course, we use good steel in our bearing applications, not plastic. And that is exactly what I used, some old scrap ***** from a #1 bearing from JT8D-200 Pratt & Whitney engine. They had been scrapped from the vendor as unserviceable, but they worked for me. The OD was .430" dia, but fit fine.
Estimated cost of the repair about .15 cents in white lithium (Lubriplate) grease and 1 1/2 pound of sweat (+98F here in Tulsa).

Sure beats $200.00 for each motor from GM, huh?

BTW, the SES light is still "out".

Thanks again,

Later dudes....:hail: :hail:

 

Hey mike, how is that cold air intake put together? Nice car BTW