Car does not start. After taking the car out of gear, I can turn the main pulley on the front of the engine by hand. Turning the key to the "start" position results in a buzzing or humming noise. Does not sound like the starter is firing at all.
Begin removing starter. Two bolts, one from the front one from the back. The back broke without a problem, but the front will not break.
Starter tests bad. Hooking the battery directly to the starter results in absolutely nothing whatsoever from the starter. No clicks, no hums, no buzzing, nothing. $91 later at Kentucky Motors, I have a rebuilt starter.
Starter installs with no problems.
Hook up battery, replace plugs (which, by the way don't look bad at all). Engine fires right up.
Blueish-whitish-greyish smoke fills the garage. It's coming from the rear, the middle, and under the hood. After about 10-15 seconds, the smoke stops.
I take the car for a short drive. Just enough to get it up to temp. It actually is quite responsive, although for the first couple minutes of run-time, it wants to stall when I'm coming to a stop and put the clutch in.
There is an intermittant whining noise when my foot is on the gas pedal. Not necessarily when it's under heavy load, but as long as the gas pedal is slightly depressed, there's a noise. It isn't too bad, over all. It almost sounds like a turbo whine, but, of course, the car is naturally aspirated.
The steering is quite loose and the car wants to float all over the road. After getting used to it, though, it's not *that* bad.
I got a nasty suprise when I tried out the cruise control -- it's stuck in accellerate mode!
After removing the wires, I decided to have a look at the spare. Two bits of bad news: The cargo area carpeting is in pretty shoddy shape, as is the rubber mat below it, and I've got a significant amount of moisture in the spare tire well. No standing water, though, which is good, and no rust.
Also noticed that the driver's side door switch sticks. Need to fix that.
Also noticed that the lower, left-hand dash panel (where the mirror controls and dimmer switch are located) is cracked. Need to find one in burgundy.
Coming around the ramp from I75 south to I275 East (which is a long, banked, left turn) at somewhat significant speed, the low coolant light flicked on and back off. Temp has been holding at 1/2 of the gauge or just below.
The first project will be to look at the front end. Brakes, bearings, bushings, and balls. (As in recirculating balls). In terms of the brakes, I get some pedal pulsing and some scraping noises. I suspect the calipers are sticking.
The left caliper is shot, no doubt. The rubber boot around the piston is actually no longer there, that I can find. Trying to push the piston in by hand results in absolutely no movement. The right caliper isn't much better -- the boot is there, but flakes off when you bump it.
With the wheels off, I can get a good look at the bushings. On the left side, the outer tie rod end bushing is essentially gone, on the right side, it's in sorry shape. The inner tie rod bushings aren't much better. The ball joints are very sorry-looking, the dust cover for the strut is awful-looking, and the stabilizer bushings are trashed on both sides. An inspection aided by the parts catalog and the FSM leads me to decide that the following are bad:
- Right outer tie rod dustcap
- Left outer tie rod dustcap
- Right stabilizer bushings (where the stab. meets the control arm)
- Left stabilizer bushings (where the stab. meets the control arm)
- Right ball joint (I have not tested the joint yet. I
know that the boot is trashed, though)
I cannot get the brake rotors off, as I do not have the 14mm wrench needed. I will procure that tomorrow and continue, but in the meantime, I pulled out the wheel bearings. I cleaned all the parts and brought them inside. Upon inspection under a bright light and a magnifier, they look pretty decent. I'm going to get a second opinion about them, but since they're pretty easy to get to, I think they're going to get re-packed and re-installed.
Note: I need to remember to check out the outer races for the bearings.