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Good GRIEF!
(okay... calm down--- *whew*)
I type this with white knuckles of frustration after two days of trying to start this thing in the rain.
In KENT.
Which is not where I want it to be because I'm in SEATTLE and it rained, like, five inches today.
(take a deeeeeep breath... okay.)
1983 240 Turbo, automatic. Acquired the car with a bad head gasket, cracked turbo, blocked breather box and nearly fried wiring harness. It idled fine, but of course had no power and smoked like the dickens, I say.
I rebuilt the head, replaced the turbo, repaired the exposed wiring on the harness with heat shrink (not perfect, I know, but it never acted up before-- it just LOOKED bad), still smoked a lot so I replaced the blocked breather box and it's been running great for two months save for an idling problem which would occur if it was in neutral but NOT IN DRIVE: it would occasionally drop in idle every four seconds. I took it to my mechanic who had problems starting it (*a problem which I had never experienced previously).
He got it going by performing CPR on the rubber boot near the fuel distributor while an assistant cranked it, his reasoning being that a plate wasn't working correctly (stuck shut or open, I don't remember). He then messed with a little alan screw on the same unit to keep it from acting erratically. It ran fine for a week but then the idle problem came back, this time more often; When in neutral it would drop to the point of nearly dying, then regain its composure for another four seconds.
< < < WAIT WAIT WAIT! KEEP READING! THIS IS THE GOOD PART! > > >
A friend and I were hovering over the engine one day with it idling poorly, poking at things and saying "yep" a lot in an effort to pretend we know what was going on, when he pulled the dipstick out and it DIED.
Weird. I restarted it, and pulled the dipstick a little bit. It started to die so I shoved it back in and it came back to proper idle. I pulled it again, this time in between idle-drops and it STILL died. I tried it again and again, but it died every time I pulled the dipstick out.
I considered installing a new dipstick gasket but the idea seemed more ridiculous than flushing the windshield washer reservoir or replenishing my dome light... fluid. Or something.
Okay. So yesterday I drove to a crappy wrecking yard in Kent, WA. to get a part for a friend's car. It has been raining for three days. While I was there, I grabbed an OD relay to replace my failing one, which I did. I went to start the car after getting my glovebox back together and it would turn over, but no start. I figured I'd let it cool down and see if that fixed it, but an hour later it still didn't fire. Instead, it starts for a second, then dies immediately for the first few tries, then it will only crank. When it "starts" for that brief second, it seems to be running on two or three cylinders only. What would cause it to start then die immediately? I can hear the whirrr *click* of the fuel pump and relay, I'm getting spark, I cleaned/sanded the contacts in the dist. cap, installed new plugs, blocked the dipstick tube with a pen, and... uh-- changed the, uh, dome light fluid. I'm going to bed to dream of the answer. Any ideas?
Muchos gracias,
Ben
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