85_SS_302_Coupe
09-20-2010, 03:07 PM
Sorry this is long winded, but it's a bit complicated...
I've been having this issue with my car...i have no damn clue what it could be. It's very intermittent and very unpredictable. Most of the time this car runs fantastic...i mean you wouldn't believe how good this car runs. The engine is so quiet all you can hear are the belts spinning...you can rev it to the rev limiter and it's smooth as silk.
When it acts up...you can start the car and it idles, but sometimes it idles rough. You can rev it up as high as you want and it revs fine...But, put it in gear and try to take off and it bucks so bad that it's undrivable, has no power and barely moves...but, you push in the clutch and it'll idle again, rev up etc. It just won't drive. I've checked for vacuum leaks, checked the fuel filter, it has a recent full tune up...all the usual fuel/ignition things have been checked.
I have a few theories on this...first is that the choke doesn't work...and this issue just recently started happening, the first time was leaving work early in the morning and it was one of the first 40-50 degree days out. I didn't let the car warm up, just got in and left, and 1/2 mile down the road the bucking started. If you've driven a chokeless carbed car, you know that some bucking is normal until it warms up. My thought is that the bucking from being cold caused it to flood out and exaggerated the bucking even worse until the point that it's undrivable. This makes sense to me because the next day the car always starts up and runs fine as usual, plus i've been driving it the last couple days and making sure i warm it up before taking off.
My second thought is this....and i'm gonna quote myself from the Festiva forum to save typing:
So today, i bought a new PCV valve and put it on and went for a drive. For some reason today it has a surging idle...probably 500hp up and down. So i pulled over i went to pull off the breather, and when i pulled off the little S shaped hose that goes from the valve cover to the breather, it expelled a TON of air like unhooking an air compressor hose. Then i pulled out the PCV and it did the same thing...the crank case isn't breathing. So i blew through that S hose and found it was tightly packed with this:
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee275/EVIL85SSP/0920101256a.jpg
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee275/EVIL85SSP/0920101255a.jpg
When i pulled it apart, i could see it's some kind of woven fabric, looks a little bit like a red shop rag. It was packed so tight inside that hose i had to jam it out with a screw driver and needle nose. It's not part of the little filter in the side of the breather either...that's a fiberglass kind of material and it was in good shape aside from being filthy. If i'm not mistaken, the PCV sucks air out and this hose pulls air in...right? So where the hell could this have come from??? I don't even use those rags so it isn't from me and it seems the only way it could've come in was from the breather area. Also all this time, it hasn't blown off air when taking that hose off, so it either wasn't totally packed and plugged yet or this just came from somewhere and plugged that hose. I don't even think it could've gotten in from the breather because the filter was there and there's no room for a piece of rag to get in there.
So anyway i pulled all that crap out of the hose and hooked it all back up and after a few minutes the surging idle went away. So i drove it around town and onto the highway and it *seems* to be running normal again. Who thinks this could've been the problem all along?
:confused: No clue what that crap is all about. Does ANYBODY have any experience with these cars or have any idea what could be happening? I just drove it and it's running awesome again but i'm skittish about driving it long distances now.
Actually come to think of it, when the car is idling if you pull that S hose off, it's BLOWING air out of the valve cover....could that rag have come from inside the engine???
I've been having this issue with my car...i have no damn clue what it could be. It's very intermittent and very unpredictable. Most of the time this car runs fantastic...i mean you wouldn't believe how good this car runs. The engine is so quiet all you can hear are the belts spinning...you can rev it to the rev limiter and it's smooth as silk.
When it acts up...you can start the car and it idles, but sometimes it idles rough. You can rev it up as high as you want and it revs fine...But, put it in gear and try to take off and it bucks so bad that it's undrivable, has no power and barely moves...but, you push in the clutch and it'll idle again, rev up etc. It just won't drive. I've checked for vacuum leaks, checked the fuel filter, it has a recent full tune up...all the usual fuel/ignition things have been checked.
I have a few theories on this...first is that the choke doesn't work...and this issue just recently started happening, the first time was leaving work early in the morning and it was one of the first 40-50 degree days out. I didn't let the car warm up, just got in and left, and 1/2 mile down the road the bucking started. If you've driven a chokeless carbed car, you know that some bucking is normal until it warms up. My thought is that the bucking from being cold caused it to flood out and exaggerated the bucking even worse until the point that it's undrivable. This makes sense to me because the next day the car always starts up and runs fine as usual, plus i've been driving it the last couple days and making sure i warm it up before taking off.
My second thought is this....and i'm gonna quote myself from the Festiva forum to save typing:
So today, i bought a new PCV valve and put it on and went for a drive. For some reason today it has a surging idle...probably 500hp up and down. So i pulled over i went to pull off the breather, and when i pulled off the little S shaped hose that goes from the valve cover to the breather, it expelled a TON of air like unhooking an air compressor hose. Then i pulled out the PCV and it did the same thing...the crank case isn't breathing. So i blew through that S hose and found it was tightly packed with this:
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee275/EVIL85SSP/0920101256a.jpg
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee275/EVIL85SSP/0920101255a.jpg
When i pulled it apart, i could see it's some kind of woven fabric, looks a little bit like a red shop rag. It was packed so tight inside that hose i had to jam it out with a screw driver and needle nose. It's not part of the little filter in the side of the breather either...that's a fiberglass kind of material and it was in good shape aside from being filthy. If i'm not mistaken, the PCV sucks air out and this hose pulls air in...right? So where the hell could this have come from??? I don't even use those rags so it isn't from me and it seems the only way it could've come in was from the breather area. Also all this time, it hasn't blown off air when taking that hose off, so it either wasn't totally packed and plugged yet or this just came from somewhere and plugged that hose. I don't even think it could've gotten in from the breather because the filter was there and there's no room for a piece of rag to get in there.
So anyway i pulled all that crap out of the hose and hooked it all back up and after a few minutes the surging idle went away. So i drove it around town and onto the highway and it *seems* to be running normal again. Who thinks this could've been the problem all along?
:confused: No clue what that crap is all about. Does ANYBODY have any experience with these cars or have any idea what could be happening? I just drove it and it's running awesome again but i'm skittish about driving it long distances now.
Actually come to think of it, when the car is idling if you pull that S hose off, it's BLOWING air out of the valve cover....could that rag have come from inside the engine???