From: bhhardy@cs.utk.edu (Barbara Hardy)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech
Subject: Thanks to folks who helped with carb! (The problem and the solution)
Date: 9 Nov 92 14:40:24 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Distribution: na
Summary: Revisitation of problem and what turned out to be the problem(s)

** This is fairly long - I am being long-winded to properly thank
those who were so VERY patient with me and also to hopefully help out
those other newbies out there. **


Hi All! THis is a posting to update those that might be curious about
what finally happened to my 1985 Dodge Omni/2.2L/non-turbo that was
having a slew of problems. 

To wit: a sudden unexplained breakdown due to the loss of the Dallas
Cowboys to the Philedelphia Eagles way back some Monday nights ago,
and something that manifested itself only in a sudden huge power loss
and symptoms of no fuel reaching the engine. I posted later that I had
tightened down the air cleaner and that seemed to have solved the
problem. "Not," as it turned out. I was able to get the car out to the
road, about 1/4 mile from here, then it did exactly the same thing.
(Expletive deleted.)

So... I looked again for the things that people here on the net
recommended:

  * Vaccum leak.
  * Vaccum leak.
  * Vaccum leak.

And... lo and behold, there was a big ol hose running from the vapor
canister into the intake manifold with a rather enormous cut in the
tube! Go figure how it got there...? SO I replaced that, started the
car and... I couldn't keep it going. A whole new problem! At least
before I could get it to run for a few seconds!

Well, it turns out that in the process of trying to get to said hose,
I had to bend back part of a rubber fuel line. I thought that maybe
something had broken loose on the inside and was clogging the carb, so
I disconnected that part of the fuel line and poured it into a glass.

EEK! Black gucky rubber scum! 

Clearly this was a problem. So even after swearing to myself months
ago that I would never see the inside of that carb again, and asking a
couple of local mechanics some questions (read pestering), I decided
to have a look. I took it off, and gratifyingly enough, there was
*more* black gucky rubber scum! So I cleaned the jets and bleeds, blew
out all the passages, replaced a couple of gaskets, and put it back
on.... (I think I must have waited for half an hour before I got up
the courage to try starting the car... is the suspense killing you
yet?)

Well, it started, much to my screaming delight!

Then I got the the business of ignition timing, and seeing that little
dot come around on the flywheel... very exciting! Also, I replaced the
spark plug wires, finally got the distributor cap off in spite of
that cleverly bolted down splash guard, and oh my... why is there a
*groove* on the inside one side of the cap? Why, that was because the
rotor button was gone and bits of it, as it wore away, got stuck
between the rotor body and the cap. Replaced them, too.


So, to make a looong frustrating story shorter, the carb was taken off
and given a thorough cleaning, I replaced all the fuel lines I could
get my hands on, blew out everything I could, replaced the busted
vapor return hose from the canister, and replaced the rest of the
vaccum hoses that I could get to. (The fuel filter I am going to
replace soon, even though I replaced it about 3K miles ago. It is
cheap, and I've made assumptions before that turned out to be *very*
wrong.)


So... I think that covers it! I still have a few problems, but at
least I know what some of the problems are NOT!

Thanks again, very, very, much to the people who wrote to me! The net
is a wonderful resource only because people make it so! I am much more
confident about working on my beast, because I know a whole lot more.

Barbara Hardy 

bhhardy@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu


ps -- To the person who never posts, but writes very clear,
informative letters, full of helpful suggestions, a special thank you!
You helped enormously, and my apologies for deleting your mail before
I wrote you back to say thank you!