September 9, 2023 • 35 mins
Ron starts this episode with a story about changing a starter on a Camaro : takes a call on an 84 Eldorado where the engine races when coming to a stop : makes a comment on labor rates : takes a call on a 93 F250 that is having electric transmission issues after it was rebuilt.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Roan Ananian, I'm finding front of you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
These are the voyages of the Car Doctor.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It's five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to
seek out new life and new civilizations, to both of
the go when no one has gone before time.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Ran Anian thinking out loud, what is the value of
order repairing? And I'm just concerned about it because I
wonder how do you measure it? Fascinating but quite impossible.
The car Doctor, how do I trust the three plugs
that are in the back, I've got to take those out.
To take those out, I've got to take the intake
plunem walth if I'm taking the intake plenum wealth. I'm
changing the plugs because I don't know how old they are,
(00:49):
But four of the six plugs ended up being loose.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
What he says is logical, and I do, in fact
agree with it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to the radio home of Ronananian, the car since
nineteen ninety one. This is where car owners the world
overturned to for their definitive opinion on automotive repair. If
your mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up the
phone and call in.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
The garage doors are opening. My name is Ron anian,
I'm a doctor, but I am here to take your
calls at eight five five five six, ninety nine hundred
and now.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I'm a doctor, not a mechanic.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
He running.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
In nineteen sixty seven, Chevrolet came out with the Camaro.
Neat little car, right, How many of you had one?
Three twenty seven powerglide, four barrel, simple basic, A good car, right,
just and it's evolved over the years. It just went
on and on and on, and now it's grown up
into what it is this generation currently out there. That
(01:49):
sixty seven Camaro was really kind of pretty easy to
work on. You you could fix it on the side
of the road with a variety of tools, utensils and
kinchin implements. It was really sort of a basic automobile,
and I think that was the selling point.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Cars were simpler in the sixties, for sure, but the
Camaro was at the pinnacle of it. It was what
we called the pony car. It had appeal, It appealed
to the youth market. It was affordable, and it was
fairly easy to work on. You could put a starter
in a Camaro all right in under a half hour
twenty minutes. It sure has changed. We had twenty sixteen
(02:26):
SS Camaro in the shop this week, six point two liter.
I guess their version of what we would call a
big block Camaro. The customer had just stopped for gas.
They went somewhere, they stopped for fuel, went to start it,
and he said, Ron, there was this big puff of
smoke that came out of the right side under the hood.
Like he said, it kind of reminded me of the
(02:47):
Wizard of Oz, you know, that moment when Dorothy looks
behind the curtain or when they see the Great Wizard
appear for the first time on the screen. This big
poof and he said in it smelled something burned. You
could tell something was h The sad part is when
this poor Camaro got stuck. It was a convertible. The
top was down and the convertible top no longer worked,
(03:10):
and the electric parking brake was stuck on. So they
kind of dragged it up onto the back of a
flatbed and towed it into the shop. You know, it
kind of made me look at the future right in
terms of made me think about cars with automatic electric
parking brakes when they automatically apply and then what happens
when the electrical system goes dead. What happens when you've
got a convertible and the tops down and it's going
(03:31):
to rain out, and just a lot of a lot
of dependent upon electric stuff working correctly. It's just amazing
how we've come so far, and I think in some
cases gone so wrong. So we looked at this Camaro
and you know, you could hear it. You'd push the
button on the dash and you'd hear this pop, sizzle
(03:53):
and crackle from under the right side of the engine.
And we put it up in the air head Danny
on in the car on the lift, and I listened
to it underneath and you can hear pop, sizzle, crack,
and I went, yeah, that's that's kind of a problem.
I think we have to sort of look at that
and see what we're going to do here, and yeah,
it's got to need a starter. At least. We've got
to get to whatever it is underneath that shield, which
(04:13):
was the starter. We've got to look and see. There
was one bulletin that sounded like it could apply. They
talk about problems with the wiring at the starter, blowing
the three hundred and fifty A fuse back at the
Brewer battery box in the trunk. The fuse was good,
and I didn't think so, but we always had that
in the back of our mind. But regardless, we've got
to start at the starter. We've got to, you know,
(04:35):
we've got to get a look at it. You know,
when you're run into a job you haven't done in
a while, or when you haven't done at all, you
always I always go to the labor guid I want
that refreshmer. I look at procedure, but procedure doesn't tell
me a lot. They'll tell me how to take it apart,
which you know, for the most part you can figure
out and you're heading a lot of cases. But I
want to see the time. I want to see what
kind of time they're predicting. That tells me what's really
(04:57):
what I'm really up against. When I saw little over
six hours to put a starter in a camaro, I
knew I was in for it because I said, this
is going to be where GM shines. And I said
to Danny, I said, you know what GM stands for,
and he said, no one is young eager to learn voice.
I said, GM giant mistakes, and here's where you're going
to see it. To put a starter in a twenty
(05:18):
sixteen Camaro and all Camaros that generation. You have to
pull the catalytic converter on the right side. You have
to pull the radiator serge tank. It's nice if you
can get the heater hoses out of the way, which,
by the way, run over the top of the exhaust manifold.
So the rubber hoses, they're not melted, but they're sort
of sticky stuck to the plastic nipples on the heater core,
and if you pull on them too hard you'll break
(05:39):
the heater nipples off. So you want to be gentle
because it's a very soft aluminum heater cord. It's not
the most durable. We ended up taking the clamps off
and slitting the hoses and we're putting new hoses on
it Monday when we finished the job. And then you
have to take the exhaust manifold out.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
To add insult to injury, the LS series GM engines,
they're exhaust manifold bolts. They've been a problem over the years,
and I don't know if GM's gotten it right yet.
In order to get the bolts out, because they put
some sort of a threadlock and compound on the bolts.
I guess they're afraid they're going to fall off or something.
And we had to use our inductive heater and inductive
(06:16):
heat at each bolt, and you know, just get them
to where they sort of sizzle and crackle.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
On their own.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And pulled the bolt out and pulled the manifold off,
and now you can see the starter, and then you
can see that the copper braid running from the starter
solinoid down to what would be the starter motor is burnt.
It's fried. You know, it's just done. And you think
to yourself, what if this was a ten year old car.
(06:43):
This is a seven year old car with thirty six
thousand miles on it? What if this was a ten
year old car with one hundred thousand miles on it?
One hundred and twenty thousand miles on it? Because I
always looked further. You know what if it was an
everyday use vehicle? Would it hold up? How easily would
it come apart? Could you get it apart? Creating the
very ad dish, very definition of throwaway cars simply by
(07:05):
making it more difficult to repair them. And I think
we are so on one hand, and this is what really,
you know, you start to think about this, it's like
twilight zone stupidity. We're trying to clean up the environment
and emissions and make the world a cleaner, better place environmentally,
(07:26):
but we're designing cars that are so difficult to work on,
or so often go down the path of cannot be
repaired easily or economically. You throw the car away, and
I don't. I don't justify that. I can't justify that
in my mind. That doesn't make any sense to me
in my mind, because it takes an awful lot. You know,
(07:47):
if you want to measure carbon footprints, it's it's this
carbon footprint ruler that they use. It can't be a
small one to manufacture an automobile. All the requirements and
all the things that the environment has to go through,
and all the hits that it takes in order to
produce that one car, and yet we'll throw it away
at the drop of a hat. I've got another customer
(08:08):
in the shop this week with a twenty sixteen suburban
two hundred and ten thousand miles on it, and I
give Brian a lot of credit. He bought the car
from a cousin up in Michigan. He brought it down
he said, Ron, I want you to fix this. It's
got a cold start misfire, and I don't plan on
buying a new suburban. I want to make this one
(08:28):
work because otherwise it's in good shape.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And it is.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's in pretty good shape for really a two hundred
thousand mile seven year old vehicle. Starter's easier to do.
I happened to look at that, and it made me
realize how much I'd rather work on the suburban than
the Camaro. And my point becomes that cars can run
in perpetuity. I think they can. I think it's a
matter of parts. I think it's obviously it's a matter
(08:51):
of intelligent mechanics, which I know is in short supply
because you know there's a lot of posers out there.
But it's going to come down to parts. It's going
to come down on two patients. It's going to come
down to because the cost to replace either that suburban
is one hundred grand now and the cost to replace
that Camaro is sixty five thousand now. And you know,
(09:12):
the conversation isn't about gee, are either one of them?
Pres No, I'm just saying replacement value. So get ready
because you're about to go on mister Toad's wild ride.
You're going to be spending more to fix the car,
You're going to be spending more to buy the car.
You just want to be sure that whatever you're spending,
you're spending it correctly. And if you're fixing it, you
want to make sure you've got good, solid information. And
(09:33):
that's what brought you here in the first place. Hello
and welcome. I'm glad to have you here with me
this hour, and I look forward to our conversational exchange
at eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
By the way, that Camaro just so impressed me in
terms of stupidity. We actually shot a little video of
(09:53):
it short, it's about a minute and a half. It's
up on YouTube. It's up on the Car Doctor Facebook page,
as a matter of fact, and it's it's we didn't
go into too much detail, and then we showed you
how buried it is on the right side, and you'll
get a really you know, it's kind of like looking
down the Grand Canyon at a donkey. Right at the
bottom of the canyon. You just kind of tunnel vision
right down and you go, holy smokes, there's the starter.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
That engine compartment looked awfully empty.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, well it's empty now because it's all spread out
on the bench in front of it. Tom, and you know,
and I'll tell you what, this isn't the only place
where GM made the mistake. The day before, maybe Danny
and I invoked the spirit, the spiritual karma of starter
replacement gods, because the day before we serviced a customer's
twenty eighteen Chevy Colorado rear wheel drive with a V
(10:42):
six and I was walking past him going up to
the office for something, and he was doing the service
and he said, hey, come here, look where the starter is.
And I looked up and I never realized it because
we're just starting to see these vehicles in abundance now.
But to replace the starter on a V six Colorado,
you've got to take out the left the motormount. I
mean out, there's no it's got to be out. There's
(11:05):
just no way you're going to get to the starter
or get it out of the vehicle. And the really
amazingly stupid part is they've got steel bolts going into
aluminum brackets. And you know, at one hundred thousand miles
after a couple of winters in Jersey, roads or high
rust area roads. You know how those bolts are not
going to come out and just fight you every step
of the way. And if it's a four wheel drive,
(11:27):
because it was nice, we sort of had a big
open view of where the differential wasn't upfront. I think
you have to take the differential out too, So I
looked up book time on that. That's six and a
half hours, five point nine if it doesn't have if
it doesn't have four wheel drive, which I you know,
either way it's a day's labor. So if you start
to calculate labor rates, which I know we're not supposed
(11:50):
to do so we will. You know, if you imagine
the labor rate of a current shop on average is
probably between one hundred and twenty five and one hundred
and fifty bucks an hour. Six hours at a buck
and a half, is that nine hundre of dollars. I
was talking to a friend of mine at a Chevy
dealership the other day and I was stunned, and we
were He had a question about a couple of things,
and I was telling him about my Starter experiences this week,
(12:12):
and somehow we got on the subject of labor rates,
and one of the local Chevy dealers around US is
planning to go from I think their current labor rate,
he said, is going to go this week coming to
two hundred and forty dollars an hour to work on
a Chevrolet. It's not a Ferrari, it's a Chevrolet. And
by the end of the year, the new owners want
to get it up to three hundred dollars an hour
(12:33):
two ninety nine for working on a Chevrolet. Does that
mean if you go in and I said this to
myself last night, I was thinking about this, if you
get a bad replacement for fifteen minutes, is it fifteen
minutes of three hundred? Is it seventy five bucks to
get a tail like ball replaced? A five five five
six zero nine nine zero zero. I'm running any of
the car doctor, come on back, we'll talk about it.
I'll return right after this.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Whether it's a little red Corvette or you go. You've
come to the right place to get that car fixed.
Ron An ay in the car doctor eight five five
five six zero nine nine zero zero.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Now back to ron Hey, let's get over to Dale
in Virginia. Eighty four Cadillac Eldorado and a forty one hundred, dal,
Welcome to the car doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Well, it's like this, all right, all right, whenever you
drive it, after forty five minutes to an r come
to a stoplight or stop signed, don't matter which, the
motor revs up to about twenty five hundred maybe three
thousand RPMs, and the only way you can get it down
is put up neutral, put your foot on a celebrator,
(13:47):
press it all the way down quickly, and top it
and then the aisle goes down and you're good until
you come to another stop or or stop light or
stop sign. What the heck is causing that?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Okay, so let's talk about this. This is an eighty
four El Dorado with a forty one Caddy motor correct
the four point one right, So the good point, the
good news is if you can find service information for
this vehicle, you can actually diagnose this right through the
air conditioning control head there is Those cars have built
(14:19):
in diagnostics, and I believe it was. It's sort of
like a scene that was in Top Gun Maverick when
he sat in the plenty when it's going to be
a minute map. If I remember correctly, it's off warmer
and AC button and if you hold it down, you'll
put the vehicle into self diagnostics. The only the only
thing you want to make sure of is from there.
And this is where if you have information in front
(14:40):
of you, you can actually scroll through and read any fault
codes and you can actually diagnose and specifically look at
things like the idle speed control motor that has this
is a this is a dual throat, dual injected throttle
body system. Okay, and to the side, to the side
of the throttle lever, they have an idle speed control
(15:00):
It's that funny looking, big bulky motor with the I
think it's a five wire harness or an eight wire harness,
depending upon emissions, with a bolt head sticking out. The
bolt head has notches in it. You look at it
and you go, gee, doesn't look like any bolt I remember.
There's no hex it's just cut notches in it. And
that was GM's way of controlling RPM. Why did our
(15:22):
PM change on these, Well, there was a variety of reasons.
The first, in the simplest, is that the idle speed
control motor, the ISC as we used to call it,
has a bad nose switch no switch, meaning that if
you were able to go in through control head diagnostics
through the AC control head. Like I said, one of
(15:43):
the LED's little yellow lights that you see when you
use it as AC will function as a nose switch indicator.
When you open the throttle, that yellow light will go out.
When you allow the throttle to close, that yellow light
will come on. It's just a little contact plunger telling it, hey,
the nose switches closed. If the PCM, if the engine
(16:03):
controller loses track of no switch or idle position, all right,
it sees and I have to add another sensor here.
It sees the throttle position sensor go back to under
a volt, but it doesn't see the nose switch. All right.
It says, wait a minute, I don't know where Dale's
(16:25):
foot is. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm just
going to raise the idol just to make sure he
doesn't stall. It gets confused. So idle speed control motors
were common. No switch failure was a common cause of replacement.
You can't just replace the switch. You end up replacing
the motor. If you can find a good quality motor,
and that's going to be the next difficult task, all right.
(16:48):
Then the next thing is going to be that you've
got to get it adjusted all right, And there was
a very specific procedure. It was if you push down
on the bolt head all right, and you can try
this all right, just to just to see where you are.
Keon engine off, take the air cleaner off, open the
(17:09):
throttle all the way, engines off right, keon engine off.
Pushed down on the bolt head. When you push down
on the bolt head, you are gonna you are gonna
trip the nose switch and you should see the idle
speed motor retract. You'll and it'll go slow. It's nothing
happened fast in nineteen eighty four. You're gonna see boom
(17:29):
boom boom boom boom boop. It just slowly retracts. I'm
pretty sure it worked. Keon engine off. You might have
to do it at idle, in which case, just do
it at idle. Just push your finger onto the bolt
head and it should retract and it will go down
to and take you to the point of base idle.
Base idle was the moment where the throttle plate was
(17:52):
resting against its stop but not completely closed, causing the
car to stall. Sit tight on the phone, den, Let
me pull over and take this pause, will pick up
where we left off right after this. I'm on a
namy and the car doctor and I'm gonna come roaring back.
Don't anybody go away.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Ron's in his own the Auto Zone studio and he'll
be back right after this. Welcome back to the Auto
Zone Studio. Here's Ron.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Hey, let's get back to Dale and Virginia Dale. You're
still there, sir, Yeah, I'm still here. So going through
idle speed control, no switch and so forth, base minimum
idle speed adjustments. Making sure everything there is correct is
first step. Splest thing to do. If you can try
and find a GM new old stock idle speed control motor,
(19:06):
if you determine the nose switch is indeed bad, all right,
you know, eBay, any one of the forms any place
you can. But it's it was a complicated piece back
in the day, for nineteen eighty four. It was like
rocket ship technology. And it's not easily reproduced. So if
you can find some GM stuff that would be great.
That would be a simple repair. How many miles are
(19:28):
on this forty one hundred.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Sixty four thousand.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Okay, So no insult intended. It's lived twice its useful
life because most forty one hundreds lasted thirty thousand miles,
blew up. They put another engine in it, and they
drove it another thirty thousand miles. So the fact that
you got sixty out of it, you're doing really good,
all right. The reason the forty one hundred I remember
because I remember this engine. I was working for a
limousine Andhearst company at the time, and this is all
(19:53):
we worked on, I mean, all day long. The reason
the forty one hundred used to fail so often is
because the intake manifold bolts would loosen up over time.
At thirty thousand miles, they would come in and everybody
would you would tork the intake manifold. When you tork
the intake manifold to correct spec you would pull the
block back to square because the block kind of tended
to sag over time and the thrust bearing in the crank.
(20:14):
Once it was tightened up and straightened, it was sort
of like a two by four that sagged in the doorway.
Now you shoved it back into place and it knocked,
and then all of a sudden, the engine exploded three
thousand miles later. So it was a disaster. So the
fact that you got three thirty. You got double the
amount of thirty thousand miles out of this car. You
did really well. You've got to go through and you've
got to do basics as far as vacuum leaks and
(20:38):
obvious things like that. All right. The last, the last
thing I want somebody to check as goofy as it sounds,
because I do have engine issues with these cars, is
I want you to make sure the ignition timing is correct.
And then I want you to make sure have you
ever heard the expression split timing?
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yes, okay, I want you to split time the motor.
So the firing order on this was one eight, four
to three, six, five, seven to two. So I want
to make sure that one in six show within eight
degrees on the balancer tab, all right. And what that's
showing us is that the timing chain doesn't have stretch.
(21:21):
Because here's the problem, all right, and it's the fact
that this happens after an hour on the road. You know,
after an hour on the road, the oils thinned out,
everything is sort of settled into its place. The timing
chains would stretch and it would cause bounce at the
distributor gear. So what happens is it started to beat
up the distributor gear. And I'm going to tell you
(21:42):
one last step in a second, and you would find
that the distributor would give out an inaccurate RPM indication.
What happens The PCM can't buffer the data. This was
nineteen eighty four, not two thousand and four. They were
smarter by then. And it just bumped the idle up
because Cadillac didn't want to hear anybody calling up and saying, hey, car,
keep stalling. We'll make it raise, but we won't let
it fall.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
All right.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
If you find that it's split times, okay, that's great.
If it doesn't split time, okay, then you've got to
think that perhaps there's a stretch in the timing chain,
and then you want to mechanically check that. Pull the
distributor cap off, bring it around to number one, load
it the opposite way, and then bring it forward. How
many degrees does the crank rotate before the before the
(22:26):
distributor starts to move. If it's more than eight degrees,
there's enough stretch there that that could be causing the problem.
Last thing, all right, last thing, okay, okay, all right,
The distributor gears used to wear to a razor's edge.
All right, you sound like an old GM guy Dale, right,
So let me just jump bick on.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
You know, you pull a GM distributor, the teeth on
the gear where oh, I don't know, they were about
maybe they were an eighth of an inch thick. They
were that nice even good thick heavy gear. Right. If
you pull this, If you pull this distributor out and
you find that the ends of the gear are peened
to a sharp point like a tooth, like a saw tooth,
(23:06):
they're sharpened, it means the gear is worn out and
that'll cause an inaccurate RPM signal because that allows the
distributor gear to bounce against the cam gear. All right,
so that could be the problem. So you know you've
got a good scenario, a bad scenario, and a horrible scenario.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
Yeah, split timing.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So but yeah, go back to split timing it and
see what it is. It's still a basic engine at
the end of the day. And you know, see where
that goes. Move cautiously because I will tell you this,
I haven't looked at it in a long time, but
about six seven years ago, I remember GM was discontinuing
re manufacturing of that. That's probably more than that. Thinking
about it, the forty one hundred, into my knowledge, there
(23:49):
are no forty one hundred engines available anymore, no replacement parts,
no remanufacturers. So it's not going to be easy to
replace if you make a mistake along the way, or
if the engine needs to be replaced as a result
of all this. So just just tread carefully, all right, Okay, okay,
all right, kiddo. If you need or somebody needs to
hear this again, this show will become a podcast dated today.
(24:12):
This is our one, and they can pick it up
around the fifteen minute mark and listen through the second half.
If you've got a mechanic that wants to hear any
of this, or you want to hear this all over again,
the podcast will be up with you twenty four hours.
All right, sir, Because I realized I've given you a
lot of information all at once.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Yeah, sure, all right, all right, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Thank You're very welcome. Deal you have a red good
rest of the day.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Forty one Caddy Motors. Wow, I remember, I can't believe
that one's still going sixty thousand plus miles. That's don't
tell GM. They'll be upset something lasted that long that
doesn't make any sense to them, Like holy smokes. I
want to just comment real quick before I go to
before I go to the pause. You know, I was
talking a little bit about labor rates and so forth.
(24:54):
I'm not saying it's not worth two hunred and forty
dollars an hour to fix a car, but I also
want to make sure that management airs that with the
technicians working on it, because there's an awful lot of
technicians in this industry in my opinion, that are underpaid
for what they're doing and trying to keep up with
this stuff. I defy anybody to go look at some
of the videos on YouTube, for example starter a replacement,
(25:16):
fuel injection replacement, engine replacement, heater, core replacement, and tell
me what's that worth to them to lie on their
back And you know, there's some mechanical aptitude required, but
there's a lot of physical abuse that goes into repairing
a car. And that's why a lot of mechanics, you
know what, as they get older, suffer from it and
it's harder and harder to keep doing the job. So
more power to the brothers and sisters out there. Hey
(25:38):
five five, five, six zero nine nine zero zero, run
any of the card doctor. I'll be back right after this.
Don't go away. Welcome back, running the card Doctor. Let's
go to Bill and Maine waiting the very patiently Billy.
Appreciate your patient, sir, How can I help?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Hi? Ron listened to your show for years. I really
appreciate your encyclopedic knowledge of mechanical issues. Long story, sure,
I'll try to make it short. Nineteen ninety three f
two fifty with a seven point three lead diesel motor.
I bought new twenty five thousand dollars and taking care
(26:22):
of the truck. It's got two hundred and eighty thousand
miles on it now. It's it's on its second rebuilt transmission.
The last transmission I decided to have rebuilt when there
was a little bit of material in the pan at
the last fluid change, and while there were still people
around that could rebuild transmission of that age, I had
(26:45):
it done. It was it was running fine. So last
about a year ago, I had this transmission rebuilt at
an ATRA shop. Had good luck with Atra, and everything
ran fine until this spring, and I think I had
what is known as an ac ripple. It was on
(27:06):
my second radio, you know, and started to smell something.
The radio went out and I think the ac ripple
might have burnt out the radio. No big thing, They're
one hundred bucks now. And about the same time, it
started getting a flashing overdrive light which is in the
LIMP home mode.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
And is it in LIMP bill or does the trans
shift normal?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
No, it actually does it does the hid up shifts
second first and second, I guess yea. And so from
there I replaced the alternator, the brand new Bosh alternator
in it and tested it, and I did confirm that
the the original alternator did have one vault ac ripple
(27:57):
in it, which I think was over the limit. So
I put put a brand new Bus alternator in and
tested that. No more ac ripple, but the transmission still
occasionally went into the uh yeah. So uh then I
(28:18):
was told to replace the PCM, which I had to
get a rebuilt one through NAPA, and I replaced that
and that was good for a little while, and uh,
all of a sudden the things starting to uh go on.
The transmission is starting to go back into the default
(28:39):
LIMP home mode again. I took it back to the
shop and they can't pull any codes from it. I
couldn't pull any codes either. It's got the ob D
one simple simple system.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
But is it is it that it can't pull any
codes or there are no codes to be pulled?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Well? And I don't think it. I don't think the
the wire ring is uh is doing anything to the
it used to be. When I plugged in my cheap
code reader, I could hear.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Some you know, bels, bells and whistles clicking and so
forth right. You would hear it cycle through its relays
and solenoids. And you don't hear that anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
No, I get nothing, So I don't think there's a
connection there. Because this shop had a better scanner, snap On,
and they couldn't get anything either, and they called snap
On and.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Anyway, so the first the first thing, I'm gonna stop
because I'm gonna stop you there because I know where
this is going already. Uh, you know, could there be
a problem with the trans that they rebuilt? My question
would be they they gave you a rebuilt or rebuilt
your trans?
Speaker 3 (29:46):
They gave me a rebuilt, right, they didn't do it
in their shop.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Right, so they bought an exchange unit over the counter
and then installed it. Yes, so you know, and I'll
pose the question to this way, what if that trends
has bad shift solenoid in it? You won't you won't know, right,
you know. And the way you're gonna know is the
overdrive light's gonna flash. It's gonna set a fault code,
(30:12):
and you should be able to pick that up by
doing what scanning it? So I guess we're I'm going
to tell you to fix first. It's you got to
be able to you got to be able to scan.
It's it's got to function, it's got to work. You know,
ninety five, ninety four, all that stuff, it was all
primitive peat in terms of ninety three, ninety four to
ninety five. It was all primitive Pete in terms of
(30:32):
you know, there is no real data stream and it
was just sort of coming online. But I don't know that.
I don't remember there being enough diesels on the road
that it mattered to the software writers and the EPA
that they were going to mandate we have data stream access.
I think there's some limited but regardless, we've got to
be able to pull codes. Now, how are we going
to do that because I know that's your next question. Right,
(30:55):
older Fords, you know you've got to be sure of
all the grounds there. If it's the this should be
an EKE four car electronic under control four. There were
power and grounds that there was power at twenty, twenty, forty,
and sixty and then there were three grounds. I recall
going to the PCM case. If I'm not mistaken, you
(31:17):
got to make sure all the powers and grounds are
good and solid at all times. And you've got to
start looking at because this is a great state of
Maine with salt and corrosion. And I know you're going
to tell me you take care of the truck. I'm
sure you do, but I just want to be sure.
I would voltage drop all my ground connections, make sure
they're good, clean and tight, specifically at the battery. There
(31:40):
used to be on the older four pickups what we
called the EKE three pig or the EKE four pigtail,
which was a weather insulated ground connection, and they seem
to fall off as time goes by. It was like
you know, the jacket in your closets somehow shrunk as
you got older. But you know, those grounds just seemed
to disappear with battery replacement. I'm not saying that's the
(32:00):
case with you, but just from experience. Right, you're here
because you want to tap my brain what I've seen.
I would take a careful look at, you know, all
the grounds going around the chassis and just making sure
everything is good, clean and tight. But until I can
get this to scan codes, because you could have a
bad solenoid. You could have a solnoid that's reacting with temperature.
You know, the windings you know, are reacting from heat,
(32:21):
and all of a sudden it's it's shorting out or
it's going open, and it won't allow the chance to
operate properly. Before you respond to that link, pull over
and take this pause, and we'll finish up on the
other side. I'm rn an eating the card doctor. We'll
return right after this welcome back bill. You're still there, sir,
(32:48):
ronin Eni in here, Hi.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So you know, let me ask you this question. How's
this speedometer in this truck? Is it accurate? Is it
working all the time? Is it ever erratic?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yeah, you know I've had that issue before. That's got
the sensor on the differential and sometimes it gets full
of iron. Filings and just cleaned it off. I've had
to replace once. But no, this peedometer, tachometer a both fine.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Both function into this. So when did the overdrive light
start flashing? Ever since the trans was replaced? Or ever
since the trans and then the PCM was replaced?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
No? Ever since? Well, I don't drive the truck too
much in the winter, so I had the transmission rebuilt
last September, and I put a few hundred miles on it,
just trying it out, and then just mostly plowed my
driveway with it over the winter. And then this spring
when I started using it, I did do an eight
hundred mile trip with it out to Vermont and back
(33:42):
and it ran flawlessly. And after that then I started
getting the overdrive light.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, when did the PCM get replaced?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I replaced that back in July of this year. Yes,
so you.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Already had that. You already had the overdrive flashing light?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Okay, do you still have the old PCM?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
No, there was a seven dollar core.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I sent it back for the future. Always keep the
old core. It's worth the seventy bucks. Oh really, yeah, well,
just saying listen, I had to put it. I've got
a spare ac control head from my suburban, my own
four suburban that I'm stockpiling parts for, and there was
one hundred and twenty five dollars corps. I kept the
old one. I'm not giving it back. I'm gonna find
somebody to rebuild it because it's it's too hard to
(34:29):
go through and find these things. So it's just it's worth.
It's it's worth.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
I opened it up.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, No, it's not something you'll see because of the electronics.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Do this.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
There's two solenoids in that trans Once you go talk
to the trans shop, could they put another solenoid pack
in it and at least eliminate solenoids as a possible problem.
And then the other thing you've got to work on
is you've got to work on why this won't pull codes.
It's gotta pull codes, because at least then it'll tell
you what direction to go. This could have a bad
manual lever position sensor on the side of the trans
(34:59):
case cussing all these problems as well, I'm ronning Ady
and the car doctor. The mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
See you
Roan Ananian, I'm finding front of you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
These are the voyages of the Car Doctor.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It's five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to
seek out new life and new civilizations, to both of
the go when no one has gone before time.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Ran Anian thinking out loud, what is the value of
order repairing? And I'm just concerned about it because I
wonder how do you measure it? Fascinating but quite impossible.
The car Doctor, how do I trust the three plugs
that are in the back, I've got to take those out.
To take those out, I've got to take the intake
plunem walth if I'm taking the intake plenum wealth. I'm
changing the plugs because I don't know how old they are,
(00:49):
But four of the six plugs ended up being loose.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
What he says is logical, and I do, in fact
agree with it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to the radio home of Ronananian, the car since
nineteen ninety one. This is where car owners the world
overturned to for their definitive opinion on automotive repair. If
your mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up the
phone and call in.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
The garage doors are opening. My name is Ron anian,
I'm a doctor, but I am here to take your
calls at eight five five five six, ninety nine hundred
and now.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I'm a doctor, not a mechanic.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
He running.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
In nineteen sixty seven, Chevrolet came out with the Camaro.
Neat little car, right, How many of you had one?
Three twenty seven powerglide, four barrel, simple basic, A good car, right,
just and it's evolved over the years. It just went
on and on and on, and now it's grown up
into what it is this generation currently out there. That
(01:49):
sixty seven Camaro was really kind of pretty easy to
work on. You you could fix it on the side
of the road with a variety of tools, utensils and
kinchin implements. It was really sort of a basic automobile,
and I think that was the selling point.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Cars were simpler in the sixties, for sure, but the
Camaro was at the pinnacle of it. It was what
we called the pony car. It had appeal, It appealed
to the youth market. It was affordable, and it was
fairly easy to work on. You could put a starter
in a Camaro all right in under a half hour
twenty minutes. It sure has changed. We had twenty sixteen
(02:26):
SS Camaro in the shop this week, six point two liter.
I guess their version of what we would call a
big block Camaro. The customer had just stopped for gas.
They went somewhere, they stopped for fuel, went to start it,
and he said, Ron, there was this big puff of
smoke that came out of the right side under the hood.
Like he said, it kind of reminded me of the
(02:47):
Wizard of Oz, you know, that moment when Dorothy looks
behind the curtain or when they see the Great Wizard
appear for the first time on the screen. This big
poof and he said in it smelled something burned. You
could tell something was h The sad part is when
this poor Camaro got stuck. It was a convertible. The
top was down and the convertible top no longer worked,
(03:10):
and the electric parking brake was stuck on. So they
kind of dragged it up onto the back of a
flatbed and towed it into the shop. You know, it
kind of made me look at the future right in
terms of made me think about cars with automatic electric
parking brakes when they automatically apply and then what happens
when the electrical system goes dead. What happens when you've
got a convertible and the tops down and it's going
(03:31):
to rain out, and just a lot of a lot
of dependent upon electric stuff working correctly. It's just amazing
how we've come so far, and I think in some
cases gone so wrong. So we looked at this Camaro
and you know, you could hear it. You'd push the
button on the dash and you'd hear this pop, sizzle
(03:53):
and crackle from under the right side of the engine.
And we put it up in the air head Danny
on in the car on the lift, and I listened
to it underneath and you can hear pop, sizzle, crack,
and I went, yeah, that's that's kind of a problem.
I think we have to sort of look at that
and see what we're going to do here, and yeah,
it's got to need a starter. At least. We've got
to get to whatever it is underneath that shield, which
(04:13):
was the starter. We've got to look and see. There
was one bulletin that sounded like it could apply. They
talk about problems with the wiring at the starter, blowing
the three hundred and fifty A fuse back at the
Brewer battery box in the trunk. The fuse was good,
and I didn't think so, but we always had that
in the back of our mind. But regardless, we've got
to start at the starter. We've got to, you know,
(04:35):
we've got to get a look at it. You know,
when you're run into a job you haven't done in
a while, or when you haven't done at all, you
always I always go to the labor guid I want
that refreshmer. I look at procedure, but procedure doesn't tell
me a lot. They'll tell me how to take it apart,
which you know, for the most part you can figure
out and you're heading a lot of cases. But I
want to see the time. I want to see what
kind of time they're predicting. That tells me what's really
(04:57):
what I'm really up against. When I saw little over
six hours to put a starter in a camaro, I
knew I was in for it because I said, this
is going to be where GM shines. And I said
to Danny, I said, you know what GM stands for,
and he said, no one is young eager to learn voice.
I said, GM giant mistakes, and here's where you're going
to see it. To put a starter in a twenty
(05:18):
sixteen Camaro and all Camaros that generation. You have to
pull the catalytic converter on the right side. You have
to pull the radiator serge tank. It's nice if you
can get the heater hoses out of the way, which,
by the way, run over the top of the exhaust manifold.
So the rubber hoses, they're not melted, but they're sort
of sticky stuck to the plastic nipples on the heater core,
and if you pull on them too hard you'll break
(05:39):
the heater nipples off. So you want to be gentle
because it's a very soft aluminum heater cord. It's not
the most durable. We ended up taking the clamps off
and slitting the hoses and we're putting new hoses on
it Monday when we finished the job. And then you
have to take the exhaust manifold out.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
To add insult to injury, the LS series GM engines,
they're exhaust manifold bolts. They've been a problem over the years,
and I don't know if GM's gotten it right yet.
In order to get the bolts out, because they put
some sort of a threadlock and compound on the bolts.
I guess they're afraid they're going to fall off or something.
And we had to use our inductive heater and inductive
(06:16):
heat at each bolt, and you know, just get them
to where they sort of sizzle and crackle.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
On their own.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And pulled the bolt out and pulled the manifold off,
and now you can see the starter, and then you
can see that the copper braid running from the starter
solinoid down to what would be the starter motor is burnt.
It's fried. You know, it's just done. And you think
to yourself, what if this was a ten year old car.
(06:43):
This is a seven year old car with thirty six
thousand miles on it? What if this was a ten
year old car with one hundred thousand miles on it?
One hundred and twenty thousand miles on it? Because I
always looked further. You know what if it was an
everyday use vehicle? Would it hold up? How easily would
it come apart? Could you get it apart? Creating the
very ad dish, very definition of throwaway cars simply by
(07:05):
making it more difficult to repair them. And I think
we are so on one hand, and this is what really,
you know, you start to think about this, it's like
twilight zone stupidity. We're trying to clean up the environment
and emissions and make the world a cleaner, better place environmentally,
(07:26):
but we're designing cars that are so difficult to work on,
or so often go down the path of cannot be
repaired easily or economically. You throw the car away, and
I don't. I don't justify that. I can't justify that
in my mind. That doesn't make any sense to me
in my mind, because it takes an awful lot. You know,
(07:47):
if you want to measure carbon footprints, it's it's this
carbon footprint ruler that they use. It can't be a
small one to manufacture an automobile. All the requirements and
all the things that the environment has to go through,
and all the hits that it takes in order to
produce that one car, and yet we'll throw it away
at the drop of a hat. I've got another customer
(08:08):
in the shop this week with a twenty sixteen suburban
two hundred and ten thousand miles on it, and I
give Brian a lot of credit. He bought the car
from a cousin up in Michigan. He brought it down
he said, Ron, I want you to fix this. It's
got a cold start misfire, and I don't plan on
buying a new suburban. I want to make this one
(08:28):
work because otherwise it's in good shape.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And it is.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's in pretty good shape for really a two hundred
thousand mile seven year old vehicle. Starter's easier to do.
I happened to look at that, and it made me
realize how much I'd rather work on the suburban than
the Camaro. And my point becomes that cars can run
in perpetuity. I think they can. I think it's a
matter of parts. I think it's obviously it's a matter
(08:51):
of intelligent mechanics, which I know is in short supply
because you know there's a lot of posers out there.
But it's going to come down to parts. It's going
to come down on two patients. It's going to come
down to because the cost to replace either that suburban
is one hundred grand now and the cost to replace
that Camaro is sixty five thousand now. And you know,
(09:12):
the conversation isn't about gee, are either one of them?
Pres No, I'm just saying replacement value. So get ready
because you're about to go on mister Toad's wild ride.
You're going to be spending more to fix the car,
You're going to be spending more to buy the car.
You just want to be sure that whatever you're spending,
you're spending it correctly. And if you're fixing it, you
want to make sure you've got good, solid information. And
(09:33):
that's what brought you here in the first place. Hello
and welcome. I'm glad to have you here with me
this hour, and I look forward to our conversational exchange
at eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
By the way, that Camaro just so impressed me in
terms of stupidity. We actually shot a little video of
(09:53):
it short, it's about a minute and a half. It's
up on YouTube. It's up on the Car Doctor Facebook page,
as a matter of fact, and it's it's we didn't
go into too much detail, and then we showed you
how buried it is on the right side, and you'll
get a really you know, it's kind of like looking
down the Grand Canyon at a donkey. Right at the
bottom of the canyon. You just kind of tunnel vision
right down and you go, holy smokes, there's the starter.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
That engine compartment looked awfully empty.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, well it's empty now because it's all spread out
on the bench in front of it. Tom, and you know,
and I'll tell you what, this isn't the only place
where GM made the mistake. The day before, maybe Danny
and I invoked the spirit, the spiritual karma of starter
replacement gods, because the day before we serviced a customer's
twenty eighteen Chevy Colorado rear wheel drive with a V
(10:42):
six and I was walking past him going up to
the office for something, and he was doing the service
and he said, hey, come here, look where the starter is.
And I looked up and I never realized it because
we're just starting to see these vehicles in abundance now.
But to replace the starter on a V six Colorado,
you've got to take out the left the motormount. I
mean out, there's no it's got to be out. There's
(11:05):
just no way you're going to get to the starter
or get it out of the vehicle. And the really
amazingly stupid part is they've got steel bolts going into
aluminum brackets. And you know, at one hundred thousand miles
after a couple of winters in Jersey, roads or high
rust area roads. You know how those bolts are not
going to come out and just fight you every step
of the way. And if it's a four wheel drive,
(11:27):
because it was nice, we sort of had a big
open view of where the differential wasn't upfront. I think
you have to take the differential out too, So I
looked up book time on that. That's six and a
half hours, five point nine if it doesn't have if
it doesn't have four wheel drive, which I you know,
either way it's a day's labor. So if you start
to calculate labor rates, which I know we're not supposed
(11:50):
to do so we will. You know, if you imagine
the labor rate of a current shop on average is
probably between one hundred and twenty five and one hundred
and fifty bucks an hour. Six hours at a buck
and a half, is that nine hundre of dollars. I
was talking to a friend of mine at a Chevy
dealership the other day and I was stunned, and we
were He had a question about a couple of things,
and I was telling him about my Starter experiences this week,
(12:12):
and somehow we got on the subject of labor rates,
and one of the local Chevy dealers around US is
planning to go from I think their current labor rate,
he said, is going to go this week coming to
two hundred and forty dollars an hour to work on
a Chevrolet. It's not a Ferrari, it's a Chevrolet. And
by the end of the year, the new owners want
to get it up to three hundred dollars an hour
(12:33):
two ninety nine for working on a Chevrolet. Does that
mean if you go in and I said this to
myself last night, I was thinking about this, if you
get a bad replacement for fifteen minutes, is it fifteen
minutes of three hundred? Is it seventy five bucks to
get a tail like ball replaced? A five five five
six zero nine nine zero zero. I'm running any of
the car doctor, come on back, we'll talk about it.
I'll return right after this.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Whether it's a little red Corvette or you go. You've
come to the right place to get that car fixed.
Ron An ay in the car doctor eight five five
five six zero nine nine zero zero.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Now back to ron Hey, let's get over to Dale
in Virginia. Eighty four Cadillac Eldorado and a forty one hundred, dal,
Welcome to the car doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Well, it's like this, all right, all right, whenever you
drive it, after forty five minutes to an r come
to a stoplight or stop signed, don't matter which, the
motor revs up to about twenty five hundred maybe three
thousand RPMs, and the only way you can get it down
is put up neutral, put your foot on a celebrator,
(13:47):
press it all the way down quickly, and top it
and then the aisle goes down and you're good until
you come to another stop or or stop light or
stop sign. What the heck is causing that?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Okay, so let's talk about this. This is an eighty
four El Dorado with a forty one Caddy motor correct
the four point one right, So the good point, the
good news is if you can find service information for
this vehicle, you can actually diagnose this right through the
air conditioning control head there is Those cars have built
(14:19):
in diagnostics, and I believe it was. It's sort of
like a scene that was in Top Gun Maverick when
he sat in the plenty when it's going to be
a minute map. If I remember correctly, it's off warmer
and AC button and if you hold it down, you'll
put the vehicle into self diagnostics. The only the only
thing you want to make sure of is from there.
And this is where if you have information in front
(14:40):
of you, you can actually scroll through and read any fault
codes and you can actually diagnose and specifically look at
things like the idle speed control motor that has this
is a this is a dual throat, dual injected throttle
body system. Okay, and to the side, to the side
of the throttle lever, they have an idle speed control
(15:00):
It's that funny looking, big bulky motor with the I
think it's a five wire harness or an eight wire harness,
depending upon emissions, with a bolt head sticking out. The
bolt head has notches in it. You look at it
and you go, gee, doesn't look like any bolt I remember.
There's no hex it's just cut notches in it. And
that was GM's way of controlling RPM. Why did our
(15:22):
PM change on these, Well, there was a variety of reasons.
The first, in the simplest, is that the idle speed
control motor, the ISC as we used to call it,
has a bad nose switch no switch, meaning that if
you were able to go in through control head diagnostics
through the AC control head. Like I said, one of
(15:43):
the LED's little yellow lights that you see when you
use it as AC will function as a nose switch indicator.
When you open the throttle, that yellow light will go out.
When you allow the throttle to close, that yellow light
will come on. It's just a little contact plunger telling it, hey,
the nose switches closed. If the PCM, if the engine
(16:03):
controller loses track of no switch or idle position, all right,
it sees and I have to add another sensor here.
It sees the throttle position sensor go back to under
a volt, but it doesn't see the nose switch. All right.
It says, wait a minute, I don't know where Dale's
(16:25):
foot is. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm just
going to raise the idol just to make sure he
doesn't stall. It gets confused. So idle speed control motors
were common. No switch failure was a common cause of replacement.
You can't just replace the switch. You end up replacing
the motor. If you can find a good quality motor,
and that's going to be the next difficult task, all right.
(16:48):
Then the next thing is going to be that you've
got to get it adjusted all right, And there was
a very specific procedure. It was if you push down
on the bolt head all right, and you can try
this all right, just to just to see where you are.
Keon engine off, take the air cleaner off, open the
(17:09):
throttle all the way, engines off right, keon engine off.
Pushed down on the bolt head. When you push down
on the bolt head, you are gonna you are gonna
trip the nose switch and you should see the idle
speed motor retract. You'll and it'll go slow. It's nothing
happened fast in nineteen eighty four. You're gonna see boom
(17:29):
boom boom boom boom boop. It just slowly retracts. I'm
pretty sure it worked. Keon engine off. You might have
to do it at idle, in which case, just do
it at idle. Just push your finger onto the bolt
head and it should retract and it will go down
to and take you to the point of base idle.
Base idle was the moment where the throttle plate was
(17:52):
resting against its stop but not completely closed, causing the
car to stall. Sit tight on the phone, den, Let
me pull over and take this pause, will pick up
where we left off right after this. I'm on a
namy and the car doctor and I'm gonna come roaring back.
Don't anybody go away.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Ron's in his own the Auto Zone studio and he'll
be back right after this. Welcome back to the Auto
Zone Studio. Here's Ron.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Hey, let's get back to Dale and Virginia Dale. You're
still there, sir, Yeah, I'm still here. So going through
idle speed control, no switch and so forth, base minimum
idle speed adjustments. Making sure everything there is correct is
first step. Splest thing to do. If you can try
and find a GM new old stock idle speed control motor,
(19:06):
if you determine the nose switch is indeed bad, all right,
you know, eBay, any one of the forms any place
you can. But it's it was a complicated piece back
in the day, for nineteen eighty four. It was like
rocket ship technology. And it's not easily reproduced. So if
you can find some GM stuff that would be great.
That would be a simple repair. How many miles are
(19:28):
on this forty one hundred.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Sixty four thousand.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Okay, So no insult intended. It's lived twice its useful
life because most forty one hundreds lasted thirty thousand miles,
blew up. They put another engine in it, and they
drove it another thirty thousand miles. So the fact that
you got sixty out of it, you're doing really good,
all right. The reason the forty one hundred I remember
because I remember this engine. I was working for a
limousine Andhearst company at the time, and this is all
(19:53):
we worked on, I mean, all day long. The reason
the forty one hundred used to fail so often is
because the intake manifold bolts would loosen up over time.
At thirty thousand miles, they would come in and everybody
would you would tork the intake manifold. When you tork
the intake manifold to correct spec you would pull the
block back to square because the block kind of tended
to sag over time and the thrust bearing in the crank.
(20:14):
Once it was tightened up and straightened, it was sort
of like a two by four that sagged in the doorway.
Now you shoved it back into place and it knocked,
and then all of a sudden, the engine exploded three
thousand miles later. So it was a disaster. So the
fact that you got three thirty. You got double the
amount of thirty thousand miles out of this car. You
did really well. You've got to go through and you've
got to do basics as far as vacuum leaks and
(20:38):
obvious things like that. All right. The last, the last
thing I want somebody to check as goofy as it sounds,
because I do have engine issues with these cars, is
I want you to make sure the ignition timing is correct.
And then I want you to make sure have you
ever heard the expression split timing?
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yes, okay, I want you to split time the motor.
So the firing order on this was one eight, four
to three, six, five, seven to two. So I want
to make sure that one in six show within eight
degrees on the balancer tab, all right. And what that's
showing us is that the timing chain doesn't have stretch.
(21:21):
Because here's the problem, all right, and it's the fact
that this happens after an hour on the road. You know,
after an hour on the road, the oils thinned out,
everything is sort of settled into its place. The timing
chains would stretch and it would cause bounce at the
distributor gear. So what happens is it started to beat
up the distributor gear. And I'm going to tell you
(21:42):
one last step in a second, and you would find
that the distributor would give out an inaccurate RPM indication.
What happens The PCM can't buffer the data. This was
nineteen eighty four, not two thousand and four. They were
smarter by then. And it just bumped the idle up
because Cadillac didn't want to hear anybody calling up and saying, hey, car,
keep stalling. We'll make it raise, but we won't let
it fall.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
All right.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
If you find that it's split times, okay, that's great.
If it doesn't split time, okay, then you've got to
think that perhaps there's a stretch in the timing chain,
and then you want to mechanically check that. Pull the
distributor cap off, bring it around to number one, load
it the opposite way, and then bring it forward. How
many degrees does the crank rotate before the before the
(22:26):
distributor starts to move. If it's more than eight degrees,
there's enough stretch there that that could be causing the problem.
Last thing, all right, last thing, okay, okay, all right,
The distributor gears used to wear to a razor's edge.
All right, you sound like an old GM guy Dale, right,
So let me just jump bick on.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
You know, you pull a GM distributor, the teeth on
the gear where oh, I don't know, they were about
maybe they were an eighth of an inch thick. They
were that nice even good thick heavy gear. Right. If
you pull this, If you pull this distributor out and
you find that the ends of the gear are peened
to a sharp point like a tooth, like a saw tooth,
(23:06):
they're sharpened, it means the gear is worn out and
that'll cause an inaccurate RPM signal because that allows the
distributor gear to bounce against the cam gear. All right,
so that could be the problem. So you know you've
got a good scenario, a bad scenario, and a horrible scenario.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
Yeah, split timing.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So but yeah, go back to split timing it and
see what it is. It's still a basic engine at
the end of the day. And you know, see where
that goes. Move cautiously because I will tell you this,
I haven't looked at it in a long time, but
about six seven years ago, I remember GM was discontinuing
re manufacturing of that. That's probably more than that. Thinking
about it, the forty one hundred, into my knowledge, there
(23:49):
are no forty one hundred engines available anymore, no replacement parts,
no remanufacturers. So it's not going to be easy to
replace if you make a mistake along the way, or
if the engine needs to be replaced as a result
of all this. So just just tread carefully, all right, Okay, okay,
all right, kiddo. If you need or somebody needs to
hear this again, this show will become a podcast dated today.
(24:12):
This is our one, and they can pick it up
around the fifteen minute mark and listen through the second half.
If you've got a mechanic that wants to hear any
of this, or you want to hear this all over again,
the podcast will be up with you twenty four hours.
All right, sir, Because I realized I've given you a
lot of information all at once.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Yeah, sure, all right, all right, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Thank You're very welcome. Deal you have a red good
rest of the day.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Forty one Caddy Motors. Wow, I remember, I can't believe
that one's still going sixty thousand plus miles. That's don't
tell GM. They'll be upset something lasted that long that
doesn't make any sense to them, Like holy smokes. I
want to just comment real quick before I go to
before I go to the pause. You know, I was
talking a little bit about labor rates and so forth.
(24:54):
I'm not saying it's not worth two hunred and forty
dollars an hour to fix a car, but I also
want to make sure that management airs that with the
technicians working on it, because there's an awful lot of
technicians in this industry in my opinion, that are underpaid
for what they're doing and trying to keep up with
this stuff. I defy anybody to go look at some
of the videos on YouTube, for example starter a replacement,
(25:16):
fuel injection replacement, engine replacement, heater, core replacement, and tell
me what's that worth to them to lie on their
back And you know, there's some mechanical aptitude required, but
there's a lot of physical abuse that goes into repairing
a car. And that's why a lot of mechanics, you
know what, as they get older, suffer from it and
it's harder and harder to keep doing the job. So
more power to the brothers and sisters out there. Hey
(25:38):
five five, five, six zero nine nine zero zero, run
any of the card doctor. I'll be back right after this.
Don't go away. Welcome back, running the card Doctor. Let's
go to Bill and Maine waiting the very patiently Billy.
Appreciate your patient, sir, How can I help?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Hi? Ron listened to your show for years. I really
appreciate your encyclopedic knowledge of mechanical issues. Long story, sure,
I'll try to make it short. Nineteen ninety three f
two fifty with a seven point three lead diesel motor.
I bought new twenty five thousand dollars and taking care
(26:22):
of the truck. It's got two hundred and eighty thousand
miles on it now. It's it's on its second rebuilt transmission.
The last transmission I decided to have rebuilt when there
was a little bit of material in the pan at
the last fluid change, and while there were still people
around that could rebuild transmission of that age, I had
(26:45):
it done. It was it was running fine. So last
about a year ago, I had this transmission rebuilt at
an ATRA shop. Had good luck with Atra, and everything
ran fine until this spring, and I think I had
what is known as an ac ripple. It was on
(27:06):
my second radio, you know, and started to smell something.
The radio went out and I think the ac ripple
might have burnt out the radio. No big thing, They're
one hundred bucks now. And about the same time, it
started getting a flashing overdrive light which is in the
LIMP home mode.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
And is it in LIMP bill or does the trans
shift normal?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
No, it actually does it does the hid up shifts
second first and second, I guess yea. And so from
there I replaced the alternator, the brand new Bosh alternator
in it and tested it, and I did confirm that
the the original alternator did have one vault ac ripple
(27:57):
in it, which I think was over the limit. So
I put put a brand new Bus alternator in and
tested that. No more ac ripple, but the transmission still
occasionally went into the uh yeah. So uh then I
(28:18):
was told to replace the PCM, which I had to
get a rebuilt one through NAPA, and I replaced that
and that was good for a little while, and uh,
all of a sudden the things starting to uh go on.
The transmission is starting to go back into the default
(28:39):
LIMP home mode again. I took it back to the
shop and they can't pull any codes from it. I
couldn't pull any codes either. It's got the ob D
one simple simple system.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
But is it is it that it can't pull any
codes or there are no codes to be pulled?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Well? And I don't think it. I don't think the
the wire ring is uh is doing anything to the
it used to be. When I plugged in my cheap
code reader, I could hear.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Some you know, bels, bells and whistles clicking and so
forth right. You would hear it cycle through its relays
and solenoids. And you don't hear that anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
No, I get nothing, So I don't think there's a
connection there. Because this shop had a better scanner, snap On,
and they couldn't get anything either, and they called snap
On and.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Anyway, so the first the first thing, I'm gonna stop
because I'm gonna stop you there because I know where
this is going already. Uh, you know, could there be
a problem with the trans that they rebuilt? My question
would be they they gave you a rebuilt or rebuilt
your trans?
Speaker 3 (29:46):
They gave me a rebuilt, right, they didn't do it
in their shop.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Right, so they bought an exchange unit over the counter
and then installed it. Yes, so you know, and I'll
pose the question to this way, what if that trends
has bad shift solenoid in it? You won't you won't know, right,
you know. And the way you're gonna know is the
overdrive light's gonna flash. It's gonna set a fault code,
(30:12):
and you should be able to pick that up by
doing what scanning it? So I guess we're I'm going
to tell you to fix first. It's you got to
be able to you got to be able to scan.
It's it's got to function, it's got to work. You know,
ninety five, ninety four, all that stuff, it was all
primitive peat in terms of ninety three, ninety four to
ninety five. It was all primitive Pete in terms of
(30:32):
you know, there is no real data stream and it
was just sort of coming online. But I don't know that.
I don't remember there being enough diesels on the road
that it mattered to the software writers and the EPA
that they were going to mandate we have data stream access.
I think there's some limited but regardless, we've got to
be able to pull codes. Now, how are we going
to do that because I know that's your next question. Right,
(30:55):
older Fords, you know you've got to be sure of
all the grounds there. If it's the this should be
an EKE four car electronic under control four. There were
power and grounds that there was power at twenty, twenty, forty,
and sixty and then there were three grounds. I recall
going to the PCM case. If I'm not mistaken, you
(31:17):
got to make sure all the powers and grounds are
good and solid at all times. And you've got to
start looking at because this is a great state of
Maine with salt and corrosion. And I know you're going
to tell me you take care of the truck. I'm
sure you do, but I just want to be sure.
I would voltage drop all my ground connections, make sure
they're good, clean and tight, specifically at the battery. There
(31:40):
used to be on the older four pickups what we
called the EKE three pig or the EKE four pigtail,
which was a weather insulated ground connection, and they seem
to fall off as time goes by. It was like
you know, the jacket in your closets somehow shrunk as
you got older. But you know, those grounds just seemed
to disappear with battery replacement. I'm not saying that's the
(32:00):
case with you, but just from experience. Right, you're here
because you want to tap my brain what I've seen.
I would take a careful look at, you know, all
the grounds going around the chassis and just making sure
everything is good, clean and tight. But until I can
get this to scan codes, because you could have a
bad solenoid. You could have a solnoid that's reacting with temperature.
You know, the windings you know, are reacting from heat,
(32:21):
and all of a sudden it's it's shorting out or
it's going open, and it won't allow the chance to
operate properly. Before you respond to that link, pull over
and take this pause, and we'll finish up on the
other side. I'm rn an eating the card doctor. We'll
return right after this welcome back bill. You're still there, sir,
(32:48):
ronin Eni in here, Hi.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So you know, let me ask you this question. How's
this speedometer in this truck? Is it accurate? Is it
working all the time? Is it ever erratic?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yeah, you know I've had that issue before. That's got
the sensor on the differential and sometimes it gets full
of iron. Filings and just cleaned it off. I've had
to replace once. But no, this peedometer, tachometer a both fine.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Both function into this. So when did the overdrive light
start flashing? Ever since the trans was replaced? Or ever
since the trans and then the PCM was replaced?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
No? Ever since? Well, I don't drive the truck too
much in the winter, so I had the transmission rebuilt
last September, and I put a few hundred miles on it,
just trying it out, and then just mostly plowed my
driveway with it over the winter. And then this spring
when I started using it, I did do an eight
hundred mile trip with it out to Vermont and back
(33:42):
and it ran flawlessly. And after that then I started
getting the overdrive light.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, when did the PCM get replaced?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I replaced that back in July of this year. Yes,
so you.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Already had that. You already had the overdrive flashing light?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Okay, do you still have the old PCM?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
No, there was a seven dollar core.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I sent it back for the future. Always keep the
old core. It's worth the seventy bucks. Oh really, yeah, well,
just saying listen, I had to put it. I've got
a spare ac control head from my suburban, my own
four suburban that I'm stockpiling parts for, and there was
one hundred and twenty five dollars corps. I kept the
old one. I'm not giving it back. I'm gonna find
somebody to rebuild it because it's it's too hard to
(34:29):
go through and find these things. So it's just it's worth.
It's it's worth.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
I opened it up.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, No, it's not something you'll see because of the electronics.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Do this.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
There's two solenoids in that trans Once you go talk
to the trans shop, could they put another solenoid pack
in it and at least eliminate solenoids as a possible problem.
And then the other thing you've got to work on
is you've got to work on why this won't pull codes.
It's gotta pull codes, because at least then it'll tell
you what direction to go. This could have a bad
manual lever position sensor on the side of the trans
(34:59):
case cussing all these problems as well, I'm ronning Ady
and the car doctor. The mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
See you
Host
Ron Ananian
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