First Day Out!

Nothing says spring more than pulling the TC out after winter. I was gonna wait a few more weeks, but yesterday the 350'000Km Tempo I've been using as my winter car turned some tranny gears into gravel in bottom of the pan.

The car fired up right away and idles fine, felt pretty solid taking it for a drive. But my CEL has been comming on intermittenly.

I ran the codes today and I had '42' in the continueous memory - Oxygen sensor reads rich- if I'm not mistaken. I had my battery disconnected all winter so I'd assume this would be a recent code then. I dunno if maybe my injectors are just a little dirty from sitting and leaking a bit.

For the KOER, other than 25 & 34 I had '28' which according to the code sheet I have is -Vane air temperature sensor; EDIS or DIS fault- Which makes me wonder if maybe it's a VAM problem that's causing the rich condition.

Anyways, Ontario law requires 1988 vehicles and up to be E-tested. An Exemption on 20 year old cars used to apply but 88s and up wont get that luxury... So looks like I've gotta be tested in April and will need to sort out this rich condition by then. I'm not sure how to trouble shoot the temperature sensor in the vam or even if it's possible.


My second problem is that I've got some strange noises comming from the rear end sounds like just below the rear seat. It kinda sounds like someone rocking back in an old squeeky chair if you know what I mean... it does it when it sits parked for about half a minute. Like when I first pull in it doesn't sound to bad but if I give it a few seconds the noise starts up again.

I've got a pretty noticeable vibration at high speeds and am not sure if these would be related.

Any pointers on what to start checking? I've never done any work on the rear end before.

I'm looking forward to another good season and maybe a few new mods. Thanks for the help in advance.

My CEL comes on in the winter time as well. Especially if I start the car and let it idle to warm up. However, when I drive away it goes out shortly there after. Never notice a driveability problem. This has happened on at least two of my TCs and only in the winter.

I also live at 4500' elevation and work at 5300' elevation. So I just wrote it off to something to do with temp and elevation. Doesn't happen in the summertime.

The squeaking could be the gas rocking in the gas tank after moving, then being fully stopped.

Vibration could be flat spots in the tires. Rich condition could be the VAM door sticking or the contacts have gotten crud on them.

With a CEL with those codes, I would put some injector cleaner through it, drive it a few tanks fulls and see if it goes away.

If the ambient temp was below 50*F a code 28 is normal.

Drive at least 10- 15 mile and see if the vibration lessens. Like the man said, could be flat spots on the tires, especially if it wasn't a problem when you parked it.

sounds like a rear u-joint...

I've put a few hundred km on it since I pulled it out and the rich condition has gone away so maybe it just needed to get the cobwebs out.

I found one source of the noise comming from the back. There seems to be something rattleing around inside my driver side muffler. Also, the weld that connects the muffeler to the Cat side of the exhaust pipe has broken free and the muffler itself is also vibrating around.

I think I'm going to have to see if I can remove that part of the exhaust and see if I can dump out whatever is rattleing in there and see if I can have the weld fixed. I'm pretty sure I will be putting a new exhaust (something like a stinger setup 3") on the car this summer but I've got to get the cash first.

As far as the vibration at high speed goes, it isn't a new problem or anything I just thought it might be realated to the noises but that's stupid of me to think because if it's noisy when I'm in park idleing the drive shaft, diff and suspention even isn't moving.. I'm pretty sure it's exhaust noise now. I've seen quite a few posts about the vibration problems so I'm gonna have to do some trouble shooting.