What is wrong with my car?

ThunderDave

Registered User
I was on the way home from work this morning and my SC started to run rough. At idle and low speed it has a miss and sputters. Under throttle, it smooths out. The temp. gauge was going up and after I stopped, the recovery tank was full. I checked the oil and it looked ok. No smoke or water out of the exhaust. I just replaced the water pump with a new one Wednesday and it has run fine until this morning. Is it possible that the pump was a dud or could the thermostat go bad and cause this. I hope it's not the dreaded head gaskets.

Any info or help would be greatly appreciated.

David
 
How is the car now?

Sounds more like a fuel delivery problem. I would not think changing the water pump would affect anything. Has the fuel filter been changed lately how about the FPR. Sometimes changes in temp can effect the computer(EEC). My car seems to run better when it is colder out. EGR plays a big part in idle . My Egr flow is insufficent my car don't like to idle unless it is warmed up to operating temp. Do you have EGR ? Maybe you just need to give the EEC a little time to adjust. I would not think the thermostat would affect it. you could always do a compression check. Water getting in the cylinders will cause it to sputter . These cars will keep running with bad HG'S to point of total failure.
 
head gaskets

White smoke and a little water is coming out the tailpipes. Time for a head gasket change out. I started on tearing it down today.

Thanks for the help.

David
 
ouch sorry to hear that. good luck with the tear down! how long did you run the car after the head gaskets blew? oil might be contminated and thats no good on the engine internals such as bearings.....etc.
 
gaskets

I didn't see any signs of the oil mixing with coolant in the oil or coolant. Hope I got lucky on that part of it. I hope I'll have it back running by next weekend maybe. I'll have only a few hours a day I will be able to work on it.

David
 
If you have never done this before you might want to go all out and replace everything and pull the motor and do bearings, piston rings etc. I only wanted to do this once. The only trouble is waiting for parts when you buy on the fly like me. I'm sitting here with the bare block on the stand fresh from the machine shop and I'm waiting on cam bearings, pistons, rings, balancer, lifters, pushrods, well you get the picture. If your gonna tear it apart it's a lot easier to get to those mounts, spark plugs, etc.
 
gaskets

Yeah, I wish I had the time and money to go through it all the way. It's my daily, so I'm pressed for time on getting it fixed. I'm going to get new plugs, fuel filter, head bolts, wires and I'm looking at the new solid motor mounts too. I also have a small leak in the radiator that I will be able to get fixed while I have it out. The valve covers appeared to be leaking a little, so I will get that remedied as well while I've got it apart. New gaskets for everything. Also, I've read that a 180 thermostat would be beter than the 195 that they come with.

Maybe by this time next weekend, I'll have it running again.

Thanks for the tips.

David
 
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