The Black Pearl - Progress Thread

[Darkwriter77]

When I was fiddling around with it yesterday, I swapped the new 195* T-stat back in and burped the system. When I refill, I usually have everything but the top radiator hose buttoned up, and I pour coolant in the radiator steadily until it stops going down. Then I do the same with the water neck of the T-stat housing and I squeeze the bottom radiator hose to burp a lot of the air out of the block. Refill the radiator again, secure the top radiator hose to the T-stat housing, then fill the radiator some more and burp more air by squeezing the top radiator hose. Been doin' it this way for years and it seems to get the majority of the air out in the first go. I also make sure to use T-stats with the little bleeder valve on 'em and make sure it's positioned toward the top when I install it in the housing so the air can burp out.

I didn't see any bubbles appearing in the coolant, just a lot of crumbly sediment still lingering around in there that the flush didn't take care of (or that's still working itself loose from the radiator). I had it running with the cap off for awhile - maybe 5 minutes - although I didn't let it get it up to full operating temp ... roughly only 1/2 to temp. Still no oil or anything weird in the coolant, or any milkshake on the dipstick or oil cap, just that damned grainy rust sediment that's still plugging things up. I hope to heck I don't have a plugged passage somewhere in the head(s) or block...

It's getting a 3-core radiator thrown in, regardless of whether the current one is the primary cause or not. Out here in AZ, Foxes NEED a 3-core copper/brass radiator at a minimum. The one that's in there is better suited for use with a four-banger.

 

[Darkwriter77]

UPDATE: Bonus points for you, Laser! That mystery vacuum line did, in fact, go to the bulb in the passenger-side fender. Sooooo, here's what I did yesterday:

1. Replaced the license plate light bulbs;
2. Replaced both low-beam headlights (one had a wire disconnected from the harness plug, which I fixed);
3. Threw on 2 new wiper blades;
4. Pulled the LX wing off and found a TON of twigs n' berries n' crap under there, like five big handfuls of the crap, and determined that the fitment issue is largely just that they drilled the holes for the center posts of the wing all wrong;
5. Stood around for a solid hour tracing each and every single little vacuum line I could find and comparing it to the vacuum diagram under the hood, verifying that everything was all good. Reconnected that vacuum reserve bulb thing, and shortened the line from the manifold to the MAP sensor because it was leaky in one spot and had two right-angle elbows in the line for no reason;
6. Finished tightening down the valve cover bolts (needed a 7/16" deep socket, which I didn't have with me last time);
7. Fiddled around with the "flaps" on the side of the radiator;
8. Removed the tiny little tranny oil cooler that had been improperly routed and instead ran it back through the OEM radiator, so I don't have that cooler blocking the front of the radiator;
9. Discovered the radiator was 1" to the left of where it should be, so I loosened the brackets and scooted it over into a more comfy position on its rubber mounts;

Things I discovered during my tinkering:

1. Both front side-marker lights are out - one due to a bad bulb that got painted over, the other because for some reason they completely removed the friggin' light socket ;
2. The idle smooths out a lot after the motor runs for a few minutes, so part of the issue may just be due to the crappy gas I still have left in the tank (about 1/8th tank left) and the car just needs to be run/driven;
3. Water gushes out of the radiator almost right away when the motor's running and the cap is off, and it gets pretty darned warm before the temp gauge even gets 1/4th of the way up. There are no bubbles at all in the water, it just seems to be flowing the wrong direction or something, which is making me wonder if I've got the wrong water pump on there or something ;
4. Maybe I just never noticed before, but the fan clutch seems to make the fan turn in the OPPOSITE direction that the water pump pulley is rotating. That, and the fan turns WAY too slow at idle to effectively pull any air, so the fan clutch is probably fried;
5. The more I THINK I know about Foxes, the more this car makes me feel like a total noob.

I dunno WTF I should do next. I don't wanna pull the water pump unless I need to, but I'm not sure how else I can determine whether someone stuck on a reverse-rotation or a standard-rotation water pump ... and which one I should be running in the first damned place. I thought all serpentine-belted Foxes use a reverse-rotation pump and fan, but maybe not in '84...? And until I know I've even got the right water pump, I'm not sure there's even a point in swapping out the radiator. Nothing is leaking coolant ANYWHERE right now, and the only coolant I'm losing is what's getting pushed out into the overflow canister every time I run it.

 

[LaserSVT]

Dave, you do know its impossiable for the fan to turn the opposite way the water pump turns, right? It would have to be a planatary gearset in order to do that
The water pouring out the radiator with it on tells me you have the wrong rotation pump on there
I may be wrong but it seems I could run any of my 5.0s with the cap off if they were cool and the coolant wouldnt flow out. Could always check with the notch or Capri
But it really sounds like the pump is flowing the wrong way. IDK 5.0 came in two different cooling flow directions. I guess one for serpentine and one for V-belt perhaps
I would check into that, see if there were infact two different flowing direction pumps. Is the car v-belt?
Also with the water being pumped out like that there is no way to tell if you do have air bubles from a leaking head gasket or even if there is smoke cause the flowing water is flushing it out to fast to see the small wisps of smoke for the tell tale bad gasket.

 

[MAC'n89Blckstng]

My brother had one of his headbolts not torqued down enough and was pushing air into his cooling system and was over heating like crazy. Torqued it down and it was good to go.

 

[Darkwriter77]

Well, the car is and always has been from the factory a serpentine belt setup. I dunno, I guess my eyes were deceiving me (no, I wasn't tripping on salvia while working on my car ), but it definitely looked like the water pump pulley was turning one direction while the fan was going the opposite. Whatever the case, either way, the fan was definitely turning WAY too slow to be pulling any air and I couldn't feel any significant airflow, so that much certainly wasn't helping things.

I've run Frankenstang's notch and Capri both with the cap off while refilling and checking for leaks when doing T-stat swaps and such on those, and I've never had water gushing out of there like I get with the '84. What I don't get is that, if I had the wrong water pump, I would think that the pump would not cause any water to be pumping AT ALL (which would still result in overheating, anyway) because of the direction of the impeller vanes. I dunno.

It used to be my understanding that the cast iron water pumps were the standard-rotation ones for V-belt systems and the aluminum-housing water pumps were all reverse-rotation units for serpentine belt setups. However, considering that the Panther cars use an aluminum pump but they have a totally different belt arrangement (two serpentine belts instead of one), maybe they have a standard-rotation pump with an aluminum housing, and maybe somehow that's what I've got on here. I dunno how the hell I'd be able to tell one from the other without physically removing the pump to see what I've got. Guess I need to take a trip to Autozone to compare some new-outta-the-box parts and see if there's any telltale signs...

 

[LaserSVT]

If the pump was spinning the wrong way it would still "push" the water and splash it out. Iron or aluminum wont matter. You can get almost any pump out in an aluminum version

 

[MY 85 GT]

I thought if you were blowing coolant out of the rad it meant a bad Head gasket because the compression stroke is forcing air into the cooling side...Did you do a compression test that would be the easiest way to tell how if you have a blown or leaky head gasket...

 

[Darkwriter77]

I guess I'll have to either rent or buy a compression tester to see. I kinda want to rent one of those coolant system pressure testers, too, just to see if the system, itself, is holding pressure (which will affect the boiling point).

 

[Darkwriter77]

UPDATE:

Bought a compression tester from Harbor Freight and checked all 8 cylinders today. Here's the numbers:

1 - 130
2 - 120
3 - 125
4 - 125
5 - 125
6 - 120
7 - 125
8 - 125

I don't have 100% exact-o numbers because my gauge doesn't read THAT precisely (goes in increments of about 5 psi), but the numbers were all pretty level all the way across the board, aside from #1 which was at 130. (Minimum psi listed by the Haynes manual is 101psi, so the rings are apparently in good shape.) Sooooooo, I can pretty much rule out a head gasket as a possibility - a HUGE relief.

Replaced the radiator cap last weekend and today I re-RE-burped the system. No air came out, but I never tried letting the thing get up to full temperature until today. I let it idle for maybe 10 minutes and watched the temp gauge closely - never got over the halfway mark at all, even with the crappy hacked-up fan shroud, rust and corrosion-filled radiator, and undersized fan on there. I feel kinda like a dummy that it appears the biggest issues were just the missing fan shroud, the clogged radiator/crappy coolant, and the stupid friggin' radiator cap, but what the hell ... if it stays cool, it stays cool. I think I'll get me a 30-day tag to slap on there and drive it around a bit to make sure it's all good, and to get all that old gas run through there completely before I go running it over to the smog station.

Full list of today's fun:

1. Compression test - PASSED;
2. Totally unnecessary, redundant re-RE-burpage of teh coolant system;
3. Replaced the front in-bumper parking lamp assembly;
4. Replaced both front corner marker bulbs;
5. Wired up and solder-connected a bulb socket for the passenger-front corner marker lamp;
6. Drilled holes correctly for hatch wing so the center bolts actually go through;

Still need to do the following before I'm roadworthy:

1. Seafoam flush
2. Oil change;
3. Proper radiator fan shroud and coolant overflow tank;
4. Fix off-the-line stumble and funky throttle issues (probably the TPS)
5. Cut/Drill holes in underside of hatch to secure the center studs of the hatch wing with washer-nuts, and add sealant to solve leaky hatch issues;

 

[Aaron]

Nice! Sounds like you are almost ready to go cruzin'.

 

[5.0Droptop]

10 mins of idle time is an improvement.

 

[LaserSVT]

Yar the Black Pearl is about to set sail for the worlds end!!

You should do yourself up like Sparrow for the trip

OH! And Frankie can dress up like Davey Jones and chase yo in the Notch!

 

[ryan218]

lmao!^

 

[Darkwriter77]

Yar the Black Pearl is about to set sail for the worlds end!!

You should do yourself up like Sparrow for the trip

OH! And Frankie can dress up like Davey Jones and chase yo in the Notch!

I still feel kinda like a dunce for having not replaced the radiator cap to start with. I mean, the old one didn't LOOK bad because the gaskets on it weren't dry-rotted or anything, but ... well, apparently it made a difference. I ran the thing for awhile with the cap off last weekend, then put the cap on and let it warm up a little more before shutting it off; this weekend, when I went to take the cap off with the car still cold, there was still a lot of pressure behind the thing as the coolant gushed right out ... after sitting for a full week! Never got that with the old cap. Sooooo, I think it's safe to say I have the coolant system pretty well sealed, if nothing else. Again, just need a proper fan shroud and overflow bottle, mayyyyybe a different fan (I'll try it with the one I presently have to see if it works okay), and hopefully I'm done farting around with that whole deal.

 

[Darkwriter77]

UPDATE:

Aired up the left-rear tire (dry-rotting, slow leak), threw on the new fan shroud and overflow bottle, and drove it to my place. It doesn't heat up AS quickly, but it still managed to get up to about 3/4 and boil over right after I got it to my place.

Decided the fan is too small and the clutch is too flimsy, so I ditched it and put the flex fan back on ... and then found that the shroud was about 1/2" too far up to fit for some reason (bottom edge was laying on the radiator support). Wound up hacking up this perfectly good shroud a bunch with a 4" grinder to lop off about 1/2" from the bottom edge, and then still having to shave a bunch from the inside edge because the fan just baaaaaarely scraped on the bottom edge for some reason. Managed to turn half the house into a frickin' biohazard, too, because I was halfway through cutting the bottom edge off the shroud with that grinder when I realized that I wasn't cutting plastic but frickin' FIBERGLASS and that nice fine dust was going alllllllll over the place - wonderful thing to have floating around the house to migrate into everyone's lungs, huh? So I then had to hurry and ventilate the house, dust/vacuum everything thoroughly, and then continue hacking away on the shroud OUTSIDE (with a mask on).

The good news is that, with the flex fan on, the car FINALLY stays cool, so at least in this case the problem remaining was mostly due to the undersized fan and sloppy fan clutch; the bad news is that I probably still need a radiator, and the friggin' flex fan was still clicking and pinging on the edge of the fan shroud, so I have to take it off and chop even more off the poor thing. (I hate cutting up perfectly good parts... )

Additionally, about halfway home, the idle decided to be completely uncooperative with me. This thing is acting almost like it's got both a screwed-up EGR valve (or something related) and a bad TPS sensor. It surges a time or two and then dies unless you play with the throttle a bit at every stop. Ugh. This thing is SO not going to pass smog yet.

Sooooo, today's list of activities:

1. Installed good fan shroud and overflow bottle;
2. Hacked up good fan shroud to make flex fan fit ;
3. Changed oil and filter (DAMN that thing is filthy under there!);
4. Replaced one rear backup light bulb (I'm almost out of bulbs to replace on this car);
5. Removed, cleaned, and re-installed EGR valve - was VERY carboned-up, but still has good diaphragm and valve moves without "gritty" feel, stinks of fuel like the car's running pig-rich;
6. Dropped in a clean air filter;

Stuff I still need:

1. New radiator;
2. Four new tires;
3. New battery and terminals (this Honda battery barely cranks it over, really, even though it's perfectly good - tiny little cheap thing);
4. TPS, MAP sensor, and/or EGR valve position sensor;
5. Trim the fan shroud some more to appease the flex fan (same size as an OEM fan, so it needs to be done no matter what);
6. Replace bulb for shifter backlighting (so I can see what gear I'm in at night);
7. Scrape about 20 lbs. worth of oil gunk off the undercarriage and motor;
8. Replace valve cover gaskets;

 

[LaserSVT]

Arrrrr

 

[Darkwriter77]

I can't think of what would make the thing stall out the way it does and kind of surge/skip along at cruise. It accelerates fine (albeit slowly and gutlessly). It acts like an EGR problem, but the valve itself is good - maybe the EGR position sensor? TPS is outta whack? Something else?

I was thinking somehow that it might have been the flex fan dragging against the fan shroud, but for the first half of the drive home, it ran perfectly well.

 

[LaserSVT]

STill have the crappy gas in there? May need to change the fuel filter again Also does CFI have an IAC motor on it?

 

[LiquidGT]

Did/can you dump codes on an '84 CFI?

 

[Darkwriter77]

The old gas is pretty well all gone. I ran it down to less than 18th of a tank (took 11.1 gallons to refill the 13-gallon tank) before I filled it all the way up yesterday. I wanna run some Seafoam through this beast first before I go changing the fuel filter again, just in case I turn anything loose by pouring some in the tank.

The CFI does have an IAC unit, but it's more like an IAC servo than a valve - it's external and it just nudges the linkage up or lets off it with a little pushrod. Hard to explain. Weird deal. I'll hafta post a pic up sometime, unless someone has a diagram of it handy. At any rate, it doesn't carbon up because it's not exposed to any fuel or exhaust, and it does seem to be TRYING to function because of the way it surges at idle - the RPM's get too low and it kicks open the throttle more to help it back up, but it can only do so much (hence my need to tap the accelerator a bit to keep it alive when it's doing this weird idle surge thing).

It does have a diagnostic port on there like the EEC-IV models, but this car has EEC-III which is utter poop and virtually worthless. Not even sure my code reader will work on it, but I'll give it a go sometime this weekend and see if it tells me anything at all.