Well, I've been looking for a cheap older soob for a while now. Just a word for the wise: Be careful what you ask for. . .
Anyway, this guy at work had this '80 DL hatchback that he quit driving two years ago. It ran when he parked it, so I figured why not take a look. We dumped a little gas in the carb and that little sucker fired right up. So it was a done deal. All he wanted was to have the poor rusted out sucker removed from his sight. So I got a buddy and we put some gas in it, knocked off the yellowjackets' nests, and I drove that thing home.
Let me make this perfectly clear. This car did go about a mile and a half under its own power.
Well, I get under the hood, and start pulling things apart to see what's what. First of all, the air cleaner was full of oil, and hadn't been changed probably 2 years before it was parked. Half of the vacuum lines were undone, or simply missing. The choke was stuck 3/4 closed. The distributor cap had one tower completely broken off, so only 3 wires were consistently getting any kind of voltage. I pulled the spark plugs, and all 4 of them were so caked with junk that I really wonder how any of them sparked at all.
I took one of the heads off, because I needed to helicoil the spark plug holes on that side, and lo and behold, the intake valve on one of the cylinders is burned/cracked almost in half.
It is a 1980 DL, 4x4, with the EA71. What I'm wondering at this point is whether or not to spend the $$$ for a new valve. I'm also pondering pulling the other head, to see if there's similar damage on that side. If it's just a matter of cleaning up the heads, and redoing one or two of the valves, then no sweat. But I am seriously considering a cut and run here.
Thoughts?
