was driving down the road and the car started hicupping or popping (maybe through carb?) and running rough.. not sure where to start. 1986 GL wagon. has went through about a 1/2 tank of gas so do not think it is a gas issue as it would have started earlier. ANY ideas??? of what to check where to start. the only things that I could think of were maybe jumped time, something haywire with distibuter?? or??

Start by checking for a loose vacuum line.

 

Make sure fuel level is at the middle of the sight glass.

 

Inspect disty cap and rotor.

check the rotor screw. it may have come loose

is the cap wet inside? sounds like my non-soob after going to the car wash

What were the conditions under which this occured? Did it stop or is it still doing it? Does it idle? Etc....

 

Need more info. Could be a lot of things.

 

GD

ok have more info now..Car was driving along and when shifted up it started acting funny.. Popping backfiring) drove it some more.. acted sluggish.. . shortly thereafter would not do hills just dies.. now it is hard to start.. and runs real rough... car would not do more then 35mph.. (son was driving it) (we towed it home) oil/water good did not overheat. but when encountering the hill there was a funny smell.. I was not there so do not know what it was. A friend glanced at it and thought that one of the valves was not working correctly..which made him think it was timing...(it has covers so I cannot glance at the belts)

 

I do not have time to mess with it until the sunday (and then only a couple of hours) would like to get a general idea of what all to check.

 

however probably not connected I have been having trouble with wiring.. the heater fan will turn off and on when you play with the headlights.. when you mess with the winsheild wipers up front the headlights need to be on and when you turn on the rear ones the front ones die.. so there is some issue there but do not think it is connected. SO there are some electircal issues too but do not see where they are connected.. unless some relay or something....????

 

Thank you so much

My initial thought is that it might have blown an Air Injection Valve (the symptoms and the smell are good clues) - when this happens the hot exhaust will melt the soft plastic silencer (like a muffler) and that molten plastic gets sucked into the carb - it can jam throttle shafts, block ports, etc. First thing you should do is remove the air filter top and inspect - look for black peices of plastic down in the carb - look for oil in the airbox - is the filter completely soaked? Etc. If the PCV gets too blocked up it will suck engine oil into the filter and airbox and once the paper gets soaked it will choke off all the air to the engine.

 

My other thought was the fuel filter - but unless it's severely clogged it shouldn't keep it from idleing. It's a possibility though.

 

GD

Well I looked down the carb and did not see anything.. but I was not sure what to look for and well I have not had the hatchi apart before.... (boy the weber is SOO much simpler.) air filter has a little bit of oil at the bottom of the filter (couple of spots maybe 4 dots of oil) otherwise looked clean but it is not soaked . . but did not see any melted plastic there was a black gasket that was a little bit past the flappy thing that stuck out a little and was a little jagged.but it was at a obvious joint so I dismissed it.

 

planning on checking more on carb and dist, rotor and timing on Sunday.

Also check that the choke is opening. It's very common with the EA82 Hitachi carbs for the choke spring's to break where they attach to the lever that opens/closes them. If it broke and the choke were jammed shut then you would have similar symptoms.

 

GD

On a totally side note that probably is bordering on blond...Do both sides of the hatachi have the flaps (I am imagining YES).. mine only has one... When you look down one side the one without the flap you can see two screws attached to something at the very bottom. it almost looked like another flap but it also looked like it was supposed to be here. I thought it might be a flap that had fallen but then I looked again and it really looked like it was supposed to be there. If there is nothing down there with screws... I may have found my problem.. but as I have never seen the inside of this carb I am not sure. (I did not want to mention it before and sound stupid but.... after reading your comment GD... it got me thinking)

 

 

THanks GD for again.. bringing up something that made me think of what I had seen.

The Hitachi is a two-barrel carb but runs primarily on the smaller of the two - thus only has a choke plate on the primary. So you should see a "flap" (properly termed they are a "butterfly" or just a "choke-plate" or "throttle plate") on the top of the primary, then if you look down past that one (open it with your finger, etc) then you will see the throttle plate. On the secondary side there is no choke plate so you can see right to the bottom where the secondary throttle plate is located.

 

Sounds normal from your description. That doesn't mean there isn't something else wrong with the carb though.

 

If you can get it started, look down in the carb as you manually rev the engine with the throttle wheel - observe the spray pattern from the primary nozzle (the center of the cross-peice above the throttle plate). It should look uniform and nicely aerated like the water from a sink faucet. If it's messy, dripping, and uneven then you probably have an internal blockage.

 

Check for spark - with it running as slow as you can get it to - pull each plug wire in turn and see if it makes a difference. If it is running poorly, you pull a wire and it dies - that plug was working. If you then pull another wire and nothing changes at all - that cylinder isn't fireing for some reason. Then check for spark - if you pull a plug and nothing happens but it DOES have spark on that cylinder - time to run a compression test. Something could be amiss in the valve train.

 

Another quick check - pull the outer cover on the passenger side timing belt. If that cam isn't turning you will lose both the #1 and #3 cylinders but because the distributor runs from the driver's side cam it will still run - just very poorly on two cylinders. 35 MPH top speed makes total sense for a 2 cylinder 0.9 liter engine with it's whole fireing order on 180 degree's of the crank.

 

GD

thanks GD.. like I said blond moment..

Don't have it back together yet nor running but I did find a broken timing belt.. I am just amazed that the car still ran on 2 cyinders....I don't know if it was the whole problem.. but it is one of them.

Ok also found a broken vaccum line.. grr. and now there is no oil pressure.