88 LE hesitation and other problems :0D

[p0lizei]

Hi there, I have a few problems that I'm having with my 88 LE.

The first one has been present for a while, and isn't quite so serious. I can hear a thud when I come to a stop, it usually happens when I have to stop pretty quick, or when I'm stopping at the end of an exit ramp off of the highway. It takes it a second for it to make that noise, though, and if I've decided to do a "rolling stop," the car won't actually take off until it's made that thud sound- so if, say, I'm coming to a rolling stop after just coming off of the highway, and I hit the gas to turn onto my street, the engine will rev pretty high, and THEN I hear the thud (the only thing I can think of is it's taking its sweet time changing gears), and THEN it takes off. Any ideas as to what this might be? I've heard several suggests from friends, one said it might be the "synchro gear," others have said "DUDE change the tranny fluid" which I did and I believe it still is doing this, it's hard to tell though because of the second problem which has cropped up in the past month...

I got back from Australia a month ago, my car sat by the curb in front of my house for about twelve days, nobody drove it or anything. It had about a quarter tank of gas in it, I do live in Michigan, and it did snow apparently while I was gone, twice. When I got back, the car wouldn't start. I had a heck of a time getting it to go, the engine would turn and turn and turn, and you could hear it starting to fire occaisionally but it would never actually start up. I put some dry gas in it, decided to wait until the next day (forcast was for a warmer day, I figured I might have a frozen fuel line), and after going through the same thing I had the previous day, I did eventually manage to get it to start up.

Unfortunately, I've had problems with it ever since. When I'm on the highway, I of course keep it on cruise control, and it will just randomly lose power (I've noticed it likes to do this when I'm passing a car, which I rarely increase speed for), but if I tap the gas, the engine will surge and I get my speed back up again. The check engine light will go on and off pretty randomly, too. When I'm driving in the city, sometimes it will have problems getting up to speed, when before, it was pretty darn peppy, and I have the same problem on entrance ramps- sometimes it takes frighteningly long for it to even get up to 60mph.

I plan on checking the spark plugs and the O2 sensor tomorrow- does anybody have any other suggestions?

[thepolishmafia1337]

you should check if your car is equipped with a nuetral safety switch in the tranny. most newer electronicly controlled tranny's have them. what they do is shift the car in to neutral when your foot comes off the accelorator like a coast mode. and when used in conjunction with a lock up style converter saves a lot of gas on the highway. not sure on how to test your nuetral safety switch might want to confer with your manual. if its not the switch its prolly the front pump not producing enough pressure to engauge the clutches in the lower gear.
as far as the hesitation goes spark plugs is a good place to start then go to the mass air flo before the o2 sensor. bad o2 sensor usually causes a rough or unusual idle. flucuations in voltage from the MAF cause a lean/rich condition. MAF is also alot easier to test.

[p0lizei]

Thanks for the reply, I'm on my way out to check the plugs right now. I forgot to mention that the car does idle pretty rough sometimes- it'll start to get pretty bad and sounds as though it's going to stall, though it hasn't yet.

I'll see what I can find about the MAF in my Haynes manual, thanks for pointing that out.

The tranny problem- it does sound like what you're talking about, I was thinking about that last night: why wouldn't the car at least move forward when it does its "thing," it seemed to me as though the car was actually in neutral and THEN clugging into first. I'll look that up, too, and see if my car's equipped with it.

Thanks a lot! Hopefully somebody will stumble on this and it'll help them out a bit, too. Take care mate.

[p0lizei]

On replacing the spark plugs, the car is running heaps better. The Check Engine light did come on during my test drive, but I didn't notice any adverse performance. The old plugs had a fine layer of black oil on them, indicating that the engine is running a little rich.

I checked the MAF by rapping the end of a screwdriver on it while the car was running, this produced no sputtering or stalling, so I think it's safe to assume that it is functioning properly.

I don't believe I have what I need to check the O2 sensor, I think the manual called for a high impedence voltmetre, which I don't have. I reckon I'll have to ask at work.

Thanks for the advice, polishmafia.