Is my wagon a wagon?

The starter was noisy, after letting the key back. I only remember cars with automatics doing this. You would think that starters contaminated with clutch dust would do so. I then bench tested it and it wasn't noisy anymore which assured me that it was only doing so under colder weather conditions, until I noticed that the battery I was using was low charged. I really should have gone down stairs and brought up the new one.
So, I went and pulled it and started greasing it up. 22 year old grease tends to harden up. This has steel planetary gears turning in a nylon housing. I used a combination of used engine oil, used gearbox oil and that black moly grease used in universal joints. I also greased the armature where the arrows are pointing.
I wanted to remove the clutch altogether. But, that snap ring was pretty stubborn. The ones on American starters are comparitively easy to remove. I was afraid of busting the ring. In which case, I'm not certain if I can just get the ring without having to buy an entire starter. Same went with the end cap. If I pull it, I'm not certain as to how long it'll take to imprison the brushes for re-assembly. I'm pressing for time, because I want to wash all of the salt off as soon as possible. Thereafter, I can play with the starter at my leisure, since I won't be driving the car when the roads are salted.
The rubber bellows was torn. Since there's only a dustless torque converter in the bellhousing, I won't worry

 

Just make sure the commutator is fairly smooth, and the brushes are not cracked, flaking, anything like that. And, check to see if the end plate and brush holders have provision to insert a stiff wire to hold the brushes against the springs, so that your reassembly isn't complicated. Install the wires, install the end plate to the shaft end then the housing, snug to spec, and pull the wires out.

 

At just over 60.000 miles (it has exactly 105.035 kilometers clocked), I doubt that I'll have to attend to it soon. It depends on if the engine knocking was due to improper valve adjustment or not. As I had the starter out, I went and adjusted the valves cold, despite recommendations to set them when the engine has reached operating temperature. When the engine's cold, you're at least guaranteed that there will be neither thermal expansion nor contraction taking place. I did the other Daihatsu the same way and haven't had problems with it thereafter. I'm sure, I had already written on this. But, in case I didn't, I used the specs from an old Honda Civic 1200 whose engine construction is most similar to this one. The exception being that the block on the Civic is made from Aluminum which doesen't matter for valve adjustments anyway.
Using a stethescope developped for rooting out noise, I located the knocking to the center left of the engine's valve cover where I found the exhaust valve on the furthest left cylinder to be loose at twice the specs. As soon as I start it up, later today, either the knock will be gone or I'll regret failing to apply the stethescope to the oil pan. I really doubt that a rod bearing would have given up at only this milage. In any event. I would have expected to hear a fried rod bearing through the block anyway.
While I was doing the valve adjustment, the engine with the sparkplugs out seemed to be turning a little too stiff for my liking. It supposedly had the timing belt replaced. Judging by the more than likely unnecessary waterpump replacement and two missing bolts from the hub, the stiffness might be originating from a too tight timing belt (I certainly hope that it's only that). After I get done washing the salt off, as well as the engine and transmission, I'm going to tear down what's needed for a second adjustment. On these, the balancer has to be removed, before the cover gives way.
The way this car was serviced, you would think that it was brought to a zoo to get done. When they lost one of the original bolts used for attaching the air filter unit, they replaced it with one which was too short, as well as using a washer which is supposed to be used with 8 millimeter bolts. The sparkplugs of questionable quality and without a country of origin stamped on them were way out of spec from one another, similar to how the valves were adjusted. A vacuum line was replaced with a miniature braided hose either meant for fuel or for coolant



The dishwasher took care of the battery tray, battery box and grimy valvecover. Don't try this at home, if you don't live alone. Female household members don't particularly like how the dishwasher smells afterwords and how plastics become discolored where foodstuffs started the discoloring in the first place

 

Before trading cars, I changed the gearbox- and motoroils. Supposedly, synthetic gearbox oil is supposed to facilitate shifting. It might depend.
Because the engine was burning oil, I tried dumping in Harley oil. It still smokes despite. That's proof that those scumbags "servicing" the car knew enough to dump in a can of that Bar's Leaks stuff for oil. It looks like I'll have to do the same, until I've got time to free the rings manually. Are there any recommended brands out there which will temporarily seal the oilrings?



Another semi-inherent fault I discovered is that this brand places jets right into the vacuum hoses. European brands and, I'm sure, U.S. ones jet the throttle bodies instead.
Sooner or later, these hoses need replacement. When taken to garages which aren't familiar with these brands, you can imagine the results. Supposedly, higher oil consumption is one of them. I would suppose that a slight loss of power is the other, because without a jet, a vacuum leak would be simulated

 

Dogface, regarding the stuck rings we had a similiar problem with our 87. Car was not driven enough for too many years. When I drove it down to FL from MD in Nov 14 it had 108 k miles on it and it burned nearly a quart of oil every tank of gas (300 miles) and smoked on every startup. A local FL mechanic who specializes in older cars recommended adding Lucas upper cylinder lubricant every gas fill up. It took several tankfills but the start up smoke is gone and I no longer add oil between the annual oil changes which are about 1200 miles in length. Safari currenty has just under 114 K miles. Was never a believer in any additives but Lucas worked in this situation.

 

I could probably get it over here, through Amazon. That's not always the case, though. If it was my own car, I'd be doing just that. Problem is, the lady who traded her car for mine is dizzy, as far as being disciplined enough for keeping an eye on her oil. If she hasn't wrecked the car already (she doesen't like respecting the right of way of others, in an intersection. She nags at me, when I do. I drive, because it's scary when she does. So, the nagging is the less worst of both situations), it would be best to add something which would slow down or even, in the case of the oil which was in the car when I got it, stop burning altogether. Bar's Leaks sells something like that, in the U.S.. When I look up this stuff in German, I can't find anything. Which is sometimes the case when looking up other stuff. This would at least keep her out of my hair, until she finally wrecks the car

 

At the end of summer, I wanted to wash the dust off of my windshield. As I went to do so, the motor ran slow and then stopped. I thought, it had blown a fuse. Then, came the opportunity to trade the car for the one I now have. While doing so, I swapped washer units. I got around to repairing it, last weekend, by sawing off the rusted motor housing from the old one and then swapping it with a better one which was attached parallel to the one which wasn't working. Both had rust in them and I also ended filing and sanding the armature on the original. Only one of the 3 cover tongues lined up with the original motor. So, I glued the motor housing to the unit with silicone and then hammered down the one tongue:



I then drilled a 3 mm hole at the bottom of the housing, so that moisture should never again gather:



The parallel unit which was canibalized:

 

I'm lucky enough to have found the old hose and dug out the jet. This is my reward for not throwing things away. It's 7 millimeters long, 4 1/2 millimeters in diameter and the tunnel is approximately 1 millimeter in diameter

 

I could drive this

 

While in the process of rotating the tires, I noticed that one of the dustcaps was mounted crooked. After having removed it, I noticed that it was pierced by a screwdriver. The cotter pin was also missing. Imagine having your wheel and drum flying off on the Autobahn



Otherwise, the rust is minimal, on this 23-year old car

 

Judging by what has been done already or what was claimed to have gotten done, I'm going to have to pull the balancer on this one, in order to get the timing belt cover off. There's a knocking sound which seems to be coming from the first cylinder area. Even if there wasn't, I want to be sure that the belt genuinely was replaced. Almost as important is the tensioner which should be replaced simultaneously.
Now that the valves have been adjusted, there should be nothing in that simple drivetrain which should knock. After having checked the gaps on all valves while turning the shaft at all 360°, there were no abnormalities to be found.
After having buttoned everything back up, I again went around the engine eith the stethescope. Expecting any piston slap or rod knock to transmit through the block, there was nothing there to hear. I then unscrewed the tip off of the tool and stuck it into the fill hole of the valve cover. There was only that typical mild clicking to be heard which was perfectly normal.
The tapping was heard on the exhaust pipe just behind zhe manifold, as well as on bolt #2 as pictured:



Since the oil- and waterpump are nearby, it could be a freak situation where the knock might be originating thete, since the waterpump looks to be unnecessarily replaced along with the due timing belt and tensioner.
This simple tool is a must. It's been with me for almost 40 years:



I stumbled onto a thread where someone was experiencing a similar problem. He got rid of the knock in his engine, simply through renewing all rod bearings:

http://subarujusty.proboards.com/thread/4268/avoiding-complete-rebuild



The untampered version of this image can either get viewed at the forum itself or by using the reply option here, if you don't happen to have a Photobucket account.
Since I'm going to change the oil anyway, I'll drop the pan and will remove all caps, starting with the rod ones. If they look as bad as these here, I'll also plastiguage the mains. I ordered some at the local parts store. The clerk had a difficult time finding any which gives me the impression that "repair" shops prefer just replacing engines. The last time I bought some was when I was rebuilding my 283 in highschool. They had it over the counter. Yesterday, the clerk said, it'll take a couple weeks to arrive. Being winter still, that's no issue. I'm better off getting the real stuff there, rather than risk getting junk from the internet. Plasiguage has gotten super expensive. But, it will save plenty of guessing and possibly alot of work.
I'm almost hoping that it's just a sloppy wrist pin, despit me having to pull the head, in that case, and having to get a cylinder hone

 

Tap each cap with a ball peen hammer before you disassemble. A good rod will have a nice solid ring to it, a loose one will 'thunk.' But, to verify if it's rod or wrist pin, as the engine's running, short out each cylinder ignition wire. A bad wrist pin noise goes away when the cylinder goes dead, but a bad rod noise doesn't.

 

Wow! Thanks. So now there's accoustic Plastigage in play here I'll hold this knowledge hostage against those at the Daihatsu forum who aren't very nice to me. Well, at least one mod there reads what I post here. So, I guess it's no secret anymore

 

Online, it's "SETEC Astronomy."














*It's an anagram for "Too many secrets."