My "new" DD - sins of the PO.

[sargentrs]

So I'm heading home, last Saturday, in my '92 Toyota Camry DD, on a country back road, doing about 50ish when I look down at my speedometer and it says I'm doing 20 mph and the tach says I'm turning 2500 rpms. Uh oh, something's not right with this picture. I slow down to pull over and that's when I hear the clackety clackety coming from the left front corner. I just replaced the passenger side CV axle a couple of weeks ago. Crap, now the driver's side goes out. When I get stopped and put it in park the noise stops. However, the car starts rolling in park! Uh oh, something's not right. I set the E-brake, put it in drive and the noise starts again. I pop the hood and look down at the driver's CV axle and it's ratcheting back and forth and it sounds like the teeth are stripped on the spline and a planetary gear is rotating around the ridges. That ain't good. Gotta be the transmission. I watched a YouTube video on pulling the engine/tranny out of a Camry and there is no way I'm doing that. What a PITA! So I sell it to a junker for $100 and bought another car today. This time a '93 Camry. Notice a pattern? 149,000 miles and just about everything works. A/C needs charging, wiper switch only works on high and passenger rear seat belt's been cut. Looks like it's been repainted because the outside's black and the door jambs are red. Gave the $1700 for it. Ran good on the way home, about 50 miles. We'll see how she does going to work next week. In actuality, the '92-'96 Camry's are some of the best cars made. I highly recommend them to anybody wanting a cheap DD. You can buy them all day with 200,000 miles or less for around $1500. The 2.2L 4 banger is known for 300K+ miles consistently and it's not a valve slapper so when the timing belt breaks you don't lose the engine. Their easy to work on and the parts are reasonable. CV axles was $50. Most have broken door handles, my driver's is broken but works, so common they sell them in the Help section at Autozone Well, here she is!

[CrypticRacer13]

Good luck!

[HIO Silver]

2x on Camrys.. my sis had an 89. I went over to her place to change oil, clean it up, and a good mechanical once-over. I pulled the dipstick and no oil clung to it.. and this was on the same day she had driven to and from work! I drained the oil and it dribbled out about 1.5 quarts! Amazing.

And it went on to live for another 180,000 miles!

[Mancar1]

Good for you. They r good cars.

[jimmy828]

Good luck on your new DD

[sargentrs]

Thanks guys!

[crashdummy]

Sweet! That's something I need, a daily driver...

[sargentrs]

So the car has a tendency to heat up sitting in traffic or at a red light but going down the road sits at about 1/4 gauge. Heater doesn't work well at speed but gets warm when slow driving as the temp starts to climb. I'm thinking thermostat, right? So I get a new one and take out the old and guess what, the PO had knocked the center out of the thermostat. So I put the new one in and let her warm up and I notice the fans aren't kicking on and the temps are rising. Pull the plug off the coolant temperature sensor and one of the fans comes on. On these cars the temp sensor is a ground operated connection and when you unplug it the fans come on when you turn the key on. Turn on the a/c and the other fan comes on too. Conclusion...the PO rigged the thermostat to compensate for the fans not running due to a faulty temp sensor. Don't you love it!

[HIO Silver]

That's probably not the last malady lurking under the veil of deception.

Kudos to you knowing how to troubleshoot! I mean real troubleshooting as a technician would do... mechanics would simply throw parts and money at it.

[sargentrs]

Thanks HIO! The internet is a marvelous thing. Next is a broken vacuum switch. Looks like he broke the nipples off and just plugged the vacuum lines and left the switch ports wide open. Heat/air only blows out of the dash vents, no defrost. I'm hoping that was the vacuum source for the dampers. Even if its not its gotta be an awful vacuum leak causing who knows what.

[sargentrs]

So I put the new thermostat in last Sunday. While I was testing the temp sensor with my multimeter, I propped my flashlight up on the distributor so I could see in the top of the sensor. Got all done and got everything working, made a quick scan of the engine bay looking for tools and shut the hood. Took her for a drive and she ran good. Yesterday morning I go out and hit the key to warm her up and she wouldn't start. Turned over fine and hit once but then just crank and crank with no run. I thought, maybe the sensor has to be plugged up to start? I popped the hood and that's when I saw the light...literally. The beam of my flashlight shining down behind the distributor. My flashlight had fallen down behind the head and dizzy. Metal cased flashlight, plug wires, distributor... Too dark to fish it out so caught a ride to work. Got home, fished out the flashlight and she fired right up. Must've been shorting out somewhere. Note to self...check for lost tools before closing hood!

[chad67]

Uh oh! This post just went from "sins of the PO" to "sins of the CO"!

[sargentrs]

Haha! I started to change the title to that.