Plug wire question, thermostat and other issues.

[Island_Yota]

Supra is falling apart! Its had oil dripping down the bell housing for a long time but it just started leaving drops everywhere I park after I did an oil change, not leaking in any of the obvious places, Pull a plug wire and oh sweet, valley is full of oil, cant even see the plugs. Driving it last night, temp spikes to 3/4, and drops to normal.. pull over, let it run, hold it at 3k, and it sits at normal, take it for a drive this morning same exact thing. Still has air in the system, ive burped it 3 times.. Top it all off, walk out to the car today and it has a flat tire, fixed that already. Records say the valve cover gasket were replaced at 233,000km, it has 245,000km now so its quite possible they never cleaned the valley out. I spilled some oil into the valley the other day changing the oil so that would be why its running down onto the ground now. Pulling all that shit apart, testing the compression before I buy any more parts.

Im almost positive the temperature problem is air in the cooling system, ive tried to burp it, got some air out but the car doesn't get hot enough and I get frustrated sitting there for a 1/2 hour trying to get it to dump the t-stat, should I go with a lower temp one for now? putting a new one in asap. Ive had air trapped in the system since I did the water pump and heater core a few months ago but ive never ever seen the gauge spike like that.


Lastly, I need new plug wires, the car has the original sumitomo's on it but a rat chewed them up in the winter so they aren't any good anymore. I want NGK but they are too expensive, can get Autolite wires for $120, are Autolite wires any good?

Good news is I ordered in the spherical ball bushings for the rear control arms, bad news is I need a ton of other parts and the bushings already cost $150 for the pair... :icon_evil

 

[rayall01]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NGK-...c0.m245&_trkparms=65:12|39:1|72:1205|240:1318
NGK plug wires for you, cheap!

 

[BlackDynamite]

I had a problem with my temp sensor wire, it had a short/tear in the wire and it would spike up and down. I taped it up, sanded the connection and fixed the problem. Make sure when you burp the system you turn on the heater and might as well flush radiator(If it is older) and put in new thermo. Just to cover all bases.

The oil in the galleys and on back of transmission is more than likely coming from your valve covers. I had a HORRIBLE time with this. Since the motor leans back, it drips onto your tranny and drips off of tranny. I went to Lowe's, spent 3$, got same fine thread bolts that had a 10mm head on it instead of those retarded Philips heads....and fixed the problem. (Just make sure to get the right length, take one of the existing screws with you to match up.) The Philips heads will strip and you can't torque them down enough, I've done it on 4 supras and none of them leak. Granted they also had newer gaskets on them, so a set of those might be nice also. Might as well get you a set of platinum Denso spark plugs, and some new wires like above and you should be good.

 

[Island_Yota]

Ok I figured it all out. Coolant problem was ridiculous, I narrowed it down to the cap but its brand new.. well, what I didn't see was there was a piece of solder sticking up where the cap seals! The rad is newer so it sorta makes sense. Drove the car around the block with the cap on one click so no pressure built up, way faster way to get the car warm which made burping the system really easy. The temp gauge spiking was probably the connector because I was messing with it a few days before it started spiking and reading weird, connection was all corroded so I cleaned it up, works great.

No more oil is building up in the plug valley, assuming it was either spilled in from the fill cap or an old valve cover leak that never got cleaned up. I do still have to take the throttle body off and the valley cover plate and clean the remaining stuff out, change the plug wires and compression test the motor so I might aswell do valve cover gaskets while im there. The plugs are newer Denso's(Expensive!), previous owner got them changed and they should still have tons of life.

Got my ball bushings in, took me most of the morning to make a tool to push the old ones out/press the new ones in but it worked great, the drivers side only took me 10 minutes to replace. Bad news is my alignment bolts are rusted solid, need to buy new ones and cut the old ones and buy an Energy poly bushing set. Car doesnt wander on the hwy anymore, no more clack clack noise on and off the throttle, drives smoother aswell.. amazing what a little bushing can do.. should be really nice when I replace the rest.

 

[Island_Yota]

Its back to its bullshit again, overflow is full to the top, temp spikes once.. then never again. Still air rushing around in the system.

I don't get it. My prognosis is its fucked and im not going to get to go on my roadtrip this summer.

 

[Island_Yota]

think its time to pull the motor :icon_evil Problem is I'm having a hard time finding something to replace it with. I'd really like to go with a 7MGTE, car needs a clutch anyway.

 

[Island_Yota]

anyone have any info?

 

[Island_Yota]

Figured it out, Thermostat was missing the black gasket that goes around it so it was letting hot water get by but was also mixing with the cold water on the other side and not opening until it got hot enough(too hot) and finally opened. Can't believe I didn't realize that was missing but I guess im used to every other car ive had that didn't have that.

Bought a new thermostat, took like 20 minutes to bleed the system, got all the air out finally, car is happy.

 

[rayall01]

Figured it out, Thermostat was missing the black gasket that goes around it so it was letting hot water get by but was also mixing with the cold water on the other side and not opening until it got hot enough(too hot) and finally opened. Can't believe I didn't realize that was missing but I guess im used to every other car ive had that didn't have that.

Bought a new thermostat, took like 20 minutes to bleed the system, got all the air out finally, car is happy.

Good deal!

 

[Island_Yota]

Also have a line on a motor that im going to call about on Monday, the guy is pretty sure its a 7MGTE, its at a salvage yard.. looking for a GTE to build and swap in over winter.