Quote:
Originally Posted by vwnate1
It sounds to me like you did well .
The rust on the Hall Effect Generator was the most likely culprit IMO, I have saved a few of them by gently and carefully wire brushing the rust off .
The Hall Effect Sensor is fairly easy to test, use your multimeter set to milli volts and disable the power to the ignition circuit ~ crank the engine and you should see some meter action ~ this is why I still use analog multi meters : they'll wiggle the needle when a digital meter may not show anything .
FWIW, fuel and air filters should always be changed every 12 months or 10,000 miles, I've had the exact same problems you did too many times over the years ~ no one ever changes the damned fuel filters  .
Might be time to do a HOT OIL & FILTER CHANGE too... |
I don't change filters per X amount of time. The Freeway is about 1/4 mile a way and goes to a busy Port. Lots of Truck Traffic. Lots of particulates in the Air. So when I am under the hood checking fluid levels I peak at that the air filter. I just sort of go by how loaded the filter looks.
Fuel Filters I generally don't change till I have performance issues. I would have nailed the filter issue faster if it had not been I had that previous modal/hall effect device issue and my Batter was charging ant 16.58 volts (figured it was the batter but did not know if it was not the alternator till the new battery was installed).
Since the new distributor was bought from eBay I kind of suspected there was again an issue with the distributor because it is possible someone was selling a known defective part.
And on top of all of the above the Transmission has some issues and I also suspected the trans was slipping at higher rpms.
So the fuel filter ended being one of the possible and the easiest one to check. Also I did not see any easy way to connect a fuel pressure gauge. My Van has a specific place for that but not the 86 Cavalier.
Deciding on an oil change is by looking at the color and smell of the oil.
I might take one 90 mile trip a year. Most of the time the vehicles are at max 10 mile trips and mostly less.
This is the first fuel injected gasoline Car that I have ever had the fuel filter plug up on.