PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post - Trouble Shooting No Spark on 1986 Chevy Cavalier 4 cyl

Diesel911 · #11 07-19-2021, 07:33 PM

This Car continues to be a PTA. On July 4 just before arriving at my destination glanced down at the Temp Gauge and found too hot. When I was moving it got down to near normal so I continued for the other 2 miles to my destination.

There is no mechanical fan and the Electric Cooling Fan was not working normally. I did find if I hot wired the fan it worked. So after the cool down and replacement of coolant I was able to drive home with no incident.

Since the Fan worked hot wired I was thinking it could be the fan controller (aftermarket), temp sensor or the Relay. Scrounged through my parts and found another relay and that fixed it.

I gave the Car back to my Wife. 6 days later we were celebrating out I drove the car and found that one of the rear brakes/wheels locked up.
I gave my Wife my Van to use which I had also been having bad luck on. The Drivers Side Door Handle broke and I was waiting on the new one to arrive. Anyway she got the van.

I had the wheel skidding issue previously but on the opposite side and several years go. Replacing the 2 proportioning valves fixed that.
However this time it seemed different.

I found that the tire on that side had the tread separating from it. But, that did not fix itself. (I have a manual tire thing to dismount and mount tires. It takes some strength to do that but it worked OK till it pulled out the concrete mounts. The mounts don't want to stay in the concrete any more so changing the tire without the Manual Tire Disimounter was a whole lot harder. I need to get that mounted again.)

I pulled the Brake Drum off to see if I could find anything the Drum was kind of roughly worn. It is one of the Drums I had bought on eBay and it seemed like they were made of mild steel instead of cast iron. I got rid of one of them with the previous skidding issue years before I re-adjusted the Brakes and that helped some.

(While this is going on the passenger side door handle on the Van also broke leaving no door working door handles and the new one not having arrived yet. My Wife who is fortunately a small person had to crawl in from the back door of the van to use the vehicle. One door handle arrived and I fixed that but I am awaiting the other one.)

I hate trouble shooting by replacing parts. Bit. I ordered a new Drum and a new set of Brake Shoes.

Replacing the Drum and shoes appears to have cured the issue but I was still in 2 days of sort of testing it when I decided to change my Oil. This is a transverse engine and the Axle comes out near the Oil Filter.
Well I found the Axle Boot near the Engine cracked all the way around and the grease flung out.

I have some Dorman universal boots left over so I will replace the boot with that. Also the Axle Seal on that side had been leaking so that also gets replaced. I am waiting for the seal to come tomorrow before starting.