[V8] Re-Investing in my 93V8Q

[dsaad at icehouse.net]

Quoting Ralph Cook <rcook at integrityplastics.com>:

> Fellow listers,
> I have finally decided to keep my 1993 V8Q which I have owned for seven
> years.
> What can I say, The car is addictive.
> I plan to have the Head gaskets replaced to stop an oil leak. Once I
> committed to this
> expenditure the rest seemed like a logical move.
> That gasket replacement seems pretty straight forward. There are other
> nagging issues
> about which I seek your collective advice and experience.

If you are going this far, maybe you should consider a valve job - or at least
replacing the valve seals. It will add some cost but should also basically give
you a new motor. This of course depends on the overall mileage and condition of
the motor.

>
> The Bose stereo system. The right front door speaker wil "pop" after five
> minutes of operation.
> I intend to replace that speaker only. Is this an indicator that the rest of
> the speakers are about to go?

Curiously, my right front speaker is also going bad. I plan to try the repair on
mine in the next few weeks, but generally you replace the biggest electrolytic
capacitors in the power supply section of the amp. If you know what these are
then the job is a snap. If not then you probably oughta send it off for repair
or consider a whole system swap out with something more modern.
This is really a matter of personal taste. I prefer the look of OEM but newer
systems can sound better and offer more features.

btw, my i-mac just had the same problem. It seems Apple got a bad batch of caps.
This is a common problem with any electronics. In the i-mac case, Apple spec'ed
and used a supposedly high quality and over rated part but it still failed.


>
> The trip odometer has not functioned since I have owned this car. I recently
> read where a lister
> had addressed this without trashing the instrument cluster. Is this
> feasible?

I can't remember exactly how this works, but if the main odometer works then it
seems likely that the trip odo has simply slipped out of place somehow. You need
to pull the cluster and inspect before I can offer a better guess.


>
> The check engine light has been intermittently coming on and then going out.
> This seems to be unrelated to speed or other influences. I am told that it
> may be an
> electrical connection near the exhaust system. What else would cause this
> light
> to have a seven year life of its own? re-setting the codes lasts about three
> miles.

We need to know what the code is to handle this one. WAG-O-THE-DAY is that you
have a bad engine ground or somehow the exhaust pipe with the O2 sensor in it is
not well grounded. You can run a ground braid cable from the pipe to the engine
for next to nothing to see if this helps. You can also switch to the 4-wire Ford
style O2 sensor.
The other possibilities are endless though - so get the code next time.

Dave