It might need a few new valve springs. The input shaft bearing in the transmission is whining a little. There’s a wobble or two here or there. One of the camshaft lobes may be in trouble. Clunks? Plenty. We’re really hoping the clutch cable doesn’t finally give out either. The good news is that even with 230-plus thousand miles on the original 4K-C engine – there are no recalls for the 1982 Toyota Starlet! We drove the Starlet down to Toyota Santa Monica in hopes for a new old stock replacement shift knob or some other eighties-era Toyota gem, but were told that the Starlet was free of any recalls by virtue of age and durability. A quick search over at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration database confirmed that the Starlet was recall free. There is no entry whatsoever for the 1982 Toyota Starlet. Not to worry. We can personally assure the NHTSA that the Starlet is mostly trouble-free, and that the 50 or so horsepower from the mighty 1300cc peanut grinder engine under the hood presents no possibility of unintended acceleration.
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From the internet meme department of repairs comes this quick and E-Z tech tip for those looking to find the amber lamps. In this case the two stock amber inboard headlamps for a 1969 Citroen iD sedan proved not only near-impossible to locate, but à prix élevé for the purposes of drivable restification. The inexpensive solution comes in a can for under ten bucks. One can of Krylon Stained Glass Color spray paint in yellow can convert standard sets of clear lens fog lights or headlamps into the amber lamps in a few minutes. The task of prying the lamps or fog lights out of whatever mounts they are fused or screwed into will of course vary by vehicle. Consult your service manual or favorite forum for guidance in removal without breakage. Once the lamps are out and ready for paint, make sure the lamp surface is clean and free of grease or crud. The spray-on finish is translucent and designed for use on glass. Apply the paint in thin, even coats. Better two thin coats than one heavy one to avoid light blocking drips and puddling. Additional thin coats will bring a deeper yellow-amber to the lens. Our Citroën driving man in the field provided these photos of his own amber lamp spray paint conversion. He reports unimpaired luminosity and no breakdown in finish after nearly a year of extensive all-weather testing and actual use. With a couple hours and about ten bucks you too can bring the amber lamps.
The dry climate and salt free roads of California are kind to older cars like the Starlet. The same warm California sun has detrimental effects on vinyl interiors. Throw in twenty plus years of sitting and sunbathing, and it’s a good bet that even the rich Corinthian leather in those 1981 Cordoba seats has seen better days. Drivers seats take the biggest beating. While the foam inside the Starlet seats is still mostly there, the stylish light and dark brown vinyl piping is clearly toasted. In the time between now and when our vintage Mitsubishi ECU collection is worth enough money to trade for a trip to a real upholstery shop for the madras seat cloth conversion, investing 14 bucks into a pair of seat covers was a thrifty solution to tattered bucket seats. Sliding economy replacement covers over crusty old seats takes just few minutes and is a usually tools free process. 
Joining Space Invaders, the personal computer, and perhaps Sputnik in the pantheon of modern technological achievements is the oxygen sensor. Most every modern fuel injected automobile has one or more of these sentinels threaded into its exhaust pipe. Elements inside the oxygen sensor tip measure the amount of oxygen gas in the exhaust, and convert the ratio into a signal that makes sense to the engine computer. The computer uses this signal, along with input from other sensors, to feed the right amount of fuel into the air entering the engine. If all parts are working correctly the fuel, air, and spark balancing act succeeds in ideal combustion! If the oxygen sensor goes haywire, the engine computer can add too much or not enough fuel. Poor fuel economy, lousy emissions, or both can be the result of a spent or malfunctioning oxygen sensor. The good news is an oxygen, or O2 sensor is about as easy to remove and replace as a spark plug.
Welcome to the one if by land, two if by sea 50-in-1 electronic playground edition of the Tool of the Week. This time around we’re peering into computerized technology. The 1987 Mitsubishi Starion is a fuel injected car, but by no means modern. The transitional period between carburated and electronically injected engines produced some interesting if not cantankerous systems. The two-injector throttle body injection on the Starion falls into the island of misfit toys category, but the car is equipped with fully transistorized Electronic Control Unit. Any ECU made after 1995 can be accessed with a readily available universal engine code reader to help sort out check engine lights. The only people that had a Mitsubishi code reader back in 1987 were Mitsubishi (and Chrysler) dealerships. These machines were a few steps ahead of ENIAC, and about as expensive. Proving that you can learn and save money on the internets is the forum post that provided the knowledge to solder together this simple engine code reader from a two-dollar 12V LED and thirty-cent alligator clips from the local Radio Shack. Just find the pin outs and count the blinks.
Despite promises of atomic power and limitless propulsion, the lead-acid battery under the hoods of most automobiles is not very futuristic. Cleverly named maintenance-free batteries are updated versions of the same basic lead-acid automotive battery design that first kicked over a production Cadillac in 1912. Even maintenance-free batteries require occasional wrenching. Regular battery inspection and maintenance can make the difference between a five-year battery lasting five years, and one that gives up before its time. Inspecting the battery terminals and posts for corrosion is easy. Fluffy white crud means it’s time for a battery clean up. 
Changing the oil and filter on a regular basis is the single best way to keep an engine running as long and best as possible. A thin film of oil molecules is the only thing that keeps gnashing engine internals from turning into an expensive heap of scrap metal by way of friction and heat. Another function of engine oil is to keep those same engine parts clean. Dropping out the oil and swapping in a new oil filter takes but about an hour, and can mark the beginning of a do-it-yourself tradition of maintaining your engine and wrenching on your ride.
The way Clunkbucket learned about how and why to run a compression test on an engine came only after bolting almost every conceivable replacement part onto a 318 V-8 in a 500-dollar ‘67 Plymouth Barracuda. Only after a compression test was it determined that the engine was closer to a V-5 than a V-8. As Foghorn Leghorn often trumpeted, there’s a right way – and there’s a wrong way. Running a compression check only after replacing perfectly good carburetors and everything other engine related part is the wrong way. Running a compression test is one good way to see what’s going on inside an engine without talking it apart. 
As most all of us have discovered when the tank ran dry, an engine requires fuel to run. As this fuel is flammable and generally explosive, it is kept in a tank away from the combustive action going on inside the engine. This setup presents the problem of how to get the fuel from the tank to the carburetor or fuel injectors that feed the engine fuel. Enter the fuel pump. The fuel pump draws fuel from the fuel tank and delivers enough to the engine to keep things moving.
