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. … [Read more...]
Clean Battery Posts and Terminals
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. … [Read more...]
Oil and Filter Change
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 … [Read more...]
Compression Test
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 … [Read more...]
Replace Fuel Pump
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 … [Read more...]