Engine

'82 Wont Run

I am at a loss of what is preventing my 1982 from running correctly. Out of a sudden the car just "died" less than 3 blocks from my house (engine was still cool). It would turn over but not start. This is after weeks of driving with absolutely no probelms. Had to jump the car (juice was wearing down from cranking the engine too much). After much coaxing the engine finally fired but would barely keep an idle and while driving it back home, it ran extremely rough. When it wouldn't start, by the way, it had spark, and the fuel was under pressure. My "mechanic" had it a week, and told me he narrowed it down to the fuel injectors were not "pulsing" correctly and thought it was the "o-ring" in the air sensor housing where the intake air unit slides into it. Picked up the car today and while it started at the mechanics fine, later that night the problem started all over again. I was hoping you could lead me (and my mechanic) in the right direction in what to check. BTW in the last month, the car has received new fuel pump, fuel pump relay, spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap, rotor, ignition coil. Sorry for the long disertation, but I am at a loss and getting very disgusted with the car. The only other thing that I've noticed is the voltage meter has lately been at or below 12, (while engine running) when it used to always be up near 13. Any help with this will be appreciated. thanks
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John J. Zurinskas
82 928 Auto - Indischrot (Guards Red)/Black Leather


Same thing happened to my '83S. Our cars have the same L-Jetronic system. I had it towed to my mechanic thinking the injection brain or the fuel pump had died. It turned out to be a simple vacuum leak.

Check this out: from the right side of the car, look down into the "V" through the air intake tubes to the throttle body (the part that the mass-air "flapper" fits into). There are two tubes that stick out (could be the pivit point for the throttle body butterfly?). My mechanic capped them off, used hose clamps to secure them, and then it ran perfectly. They also did a CO2 adjustment. Just to be sure, they did a full inspection of all the lines and removed all the connectors from the sensors and cleaned them. They said there was quite a bit of corrosion, so a cleaning was due. All this for 3 hours labor.

When I asked him how they found it (I would never have guessed to look down there), he said "Oh, it's pretty common problem on these models.

If it isn't a vacuum leak and if you know someone else with an L-Jetronic system, swapping the brain and mass-airflow "flapper" will help isolate the problem(s). If no swap possible, an oscilloscope could be used to see if any injection pulses being generated to the injectors.

I hope this helps!!

Rich
'93 GTS
'83S