Slartibartfast

My '95 always felt a little down on power until I did the vac lines and cleaned the gunk out of the throttle body. That really improved things. It's not enough power to smoke the tires or anything but it sure gets up and goes quicker now. I also cleaned out the EGR at the same time. I don't know which thing made the power increase, but I'm assuming it was the cleaning, since the lines and the EGR weren't that bad. It's not a bad idea to check the belt in general (kinda kills the motor if it fails), but if it slipped a tooth I think you'd know about it.

Don't remember if I posted this elsewhere, but to anyone building a relay harness, spend the extra couple bucks on a good fuse holder. I've had two of the cheap plastic in-line ones with the glass fuses melt on me under normal load. The little contacts inside don't seem to make very good contact with the fuses. I put a blade fuse holder on mine, seems like a much better design. It's a good thing the fog lights are on a different fuse, I would've been driving by moonlight otherwise!

The light sockets showing power but not running the bulbs tells me there's high resistance somewhere in the circuit. I ran into this putting a fish finder on a neighbor's boat once; the meter said the circuit was good, but the fish finder wouldn't come on until we fixed the weak spot in the wiring. The meter doesn't draw enough current for the resistance to come into play, but your headlight filament sure does. It's surprising that the new switch didn't fix it. It's also surprising that it's on both sides. When my switch started to crap out, it only lost one beam on one side. The fact that you've got nothing on either side with either switch tells me it's probably not the switch. The fact that the lights work when you jumper the switch says that the wiring up to that connector is okay. How does the connector for the switch look? If a pin or socket is bent/corroded/crooked, it could be making poor contact with the switch, but work just fine when you put an alligator clip on it to jumper it. The + feeds for the headlights are separate from the ones for the markers/tails/dash lights, so it makes sense that the headlights would go and not take the other lights with them. The hitch is that the right and left light circuits are separate from each other as well (two fuses under the hood), which means that for neither side to work, both have to be bad. The problem can't be further down the line in either direction, since the lights work with the switch jumped over, which rules out wiring, fuses, and grounds. I guess this comes down to a question of which is more likely: an oddly failed stock switch and a DOA replacement, or two contacts in the plug that apparently went bad at the same time. I'd start with the switch plug. You could've had one side go and not noticed until the other side followed suit. When one of my low beams became intermittent, I only knew there was a problem because something was going on and off--and my first guess was that the high beam on that side was sticking. Anyone got a more probable guess? I would hold off on relaying it until you've sorted out the underlying problem. Expecting a dodgy circuit to keep sorta working well enough to trigger the thing that means you can see where you're going seems like a bad idea.

I always use cheap gas, nothing added by me, and the injectors have never given me any trouble. Of course, if you let a tank of ethanol'd gas sit for a while, it'll do bad things to any vehicle. So long as it's cycling through (or stabilized) it should be fine. (Thought I'd add, I had my gas tank out a while back and noted no crud in it, no dirt, no rust, and no corn glue.) I agree that ethanol gas is idiotic, but that doesn't mean it'll kill everything, it just means some company will make a killing on rubber seals that can withstand the stuff, or a practical/automatic rig to separate the stuff out. Also, this is assuming a Bush-era energy law survives another eight years! Honestly I'm a lot more pissed off over the stupid nozzles required on gas cans. There is no way to use the stupid things without spilling the gas everywhere.

Things going in and out depending on what else is out sounds like bad grounds to me. Also check the fuse links, might be something funny there. Hopefully it's something simple, sounds like a true cluster.

Nice work!

The knock code didn't make the engine stall, the stuttering/stalling engine set off the knock code. Sounds like the fuel system to me too. Could be a clogged fuel filter, could be the fuel pump's not kicking on, could be an issue with the fuel itself. Make sure there's gas in the tank, listen for the pump hum, change the filter, let us know what you find.

My friend's Chevy van has these LS trim badges on the doors. We finally figured out what they stand for... Leaking Something.

IIRC fixing the camber is just a matter of adding or removing shims from between the UCAs and the frame, and should be well within the capabilities of an alignment shop. If it is riding on the bump stops, though, you might want to back off the T-bars a little, it'll ride like crap that way. If you put up a pic of your setup, somebody might be able to point you better.

I imagine the voltage regulator could be bodged with voltage regulator ICs, if you know what the outputs should be. Otherwise, a wrecking yard would probably sell you a whole cluster for cheap. Best I can think of for the sensors is to get an assortment of metric fine thread bolts and see what fits the sensors.

That link's an interesting read, but the author needs an editor bad. I'm not too picky on oils, but I do avoid the dead cheap stuff. I suspect mine didn't see a lot of changes with its previous owners. It seems to burn just a little. I switched from 10W30 to 5W30 and haven't noticed much change so far, except that the oil pressure light stays on for several seconds after starting, which is a little disconcerting.

I like white, it doesn't show scratches and you can do reasonable touch-ups with a generic rattle can!

IIRC I unhooked the negative battery terminal before my uncle welded on my rig, and had no issues. Oddly, my friend did the same on his van when I welded on it, and it ran like crap afterwards for maybe a minute, then cleared out and ran perfectly normal afterwards. I've heard it's the pulse action of a TIG setup that kills ECUs, but I don't have any data to back tha tup.

Are the hood stopper rubber bits adjusted right? If they're up against the hood it shouldn't be able to shake.

I know I've read about people having the "have to feather the gas to make it go" issue but of course I can't remember what caused it. Doesn't sound trans related, though. I'd want to check on the vacuum system (especially the line to the fuel pressure regulator), make sure the MAF is clean, and make sure the TPS is working.

Nice backyard! My idle was acting up the other day (as it likes to do on occasion), and I found that wiggling the MAF plug seemed to clear it up. Today I stripped the electrical tape off from around the plug end and found a frayed end of some kind of ground strap sticking out. The FSM shows something in there with the wires, but isn't specific on what it's for. My guess is that it's supposed to suppress whatever electrical noise the MAF wiring picks up, and it's not supposed to have a frayed end sticking out... somebody's been into this harness.

My '95 had two factory-looking cats, and AFAIK it's never even been to California. The exhaust guy was a little surprised when he looked underneath, but had no issue yanking both of them and putting a single cat in their place. It's given me no issues. I don't think the OBD1 ECU monitors the catalyst in any way. Later rigs have secondary O2 sensors to check catalyst function.

The k9sar approach to treating STDs never really caught on.

Your warranty must not be up yet.

If you get a good frame, don't bother with the patch kit. If anything the sandwiched metal would just give water/mud a place to collect and cover the cleaning holes. The price you found doesn't sound bad at all if it's solid. The yard my dad talked to wanted $400 for just the back half of a frame. I saw a thread on here a while back where a guy did a body swap with what looked like ratchet straps and some kind of wood A-frame in his backyard, which seemed to work alright for him. Jack it up, hang the body, undo the mounts, drop the chassis, roll the chassis out, transfer the suspension/drivetrain to the new frame, fit the lift blocks, roll the Frankenstein chassis back under, what could go wrong? It does look like you've got a fair bit of body damage at the back. Probably good to take a close look at that and see if the body mounts are tweaked, make sure the doors line up, and check for rust under the rear seats and in the driver's foot well to make sure the body's worth the trouble. If you decide to go for it, I'd love to see the project thread. My frame's got some life in it yet, but the more I look at it, the more soft spots I find, and my welding's not good enough that I'd trust a patch job for towing. (Thanks Nefarious for the powder coat info!)

A good chunk of something in the hose could restrict flow/cause overpressurization. I've heard of brake lines failing internally so that the rubber flakes in and causes a clog, maybe the same could happen to a P/S hose? Other than that, maybe the bit in the steering box that lets fluid flow through when it's not needed is clogged up?

I think most people just rinse out the block and radiator with a garden hose.

Haunting is probably a cause we can rule out. Take a close look at the starter wiring and any wiring you had to disconnect to do the timing belt and make sure it all went back together properly (no bent-over pins or whatever). I would also speculate as to whether you have a smart-ass friend who jumpered your starter to your horn just to mess with you.

If you can't remember the last time you changed the coolant, doing it now wouldn't be a bad idea (if it's still green I wouldn't worry too much). You can throw some Gumout or something in the fuel tank if you want, but unless it's giving you issues, I think Iffy Lube was scamming you.

Pictures would be helpful. Sounds to me like a spot weld might've failed.