A busy week for me

The weather's been pretty tolerable this week and so I have been able to get outside and work on that Tempo, trying to get it ready to deliver to the oldest son. He is no mechanic and I figured I better have it working as well as possible before handing over the keys to him.

So this week I've been in the driveway every evening, in spite of my sore back- which is now only sore and no longer excruciating-thanks for asking. The exhaust system has been replaced. The car went to Wal-Mart for an oil change. I've adjusted the idle speed, replaced the air filter and the leaky rocker cover gasket. Last night I changed the thermostat and added fresh antifreeze to the system. It was the first time in my tool swinging career that I've ever removed a thermostat in pieces! That thing had come apart and fell out of the housing in 4 pieces. I guess it really was time to be changed and my troubleshooting skills were correct.

I still need to dig into the motorized shoulder belt that doesn't work as that is a requirement for the safety inspection. Sadly, the Haynes manual I purchased makes only passing reference to this part, saying to take the car to your dealer for repair, and the electrical schematics don't even reference any of the wiring for this system. In fact, the Haynes book doesn't have any chassis schematic for the 93 & 94 model year cars! What the heck is up with that? So I guess I'll be removing plastic panels and going in blind to see if I can get the shoulder belt moving when it is supposed to move.

Remarkably, everything under the hood seems to be in good order. The inside of the engine was cleaner than one might hope for on a high mileage engine, with no buildup of crud showing under the rocker cover. I did find one broken rocker cover hold-down screw stuck in the head so hopefully the Permatex #1 sealer will do its job and keep the oil inside the engine where it belongs. That broken screw and the original formed gasket were probably the reason for the leakage that caused me to consider changing the gasket in the first place. All the wire bundles seem to be connected and unhacked and there aren't any extra wires running around the engine bay that dead end with no rhyme or reason- something you could expect on a car of this vintage.

So I'm pretty pleased with the car. It seems to run pretty well with no obvious bad faults. The electric mirrors don't work but are manually adjustable so they might not get looked at until another day. My biggest fear now is getting it to pass the emissions test and the thought of whatever repairs might be required if it doesn't pass. There's nothing to do but run it through though and see if it passes.