TOPIC: Corolla, Part Deux...

A couple of years ago I bought a 1988 Toyota Corolla with a bad transmission to fix and resell. The day I bought it, my in-laws announced that they were looking for a cheap little car as a beater, since they only had one vehicle at the time. I fixed the Corolla and sold it to them, and they used it till they bought a Sebring convertible. Then they handed it down to my son.

My son recently got a Dodge Neon, and announced yesterday that he was just going to sell the Corolla to some wrecker guy who'd offered him $200 for it. So... Now I have the Corolla back, like I need another car around here. I'll probably start detailing it tomorrow, since the weather is so nice here right now. At least this time I won't have to install a transmission, or an exhaust system, or fix the a/c.

I have to ask.....how many miles are on it?

DelRay wrote:

I have to ask.....how many miles are on it?

About 125k. My 1986 Tercel wagon has 3 times that many.

I've been tinkering on the Corolla a little every day since I brought it home. It's been completely cleaned from top to bottom, fully waxed (including the door jambs), the engine has been thoroughly degreased, and even the trunk has been washed out. All of this needed doing, but I knew there was a mechanical issue to be sorted. The car was smoking like a freight train.

I knew my son was carrying a jug of oil around in the back of the car, so I assumed it was using some oil. Until I spent some time with the car, I really had no idea how bad the problem was. It smoked bad enough that the kid across the street ran inside the house to get his father so he could see the car that was burning. I was figuring on at least a ring job. I wasn't looking forward to it, but the parts aren't expensive.

I finally discovered something completely by accident. If I started the car and let it run, it would smoke indefinitely. However, if I started it and let it run till it was completely warmed up, then turned it off and restarted it a couple of minutes later, it usually wouldn't smoke any more. I started thinking stuck rings.

I bought a quart of Marvel Mystery oil. I poured it through the carb with the engine running till the engine died, then let it sit overnight. I did that twice, then added the remainder of the bottle to the engine oil and ran it extensively. No luck. Then I added 8 ounces of Sea Foam to the oil, ran it at 2000 rpms for 20 minutes, changed the oil, and added sea foam to that. It didn't stop the smoking, but changed the pattern. I then pulled the spark plugs, added 2 ounces of Berryman's Chemtool to each cylinder, rocked the crankshaft back and forth for a while, and let the engine sit for 12 hours. I then added the rest of the Berryman's to the gas tank and went for a .drive in the country. It smoked like crazy for most of the trip, and I spent a lot of time flooring it then letting it coast back down. Over and over till it finally quit smoking. I drove it home, and let it sit till the next day.

That was 3 days ago, and the car hasn't smoked again. I changed the oil again today, and added a quart of Rislone to it to continue the cleaning. The engine is running really well, and hopefully this has taken care of the problem. Knock on wood...

hum, now it's hooked on chemicals maybe? (hehe)

88 Corolla, (if I remember right 22r or the 18 (?) little foggy on the exact motor but, two things pop into my head.

the first one would be with the oil filter it self, if you removed it and got a dental mirror up in there with some light the one I use to work on got a "little" crud up in the returns.

the other problem I ran across was the fuel pump had an issue where it would blowout/by the diaphragm down the actuator...on to the cam and "water down" the oil with gas.

I had a 78 Toyota p/u, that had pretty close to 500,000 miles on it, it completely lost the oil filter mount and all, froze in the winter a couple of times (removed fan belt and drove till it thawed out, replaced the coolant in the garage), had roofing shingles on the floor boards to hid the pavement rushing by...(flintstone style), got a Corolla wagon because the owner though the timing chain went..found the busted fuel pump, fix and replaced also did a new timing chain since I had it open, sold it back to the Pryor owner at what I bought it from them for + the replacement parts and a baking sheet full of homemade Chocolate chip cookies...for fixing it. you should have seen this tray it was a mountain of cookies! ok i was a little nuts back then but I worked at Kodak and all my side jobs i did as barter to help folks out...go ahead and tax a sheet of cookies.

I manage to by a new pickup, sold my old one for $5 (5-bucks) just to have the police show up about a week later explaining to me that one of the downtown RPD officers had their Toyota truck stolen and my old one was left in it's place....

I had to ask them if they wanted a 5x8 of the guy I sold mine two, because I did take a picture of the truck and the guy before they left.....as a mamentoe.

Nope, the engine in the Corolla is a 4AF. Toyota never used the R series engines in the Corolla.

The fuel pump isn't an issue, I put a new one on for my son to correct another issue. The oil isn't taking on gas.

It appears that there's still a sticking compression ring on one cylinder. The car has a miss on one cylinder till it starts to warm up, then it breaks loose. There's no smoke. I'd do a cold compression test, but I have no idea where my compression gauge is.

the reference to the(r)motor was for my pick up truck i had, but it sounds like a "minor" ring job and some cylinder re-honing will but you back on the right track for 100,000+, always felt they where a great car that and the old Tarcels not the new ones but the old ones, the newer ones are nothing more than a Chevy Nova in drag.