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My '95 is going back into daily service

2K views 25 replies 9 participants last post by  DannoXYZ 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi all,

Another car of mine got stolen, so at least for a while, the '95 prison is my daily driver again. It's in pretty good shape-everything works, no rust at all. It's a base model 3 spd auto with almost 275k miles on it. I'm curious about a couple of things though. Structurally, how are these engines built? By that I mean are the cranks and rods forged or cast, etc. I know they're not known for bottom end problems, and mine is showing no signs of developing any. However, I drive 100 miles a day round trip to school and back. At that rate, it's possible either the engine or transmission will wear out. What is a good place to look for these besides the local junkyard? Just on a whim, I checked the price of a replacement a131L trans from LKQ; they wanted $700, and that's my work price. (I work at advance auto, and we get a considerable discount.) I was stunned-$700 for an ancient 3 spd auto that started being made by the hundreds of thousands if not millions in 1984? Hell, the one they quoted that price for had over 100k on it! Anyway, I'm just looking down the road to see what my options are if trouble arises. If I happen to find either an engine or transmission cheap that's known to be good I might snatch it up just to have in reserve. I don't see myself scrapping this car because of an engine or trans failure-it's paid for and has been too reliable to do that. I have the ability to easily change both engine and trans if needed, so labor isn't a direct financial consideration.
 
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#3 ·
The water pump, thermostat, timing belt, cam and crank seals, and I think the exhaust manifold cracked and was replaced with an aftermarket one. Oh, the O2 sensor was done a few years ago. Neither the engine or transmission leak a drop of anything. I changed the differential fluid and trans fluid a couple of years ago. The car has been mostly parked, I probably haven't put 10k on it in 2 years.
 
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#5 ·
I handled that already. I relocated the module to inside the air filter box so that it gets blasted with a constant stream of cool air. No more overheating of the module and pouring water on the distributor to get to the next auto parts store.
 
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#6 ·
Sorry to hear about your car getting stolen, may the thieves find themselves being eaten by maggots from the inside out.

With that many miles, i'd replace the rod-bearings. And maybe even a pre-emptive headgasket job. Use the later all-metal headgasket from the 7A-FE.
 
#7 ·
I wouldn't touch it. Just maintain it. You'll go through brakes and tires, but if you keep all of the fluids full, I'll bet it'll go another 200,000whatever with no big problems.
 
#8 ·
Thanks guys, I appreciate the input. Danno, why should I replace the rod bearings? They're showing no signs of going bad-there's no startup knock or anything. Same thing with the head gasket, no signs of trouble there either.
 
#15 ·
For the past couple years, i've been helping a friend make a living by buying older cars that need TLC at a discount, fixing them up, and selling for a profit.

He picks Hondas as that's his specialty, and I spot the Corollas. We do a car about every 3-weeks roughly depending upon what deals are out there. The Corollas are typically of two types, blown headgasket (mostly 1.6l 4A) or rod-knock.

The headgasket cars are typically in the 200-250k range where I suspect the fibre-material compresses over time and relaxes the head-bolt tension. This eventually allows combustion-pressure through which burnts a path through the gasket. The 4A easily outnumber the 7A 10-to-1 in bad headgaskets even with simiar mileage. I suspect this difference is due to the superior all-metal gasket in the 7A.

Rod-bearings seem to go around 250-350k-miles. By the time you hear rod-knock, it's too late. The bearings are toast and you may have irreparable damage to rod & crank.

I did the rod-bearings in my car around 220k-miles because I felt the telltale mid-range "fluttering" of the engine. When I pulled the bearings, they were definitely worn beyond the service-limit specs without any rod-knock.
 
#9 ·
I am a big fan of not touching stuff unless it really needs it. I'd say fill it with high mileage motor oil, put a good filter on it, and keep driving. Only thing that may seriously cause issues if ignored is if your fuel filter which could clog. Otherwise I think you have everything covered.
 
#10 ·
I actually run 0W-20 synthetic in it. I started that when I took a trip up to Ohio in the winter and wanted to make sure the oil wouldn't be molasses in the pan on cold startups. I just never stopped using that grade, and it seems to be fine. I changed the fuel filter shortly after buying the car, about 25,000 miles ago. It should be fine for a long time.
 
#14 ·
You know, over the time I've had the car I've had several offers to buy it. Something told me to not sell it each time. I'm sure glad that's the case, because I'd be driving my '98 dodge diesel dually lacking 5th gear if I had sold it. Or maybe the insurance company would be putting me in a rental car...
 
#16 ·
Wow, that's pretty convincing! No one else I can think of has dealt directly with that many of these cars recently. The buddy I got the car from mentioned putting in the 7a headgasket, mainly for the compression boost. It seems like that wouldn't be that hard to do-pull the head, leaving the manifolds attached, drop oil pan, remove rod caps, replace bearings, put it all back together...
 
#18 ·
heh, heh... :)

Wow, that's pretty convincing! No one else I can think of has dealt directly with that many of these cars recently. The buddy I got the car from mentioned putting in the 7a headgasket, mainly for the compression boost. It seems like that wouldn't be that hard to do-pull the head, leaving the manifolds attached, drop oil pan, remove rod caps, replace bearings, put it all back together...
The rod-bearings are darn easy, just an extra 15-minutes on top of doing a pan gasket job. On the 4a, you have to drop the crossmember too. The 7a needs to drop it about 2" to get to the #$*%!#@ sideways bolt that bolts the oil-pan into the transmission. Here's my rod-bearings @ 220k. The wear I suspect was due to my wife taking it to places with cheapo oil-change specials. They most definitely did not use synthetic oil. The resultant oil-burning, clogged rings and low-oil levels did cause the oil-light to go on many times, indicating low-pressure. That combined with occasional off-roading probably didn't help. Not visible in the photos, but close-inspection showed the tiniest shade of copper showing through.



With the MLS headgasket, you have to make sure the block & head are flat to within 0.05mm (can get away with 0.1mm). And the surface has to be smoother than RA=60, I prefer 80. That's because the gasket doesn't have the soft fibre to seal minor imperfections. Combustion will be contained by the raised compression-ridge just fine, but scratches will weep coolant. Good idea to spray 3x layers of Coppercoat on each side of gasket before installing.

Not sure how much the MLS gasket would increase compression. Going that route, I'd bump it up to 10.5:1 like the 4A-GE. The 4A-GE really wasn't that special until the last generation with the highest compression. A high-comp 4A-FE would be more knock/detonation resistant than GE because of the flatter more compact combustion chamber that wouldn't require a dome on the piston.
 
#19 ·
I don't mind getting the head surfaced at my local shop, but I don't want to have to mess with the block. If the block will prevent the use of the 7a gasket without special treatment then the 7a gasket won't be used.
 
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#23 ·
Hey Danno, could you clarify a bit for me on this mid-range flutter you speak of? I've noticed that ever since I bought mine, it seems to get some extra gumption at about 4k rpm. Maybe like the timing is a tad off or somethin, then at about 4k it really seems to line up and kick in the power. Its not noticeable unless you're in the drivers seat though, like alot of things. It seems to flutter a bit in the mid-range, mine does, but i'm not sure if its just a timing issue, or something else, or maybe my rod bearings are for some reason in that bad shape. idk why they would be at 147k miles tho. Unless it was clocked. But, I also must say I have zero clue if the water pump / timing belt has ever been replaced, so theres a few things it could be imo.
 
#24 ·
It feels kinda like a wheel that's out of balance, but don't feel it through the steering, more through your feet and seat. The shake is also not as large, but higher frequency.

If you're familiar with RWD cars, it feels similar to a driveshaft centre-bearing or U-joint wearing out.
 
#25 ·
Well, the car hit 275,000 miles yesterday morning. Some of the questions I put in my original post weren't answered, probably because I kind of buried them in the middle. It was something along the lines of what quality are the components of these engines made from? Cranks and rods forged or cast, that sort of thing.
 
#26 ·
A lot of info I've gathered from Billzilla, Matt Dunn, Ray Hall Turbo over the years with their posts and websites. Here's a summary:

- factory 4a-fe cast rods quite good for factory redline. Can go up to 7500rpms with stronger cap-bolts like ARP. For 8000-8500rpms, people use 4a-ge forged rods (early or late depends on big/small-end sizes and pistons used). Above that needs custom-rods.

- factory crank is forged and can easily handle 3-4x factory power. The 6-bolt flywheel may break the bolts @400bhp+, so stronger chromoly ones should be used with boosted application. The crank may break @500bhp+ after a couple seasons of track racing. You may also rip the centre out of the flywheel @ that power-level.

- factory cast pistons are probably weakest point, should be able to handle any NA bump in compression. For boosted application, simple to use the forged GZE piston. Stroker 9A boosted engines used various hypereutectic cast pistons. Don't have to worry about the extra clearances and cold piston slap of forged pistons (seems to going out of favour).
 
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