1988 OLDSMOBILE Toronado - Gradual Loss of Acceleration, Now No Start

On that junkyard HB - you might wanna get a new one (rockauto shows them under $100) unless you can get one at a yard that can pick over the 1988-90 GM cars to find one that obviously was replaced before the car was junked. An original one will be just as old, merely has not failed yet; new one should at least have newer rubber that's not all ozoned out.

Albertj, I must have been reading your mind as I was in the junk yard. I was cranking on HB to get the bolt loose when I noticed the rubber was twisting and showing a pattern where it would eventually rip and tear like mine did. I packed up my tools and headed to O'Rielly's where I bought a new HB for $94. I also bought a new sensor. Do you think I should install the sensor or use the one already on the car? My only concern is adjusting the new crankcase sensor once I put on the HB. The service manual speaks to a GM special tool that looks like a 10% slice of the HB. the idea is to slide this tool onto the crank spline, manually turn the crank until the vanes of this tool enter the sensor. Then the gap is measured and adjustments are made as necessary. Maybe I can use the exisitng sensor, install the new HB but not really tighten it all the way and see if the car starts. If it does then remove the HB, carefully remove the sensor and use it as a "guide" to installing the new sensor? How do you think I should proceed?

Sensor - depends.

Actually I would look at the old sensor to see if it took any damage from the wack HB. If so, replace. If not, then maybe not BUT get the GM HB puller so that when it does fail and you pull the HB you don't tear the rubber. Here's more on that:

I suspect - but do not know - that your HB bought the farm from an earlier crank sensor swap or inspection maybe. That is, maybe somebody who was in there before you started the HB rubber on a tear. GM specified a special elastomer in the original HBs that although it does not last forever it lasts a long time. But if you whale on it, it tears kinda easy. An easy way to tear it is to try to remove the HB without the special GM puller, by using a universal puller or force. You *can* use a universal puller but you have to use modified bolts. There's a post by Rick Wakefield on this site somewhere about how to obtain/fab your own special bolts for a universal puller. Or if you hunt a bit - because there are so many 3800 engines it's not *that* hard to get the special puller, for OK price, from better parts stores. At such a store - maybe one that sells parts to service municipal auto fleets or some such - they will know **exactly** what you are talking about. Or you can just get it off Amazon.com for $34, to your door.(LINK)

Anyhow...

if you can stomach this...

While you have the HB off look for seepage at the front main seal, if you see any replace it with a Timken and get the insert sleeve too while you are at it. Replace that, you'll avoid a headache in the future. Then go ahead and put the new CKP on -- if it's a Delco or Delphi you may not have to do this job again. My experience is those brands last a long time. I have used Standard - Blue Streak and T-Series -- they have not lasted as long, maybe~2 years of service. 'S up to you...

and oh by the way to get the HB bolt off IIRC you're sposed to use a breaker bar against the frame and tick the starter with the fuel off (or spark disabled) - search this site there's instructions posted. You can't just hold the HB still, IIRC you **always** rip the rubber if you do that, which makes the HB "disposable" at $100 a pop.

It's Alive! I put on a new crankcase sensor and harmonic balancer and she fired right up. It runs good but I have to figure out why the "service engine soon" message lights up when I accelerate quickly. The SES message goes out after a few minutes if I refrain from heavy acceleration. Maybe I have to adjust the crank sensor? I want to thank everyone for their advice. It proved to be helpful.

Sounds like a misfire. Plugs or wires?

If the SES was flashing, the PCM will store a readable code. Get the code read.

deekster_caddy wrote:

Sounds like a misfire. Plugs or wires?

If the SES was flashing, the PCM will store a readable code. Get the code read.

It alos might be unrelated, like a sluggish/busted canister purge valve on an OBD-I car. I am not saying the problem is or is not the canister purge. I am definitely saying it may be unrelated.

So, yeah, get the code read. And oh by the way you will probably be in for this cycle of get-the-code-read-make-a -fix-set-new-code for a while until you work through items that (on your age car) have kinda simultaneously hit their engineering lifetime. This may take a while.

Albertj

This is a new issue that was not a problem before the harmonic balancer went. In fact the car was running really great. The SES message does not blink or flash. It periodically comes and then goes off. I drove it for an hour or so today and also noticed the idle floated between 1100-1200 rpms. I did pull the idle air control and swapped it out with a salvaged one a few weeks back but I put the original back. Maybe I created this new problem.

rivren wrote:

This is a new issue that was not a problem before the harmonic balancer went. In fact the car was running really great. The SES message does not blink or flash. It periodically comes and then goes off. I drove it for an hour or so today and also noticed the idle floated between 1100-1200 rpms. I did pull the idle air control and swapped it out with a salvaged one a few weeks back but I put the original back. Maybe I created this new problem.

I suspect there is a difference between swapping the IAC and cleaning it. Worse, unless you clean the crud out of the air channel it does not really matter. The IACs are simple and robust. I am not so sure that they ever fail per se but rather that they get too dirty to work .

That said, get the code read. And again, you will probably be in for this cycle of get-the-code-read-make-a-fix-new-code-pops-up for a while until you work through deferred or nonscheduled maintenance. It is this cycle of codes that probably motivated the suggestion that you get your own scanner or at least your own code reader. We talked about that already and you're going to do what you're going to do. So... I suspect it will be some time before you have this car straight. Just keep at it.

Albertj: Thanks. You are right. I will look into getting a code reader for this car. Any ideas as to how I clean my IAC and the internal engine channel it goes into? Electric parts cleaner? Long cotton swabs? A thin nylon bristled brush? Thanks again for your help. You offer very good, practical advice. Rivren

rivren wrote:

Albertj: Thanks. You are right. I will look into getting a code reader for this car. Any ideas as to how I clean my IAC and the internal engine channel it goes into? Electric parts cleaner? Long cotton swabs? A thin nylon bristled brush? Thanks again for your help. You offer very good, practical advice. Rivren

You can often clean the IAC with throttle body cleaner (spray or liquid) and same for the channels it is connected to. Sometimes the IAC won't come clean enough and you have to replace it anyway. You usually have to reset it before installing it and it will take 1-5 drive cycles for it to reset itself. That is, you'll pull it, clean it, reset the codes and it'll re-set a code. At this point it would help somewhat to have a factory service manual, maybe. Although there is nothing really in the '98 Riv (which I own) FSM that covers the IAC except replacing it. On my car, what you do is clean the thing and reinstall it, when reinstalling it you have to push the pintle all the way in. It resets the code related to idle air problems for, in my case, one drive cycle then everything is OK.

Albertj: Let me begin by stating I have owned the '88 Toro for 2.5 years and have never had an engine idle issue until I removed the IAC. Having said that, I removed it again, cleaned it with MAF cleaner, seated the pintle and re-installed it. The idle was good for a few miles (the car has a digital dash that displays rpms) then the idle revs up to 1200 stopped while in drive or 1500 in park. At this point the SES light comes on. The idle will eventually go back to normal (750-850) and the SES light goes out. I did not re-set or clear any diagnostic codes. Am I supposed to? Is this why I am getting the intermittent idle revs? I now have the phone book sized service manual but I'm still unclear as to whether re-setting/clearing the codes will put the IAC back to normal.

rivren wrote:

Albertj: Let me begin by stating I have owned the '88 Toro for 2.5 years and have never had an engine idle issue until I removed the IAC. Having said that, I removed it again, cleaned it with MAF cleaner, seated the pintle and re-installed it. The idle was good for a few miles (the car has a digital dash that displays rpms) then the idle revs up to 1200 stopped while in drive or 1500 in park. At this point the SES light comes on. The idle will eventually go back to normal (750-850) and the SES light goes out. I did not re-set or clear any diagnostic codes. Am I supposed to? Is this why I am getting the intermittent idle revs? I now have the phone book sized service manual but I'm still unclear as to whether re-setting/clearing the codes will put the IAC back to normal.

sounds like you might have crud in the IAC air channel so the pintle is not reseating correctly. You check that? And on high mileage/high age cars IACs do wear out. I replaced mine at 225,000 miles for maintenance, had an intermittent related CEL.

Albertj

A big thank you to Albertj, Abaddon, AA, Deekster and anyone else that took the time to read my comments and offer suggestions. I got the old '88 Toro running the way she used to which is pretty darn good. I bought the service manual and read up on the diagnostic codes as you all suggested. This was how I was able to determine the new TPS sensor was the cause of my high idle, engine cut-out and no-start conditions (I originally had these same issues that were caused by the bad harmonic balance and crankshaft sensor too which stopped happening once I replaced those parts but started up again once I replaced the TPS). I learned that the TPS has slotted mounting holes that are used for rotating the sensor to lower or raise the idle as necessary (this wasn't mentioned in the manual, I figured it out). I also learned this car has a pretty sophisticated OBD I type diagnostic feature built right in. It tells you the TPS reading/signal, spark angle, O2 reading and a whole bunch more. It stores and shows you both historical and current codes (although it never threw a code for the crankshaft sensor...go figure).

Thanks again for everone's help. I sure I'll be asking for more help down the road as I work to keep the '95 Riv ( I have to put front stuts, pads and rotors on) and the '88 Toro on the road.

Glad you got it running.

I had to go back and look at my old posts, I had to laugh. As to what's wrong I was pretty far off the mark. As to how to solve the problem, it made sense, especially with the older cars gotta get teh factory manual or a real good equivalent (basically Haynes or Alldata not Chil***s)

As for that crank sensor thing Abaddon wrote a *great* explanation of why it won't set a code, in another thread. The very short version is the CKP usually fails bad warm and is early in the start sequence. So when it has failed what happens is either it looks like key-off to the engine control system OR the engine control system never completes the start sequence so it does not detect that CKP has failed because a CKP signal is required to get into the start sequence. Abaddon also posted an alternative strategy that would make CKP failure apparent.

Also glad you got it running. Does this car have the infamous CRT touch screen? Our '86 Riv had one of these and there's a neat trick to turn on diagnostic mode, and you can view every sensor the ECM reads right on the screen!

Thanks Deekster. No the Toro does not have the info center. I believe Olds didn't get it until '89. While I don't have the big screen, I can read all kinds of diagnostic info on the digital dash. The Rivs, Eldos and Toros of this era were way ahead of their time as far a electronics go. And Delco got the electronics right for being so complex. While the market did not necessarily embrrace them they were and are good cars.

Albertj: You suggested the TPS and if it acts up it can mimic no start and cut-outs that the crank does. I know because I just lived through it. Your suggestion was a good one as were all your other advice.That's why it's great to have a bunch of car people helping each other. Some day I may be able to score my first merit point by helping someone out.