packrat79
04-22-2016, 12:09 PM
I have an old 3rd gen I rescued from the scrap yard in 2010, I've puttered away at it ever since and am hoping to finally wrap it up this spring. When I bought it, the floor and much of the lower body was rusted out, probably why it was scrapped in the first place. I finished most of the body repairs years ago and all that remains is the paint job, although I may redo some of the welding as my skills have since improved and I know I can now do better. As for the engine, it did run but showed very low compression on the #3 cylinder. Thinking it may be serious, I removed the head and sent it to the engine shop for inspection. It came back clean, and I can't see any obvious problems in the block either - the cylinder walls look like new, with no visible signs of wear at all. Anyway, I finally got the engine back together and started it up yesterday, for the first time in two years. Seemed to run fine but revs up to 3k or so and dies after about 10 seconds - I suspect I got some vacuum hoses mixed up, fast idle may be sticking, stale fuel, etc. so this will take some time to figure out.
But now to get back on topic; if the engine holds up, one upgrade I want to make sooner or later is to add A/C. I've been looking around and found someone about 500 miles away who has a complete A/C unit and is willing to ship, however his is an '89 SEI model with an EFI engine - mine is an '87 DX with a carb engine. I compared the parts indexes for these and both engines appear to use very similar A/C components, but some MFR part numbers are slightly different. Needless to say, I want to know what I'm getting into before I even think of attempting such a costly and difficult swap. I figure you guys know a lot more than I do and should be able to give some advice, and any advice you can offer is welcome.
Thanks.
But now to get back on topic; if the engine holds up, one upgrade I want to make sooner or later is to add A/C. I've been looking around and found someone about 500 miles away who has a complete A/C unit and is willing to ship, however his is an '89 SEI model with an EFI engine - mine is an '87 DX with a carb engine. I compared the parts indexes for these and both engines appear to use very similar A/C components, but some MFR part numbers are slightly different. Needless to say, I want to know what I'm getting into before I even think of attempting such a costly and difficult swap. I figure you guys know a lot more than I do and should be able to give some advice, and any advice you can offer is welcome.
Thanks.