My NEW car is a 1990 Camry

[watsonius]

As I write this I am trying to get my

[bonvo]

high nox while everything else is low means its to lean ive delt with the california smog nazis for 5 years i have learned how to tune my car by the readings the tercel is still carberated right i think in 85 it still was not sure

Edited September 27, 2009 by bonvo

[watsonius]

Yeah- EGR? I will keep you posted- I am taking it to my mechanic guy tomorrow I hope. Thanks- this Forum is great!!! :)

[bonvo]

your in davis your about a half hour away from me if you need assistance pm me and ill help how i can

[nismo dr]

I would lean to egr system, if you have a vacuum pump you can pull the valve up at idle and see if it the cars dies, if it doesn't the egr passages are plugged or valve is malfunctioning

[watsonius]

Thanks- I really appreciate the advice and offer for help (Bonvo). Stay tuned for more developments next week. As I mentioned on the Mend thread, we rebuilt the carb on Mend once, but this stuff is out of my league. Watsonius

[watsonius]

So my mechanic guy says the EGR valve is very severely carboned up and the pintle is stuck. The valve is currently in a bucket of carb cleaner. If the pintle is broken (how can that happen???) I need a new valve, which is not available from dealers (why am I not surprised?) Brian

[thisismatt]

EGR valves are available from rockauto, etc.

 

Plastics take abuse up to a point, and return to form up to a point whereas metal would bend and need to be reworked. After that point, yes, plastics break or malform and can't be worked back as well as metal. Agreed about the dumbing down of a lot of things, but have you spoken with anyone under 30 or 40 years old these days? Bunch of can't spell, can't speak, can't read, can't write, can't learn a damn thing on their own morons.

 

Our society is insanely focused on image, which is reflected in how it buys cars. Sure, I could afford to make payments on a new car, but screw that - my car is fine and I don't have to concern myself with it depreciating in value (it's already about as low as it can get :D). The auto industry is unsustainable as it is, and I think it's totally retarded that any of it got "bailed out".

[watsonius]

Thanks for the Rock Auto tip. I saw them but it is good to see somebody on the Forum mention them.

 

I agree about the loss of literacy, but I also see a lot of really bright kids out there. It's a complex picture. More later- bedtime for Watsonius :)

 

ps and the best people I have ever met were not highly educated

Edited September 29, 2009 by watsonius

[watsonius]

Today mechanic guy #2 determined that the pintle is irretrievably stuck/broken. #2 allowed as how I should find a replacement, meaning he wasn't much inclined to do so, aside from calling a local dealer.

 

I actually have a job and my boss isn't paying me to shop online for car parts so I called my regular guy (aka#1) and in 20 minutes he found a dealership in Kansas with the part in stock, matched to my VIN (so it is the right one presumably). That was my concern- buying online and getting something that was the wrong part. As Mike has observed, we are "non-car people".

 

New valve and vehicle to be joined later this week, hopefully.

#1 gets a big reward (an hours fee and a good write-up on Daviswiki) for service above and beyond the call of duty.

Thanks again to those who offered help and advice. Now we can get back to discussing why the world thinks we are weird to drive old cars and why we think the rest of the world is wrong (or something...) :)