Lovin' my new (to me) '89 Tracer

[jcargile]

N00b here. Glad to find this forum. I'd been looking for an older car as a commuter for a little while now. I was stoked to come across an '89 Tracer 5-door on craigslist, and bought it yesterday for $900. It's been pretty well maintained. Only 133k mi, and runs fairly well. Air's uber frigid cold. The interior is immaculate; seats are clean and free of rips, dash has no cracks, carpet is clean, headliner isn't falling. The body is straight and free of dents. Could use a paint job, but oh well. I'll get around to it. Of course, it IS an '89, so there are a handful of little things I have to (or just want to) fix. I scoured Pull-a-Part today after work (in my office wear - dress slacks and dress shirt) for a new wiper cowl as the old one had pretty much disintegrated. Spent a bit of time outside in the dark tonight putting it on. Now I have several other minor issues to tackle. Any guidance is appreciated:

- Horn doesn't work. I'm not hearing the relay clicking, so maybe that needs to be replaced?
- Rear center brake light doesn't work. Replaced the bulb - no joy.
- Rear hatch light is also out. Replaced the bulb - no joy again.
- Seems to have a leak in the brake system. I can verrrry slowly push the pedal to the floor. Master cylinder looks ok, so I s'pose it's a leaky line somewhere...
- Seems to run cold. It's 90+ degrees here in the afternoon, but the temp gauge never gets above 1/3 or so.
- Rough idle when it first starts up, and doesn't want to climb a hill for sh*t. Always downshift to get up a hill. Probably need to do the plugs/wires/distributor. Any other ideas?
- It has Mercury badges on the front grill and steering wheel. Think I'ma look for a 323 grill and wheel next trip to Pull-a-Part. No compatibility issues there I hope?

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. It's 3AM and I have to get up for work at 7:30, so my brain is a bit foggy. Thanks for reading my ramblings.

[porter_roc]

Nice grab. I just scored an '89 Tracer 3 door. check it out. http://www.wihandyman.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53699

[DuRWooD]

Welcome. The lights could be the harness broken where the hatch pivots. Let's have some pics!

[jcargile]

Porter - nice low-mileage score there man. Paint looks better than mine, although that ain't sayin much. Mine was apparently deep red from the factory, then repainted some gold color, then finally painted its' current silver/grey. I'll try to take some pics of the beast this afternoon when I head out for lunch. Got the horn fixed - relay was corroded so I replaced it with one from PaP. It's strange, all of the parts websites list a totally different horn relay for the Tracer than for the 323, but when I pulled the one out of my Tracer it was identical to the one for the 323. Biz-r. Anyway, while at PaP I stomped around looking through the 626s/MX-6s trying to find an armrest in decent shape. I saw someone here who had taken one and fitted it to his BF so I'm assuming it would work for mine. Sadly they were all either broken or the wrong color. And yeah Durwood, I'm thinking the same thing on those lights - either harness is broken or just disconnected. I'll be pulling panels off soon and investigating. I'm betting that the staying cold issue is probably a stuck open thermostat. I ran the heat yesterday for a while and it barely got warm, so it's not the temp sender. I spent a bit of time last night wiring up and installing the radio from my old NA Miata in the gaping chasm in the dash, so yippie I have some sounds now. Found my missing Daft Punk CD in the player too, woo-hoo!

[jcargile]

Pics!

Here are the requested pics. As I said, interior's pretty clean, while the exterior is dull and flaky, especially the bumpers. You can see the car's original color in the engine bay shot.

The car came with the full set of manuals, which I just discovered in the passenger-side under-seat drawer. I love that last shot from the Accessories pamphlet, with the patented Tot-Guard seat. That thing. Is. AWESOME.

Those with more mechanical knowledge than myself (i.e. EVERYONE): please take a look at the engine bay shots and tell me if you see any glaring problems I should correct at once lest it burst into flames and immolate the car and myself with it. I noticed when I was doing the engine bay shot that the lower pulley sort of pictured in #6 was kind of wobbling. What could be causing that? Do I need to worry about it flying off and destroying anything?

Guys, don't expect a lot, ok? This is my daily back and forth to work putt-putt. My commute is barely 7 miles each way. I plan to clean it up a bit more, add a couple of additional convenience features (like cupholders, good God why the hell didn't these cars have cupholders?), do regular maintenance on it, and drive it till the wheels fall off. There will be no boosting, lowering, or pimping. I'm a pretty mundane guy, with a wife and baby boy to support, so I don't really have the cash/time/desire for any of those things. Yes, eradicating the Mercury badging would be nice, but it's not a necessity. Thanks to all for having a look. I feel so special.

[Mazda_Powered]

your car is still listed for sale on CL

http://wihandyman.com/forum/showthread.php?p=707429#post707429

[jcargile]

Yup

That'd be it. Call the guy and offer him $1500. You've been dying to find one just like that, blah blah.

[jcargile]

Got my emissions and tag this week. Emissions test came off without a hitch, although the guy doing the test had a bit of a hard time keeping the car within the proper revs/speed to complete a valid test. It was kind of funny, the people before me and after me were both driving late-model cars, and both had broken AC compressors. In this town, this time of year, AC is not a luxury, it's a necessity.

Then I finally got fed up with the high-mount tail and interior hatch lights not working, so I decided to start pulling panels and figure it out.

First stop - the long panel on the hatch. Lo and behold, disconnected harnesses for the tail and interior lights. I asked myself, "self, why would someone disconnect those?". Receiving no answer, I hooked them back up and got...nothin. In disgust I closed the hatch and, magically, the high-mount tail came on. Lift the hatch, back off. Close it, back on.

It was at this point that I noticed the sheath for the wiring at the top of the hatch going into the car looked kind of, um, smooshed. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was cracked, and the wires inside were exposed in places. So, when I would close the hatch, the hot from the interior light would touch the wire for the tail and light it up. That solved the mystery of why the harnesses were disconnected!

But fack, now I have to cut out this exposed wire, splice some good wire in its' place, and put it all back together. I took down the panel inside the car to access the wires from the inside and cut out all of the exposed wire. Got some scrap wire and spliced about 5 inches onto each of the 4 affected wires, then spliced the other end of each to the exposed wires coming out of the hatch. Now, I ain't shat when it comes to mechanical, but I've been playing with wires and odd electrical bits and bobs since I was 9, and I can by-God strip and splice some motherfackin' wires.

Now the interior light works, yay, but how about the tail? Errr no. My first inclination is to check the wires I just spliced and make triple sure everything is right, even though I KNOW it is. Then I think "well shat MAYBE there's another harness unplugged around here somewhere. I follow the wires off of the right rear tail light and OMG. There, inside the trunk behind yet another panel is another disconnected harness. I plug it in, get in the car, step on the brake and hoooooray. I now have a working tail light. I'm also dripping sweat as I decided to do this around noon on a 95+ degree day. I decide I'm done fackin around with the car for the day and head inside.

Only later in the evening, when I see the weather forecast indicating thunderstorms on the way, do I realize that I forgot something quite important. Sure, I spliced the wires and all but I left them totally exposed. The sheath or boot or WTFever you call the piece of rubber that covers the wires running between the hatch and the rest of the car was decrepit and unsalvageable. A good rainstorm would not only get to the wires but also likely leak water inside of the hatch.

I brainstormed and came up with a half-assed but actionable plan given the limited materials at my disposal. I cut some wire track tubing (again I don't know what it's really called but it's the black plastic tubing you cover multiple computer wires with) to a length long enough to cover the exposed wires and to protrude into both holes where the wires enter/exit. I covered the wires with this, shoving the ends into the aforementioned holes. Then I took some clear silicone sealant I had lying around and coated both holes as well as the entire tube. I got done with little time to spare, as the rain showed up about half an hour later.

I've also ordered the parts I need to hopefully get this beast running the way it should. The new air filter has helped a bit, but the car still has a hard time getting out of its' own way if we're going uphill. Got plugs, wires, cap, and rotor coming, as well as a new thermostat and an extra air filter. Don't need the latter right now, obviously, but I got it 'cause it was cheap - $2.74 on RockAuto. After shipping I only paid $38 for all of that. I've just about decided that the thermostat is either just not there or it's stuck open. The car just will not heat up past 1/3 on the gauge except in cases where I'm sitting idling in the heat for a long period of time. Like 45 minutes waiting in the emissions testing like, fr'instance. Is there anything else I oughta be looking at?

I was looking around in my engine bay and noticed a few wiring harnesses which aren't connected to anything. I have not a clue what any of them are for, so sometime this week I'ma take a few pictures and we can play "Name that Harness".

[Ace]

It's not uncommon for manufactures to have one main harness they use for all the trim models. the plugs are most likely for options that your car doesn't have.

[jcargile]

You're probably right, I'm just anal-retentive about things like that. I figure if it's there it SHOULD have a purpose.

On another note, I know I said I wasn't going to do much to the car other than getting it in good running shape, but I saw these wheels on CL and for the money I'm seriously considering them:

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/sat/pts/2476631502.html

Whaddayall think? Most importantly, do you think they'll look good? And secondly, will 195s be too wide? Ok maybe that should be my first concern, but you know... I did the math, and I know that a 195/50/50 will be almost identical in height to the stock 175/70/13s, but I'm unsure on the width. Actually Excel did the math, and I've attached my handy-dandy homebrew tire size calculator worksheet for those who don't want to use an online app for such things. I'm also betting that these wheels don't have a 59.6mm centerbore, so of course I'd have to get some rings to adapt them. Gimme feedback please.

[tireboy]

right on the money ... but i'm not a big fan of the winstar tires tho . but for a hun its a good deal as long as the rims are not bent ..

[jcargile]

Man, how in fack were you able to tell the tire brand from those pics? And yeah, I have some trepidation over the possibility that one or more is bent or screwed up in some other way. Like the guy only has one GOOD wheel in the set, so that's the one he posted a pic of.

[DuRWooD]

Those with more mechanical knowledge than myself (i.e. EVERYONE): please take a look at the engine bay shots and tell me if you see any glaring problems I should correct at once lest it burst into flames and immolate the car and myself with it. I noticed when I was doing the engine bay shot that the lower pulley sort of pictured in #6 was kind of wobbling. What could be causing that? Do I need to worry about it flying off and destroying anything?

What's holding your battery down? That could be an issue.
The pully could mean catastrophic failure is on the way as the keyway in the crankshaft is likely worn, which will eventually break the end of the crank shaft off. There are numerous fixes out there if remedied early. A new engine may be in your future however.

Other than that, car looks great man.

[jcargile]

Durwood, you KILL me with how nonchalantly you use the words "catastrophic failure"! Oh man this is bad. I did some reading about the issue you mention, and it sounds just like what's happening with my car. Miata people mention that power loss is more apparent under 3000 RPM, and that over 4000 the power seems to come back. That sounds exactly like the Tracer - weak as hell in the lower RPMs but feels pretty alright once I get around 4000 or so. I'm reading these instructions for the "Loctite Crank Fix" and man, I gotta tell ya, that's WAY above my mechanical skill level. I was hoping a simple tune-up was going to solve my problem, but it looks like old ignition components are the least of my worries. Anyone in my general area wanna come do some charity work in exchange for free beer and pizza? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

[tireboy]

lmao... yeah its really lame that i can give names of tires from a decent picture.. i have been in the tire industry for almost 20 years .. if the wheels are as bad as you say walk.. there are plenty of em out there . just have to look a little more ..