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Been Holden Out- Middle Aged Noob gets First Holden Ever- VS Ute- This Gonna be Fun!

TribUte

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So firstly, Hello to you all. I'm Rob from Canberra.

Tomorrow after near 41 years of life, 22 years of driving and having never owned any other make of car other than Nissan, (except my Current Subaru Gen 3 Liberty Wagon)
I am Finally becoming an Aussie Bloke and getting my First Holden, a '95 VS Ute!

It's a Dark Green, V6, base model 3 seater Auto with 230,000kms, Dual Fuel, Shabby clearcoat peel, VX Berlina Rims?, Some Dings and Stock as they come with 2 months VIC rego on it.
Extremely cheap, running rough and his name shall be Pete (the ute 2.0).
I Am Excited! :yahoo:

Stuff needs fixing, cleaning tidying and tolerating but I'm keen as F#@k for this.
Already bought a cheap set of chasers with near new tyres, raided a wreckers for a bonnet, LH quarter panel and a front bumper, aswell as coils and AFM.

Biggest issue is backfiring through the intake and stalling with any real amount of throttle, which in past experience (my old R31 Skyline Wagon with RB30),
was a Lean issue which turned out to be the fuel pump.

Pete does it on both Petrol and Gas so I'm guessing it's not the pump. So I will be looking for post AFM airleak, cleaning and replacing the AFM, checking firing order, plugs and replacing coils... Am I on the right track?
Guess we'll see.

 
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TribUte

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Got the Ute at 9:30am, first thing was Bin the old perishing seat covers, revealing some dirty but good nick seats.

Spent most of the day unbolting and bolting things back on, namely removing the grey front bar and badly dinged LH quarter panel and replacing them with matching bumper and quarter I luckily found at the wreckers. This was a bit fiddly due to bent brackets and firmly rusted bolts but I got it done eventually.
I didn't replace the bonnet yet as it just has a bit of a depression on the edge but have a straight one (with shitter paint) to go on.
Also swapped in some wrecker coils and AFM, both off a VX and put my good tyred Chasers on.
Half arsedly Cleaned the iac and throttle body and replaced a Reverse light Bulb.

After a Fun day I took it for a fang round the block and got to know of a few things that need attention.
It seems to be running better than my test drive, especially when warmed up, less intake Backfire but still present and a bit Flat in the lower revs, but goes well once it revs abit higher. It has No Tacho so I have no idea what RPM we're talking here.
Smells Rich, has an exhaust leak somewhere up front, Rotors may be warped as it surges on light braking and it Bubbles water like mad in the overflow on shutdown.
Horn doesn't work, A/C isn't Cold, Hazard switch looks rooted and on cold start it idles rough like it's got a huge cam.
but... It's cool and I'll try to fix as many of these and other issues as I can myself.

Anyone have any idea what the running / idling / backfiring could be??

From this...

To this. :)
 

TribUte

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Day 2 of Ute ownership and I wasn't gonna let the Rain stop me.
Went to Supercheap and got a small stash of Stuffs to play with.

Cleaned out the Airbox and replaced the Air Filter as the old one was a tad deformed.

Cleaned out the Coolant overflow as there was heaps of old rustyness in there, topped the radiator up with tap water (for testing purposes but will flush it all out and put coolant in soon) and replaced the Radiator Cap. Pretty sure the old cap had passed it's best before date.

Found a Vac Hose disconnected up under the Throttle Body (Blue arrow) and another blocked off with a rubber cap (Red arrow) which had a loose hose clamp,
so I tightened it up.
Not sure what either of them connect to but I'm guessing the blocked one is that way due to the LPG install???

Started it up, it ran a bit better without the Vac leaks but still not quite right.

Changed the Spark Plugs, started it up and did a rough bleed of the Radiator...

Well F#@k me!!! It runs sooooo much better, doesn't idle weird and Backfire or Overheat and Bubble anymore.
The Thermo fan eventually cut in aswell which is the first time I've seen it spin. Stoked!!!

Seems my basic home jobby DIY mechanics I've been dabbling in for the past few years have actually gained me knowledge and experience!!! Hahaha!
Who woulda thunk it?

I don't know much about reading Spark Plugs but it's plain to see why the new ones have made a big difference.


 

hako

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Possibly you have a bad coil going on how that bad plug looks. I've found it's cheapest to buy a set of coils and the DFI module complete - usually about $50 from a wrecker - sway the 3 coils over and see if it makes any difference. We've had 3 coils fail...usually one every 2 years or so. You can check them by measuring the resistance...they should all be the same - if one is different it's the bad one.

Good Luck.
 

dobesz

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Nice work so whats plans with the paint, that colour is known for the clear coat peeling. Vs ute are a great car as very easy to work on and pretty cheap to get parts for although i am finding it hard to chase down mint interior parts these days
 

sk2304

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Geez, when in the ninety's was that last serviced? Did you do leads? Have you checked for any error codes?
 

TribUte

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Dunno if it's had another service since, (guessing not) but the last one in the book says 26/03/08 @ 196055kms. Currently has 230,000ish on it.
The oil is not terrible though so perhaps it's had Some Love but not alot.

The leads look old so I'll change them soon as it still has a slight miss on free revving acceleration from coldstart but minor compared to before.
I'll check for codes soon. The process sounds similar to that of my old N13 Pulsar with the GM engine so should be easy.

Secondhand Coils and DFI were sourced and swapped in already (yesterday) so those plugs were used with the original coils etc but I'll check them with the multimeter.

as far as Painting, well this aint ever gonna be a show car so I'll likely just cut n polish it and see, tolerate it as it's only a cheap shitter or try some DIY front lawn spraybooth action. Hmmmmm... Vinyl wrap? Haha!
 

dobesz

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Fair enough although not sure what a polish will do for the front section lol Check for error codes as will tell u if all your sensors etc are working. All u need is a paper clip
 

Wozza

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Looking at the old radiator cap Id say the inlet manifold gasket is leaking.....
 

TribUte

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Oh Really? What about it makes you think that?
It seems it has been running rusty tap water for quite a while by the looks of things so I think I'll be flushing it out and doing the thermostat and maybe water pump soon.

Today I got a cheap LH tail light from the wreckers to replace the old very faded one and snaffled the other S2 side indicator to match the one that came on the quarter panel.

Also got some wiper blades and a set of Bosch Leads from Supercheap which has now used up my $200 gift card from Xmas. Haha! Free Fixes are Great.

Put all of the above on and it runs even better now with the Fresh leads and plugs.

When changing the leads, there was a Green wire coiled tightly around and taped up on the lead for cylinder number 2... Why is this?
I put it back on the new lead but have no idea what it's for.
 
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