Picked up an 84 eagle a few days ago, car runs and drives down the freeway happy as a clam, but in town, it takes every opportunity it can to die. I have been told i have a serious vacuum leak, also been told i need a new carb, and what i believe is the egr(i think?) is bad. No vacuum lines were even routed to it, but i pulled it off and it was plugged all the way with garbage. do i need a new one? or can i just plug up the hole somehow. also, the 4wd doesnt work. Im guessing all of my problems are coming from bad vacuum lines, but any extra help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Lando
Probably a good idea to replace all the vacuum lines to eliminate that as source of a leak. Another problem could be that the idle tubes in the carburetor are clogged hence it stalling in town and running good on the freeway.
Yes, vacuum line issues and clogged idle tubes are usually the culprit.
Hey Lando,
My '84 was stalling frequently but running fine on the highway also when I bought it two weeks ago. I read on this forum how to "blow out" the fuel return line and since I did that it got better. It hasn't been stalling at all. The problem is when the return line is plugged or obstructed, the carb floods. It very well could be your problem since it runs fine on the highway it is getting fuel, and could be loading up at signal. Does it start right back up? Mine would stall and it was no problem to get it started again.
Find your fuel filter under the hood. You will see that the output side has two tubes, one to the carb and the other will have a line that goes back to the tank. Figure out which one goes back to the tank. Disconnect it at the filter. Now go remove your gas cap. Blow throgh the line, I used a blowgun on my compressor. Its best if you have someone help you, to listen at the tank for bubbling. If it does not bubble its clogged. Keep blowing air into it until it frees up. Now reconnect the line to the filter and replace the cap. The car may be hard to start the first time because it has air in the line.
I also added a bottle of Techron fuel treatment to my first full tank of gas.
These two things are really easy and if you get lucky like I did you won't have to undertake a major project with vacuum lines and carb rebuilds.
Good luck with it, once you get her running right you will enjoy driving her.
Steve
Thanks for tips, had my mechanic buddy look at the car last night and all he did was spend about fifteen minutes under the hood pointing out all the vacuum lines that dont go anywhere and just have a screw in the end of them. and after that he crawled around the inside and screwed around with some wires and made my electric seats work. but hes coming back tonight, and we will try blowing out the fuel line, im gonna print out a bigger vacuum diagram than whats under the hood of the car and let him make sure they are going to where they are supposed to go, and ill have a new egr valve here in the morning. could i have a perfectly running car in the morning? i certainly hope so.
and yes, the car starts right back up after it dies.
also, im ordering a chiltons service manual from jcwhitney. any recomendations for something else to add to the order?
Chilton's Eagle manual, in my humble opinion, makes for a good paper weights -- lots of mistakes. May I suggest investigating our digital scans of the '82/'83 AMC TSM in our EN store (it covers the majority of the components for all Eagles, regardless of the year) --- or very often on a certain auction site there are well done paper reprint versions of the '84 - '88 AMC MR's and I believe paper reprints of the '82/'83 TSM. Regardless of which type of the AMC products you get, you will be glad you got the real deal.
thanks for saving me 25 bucks.
got the new egr valve installed this morning, not sure if the vacuum line runs to the right place. the car runs better than it did, but still dies when coming to a stop. tried blowing out the fuel lines, but my air compressor nozzle was too large. so ill try that again tonight if i can find a smaller nozzle. how do i clean/where are the idler tubes? i would assume they are part of the carb.
update to 4wd, with some fiddling around there is now vacuum to the 4wd selector, can hear it suck up when flipped, but no 4x4 happens. i was blown away at the offroad capability of the car, i attempted a hill climb up the side of an overpass and made it just as far in the eagle in 2wd with bald street tires, than i did with my cherokee in 4wd with meaty off road tires. great hopes for this car. excitement.
im a terrible mechanic and im having my buddy do a majority of the work. i printed out the vacuum diagram for I6 motor, and thought that was all he needed. but he says thats not all the diagram, but looking through the eaglepedia i couldnt find any other diagrams i considered to be terribly important. any suggestions as to what else i should print out for him to have on hand while he tinkers around with my car?
rebuild yoyur carburator!!!!!!!
its 15 bucks for the kit at any auto parts store, they may have to order it... but its worth the two day wait. i had the same problem, i bet you were double footin it in town huh? haha its common in a 25 year old car for gaskets to go , and holes to get clogged. take it apart, clean it and slap it back on!!!! let me know how it works for yah and your four wheel drive issue..... the switch in your dash runs off vacuum, 3 lines RED, BLUE and GREEN or YELLOW trace them, make sure there connect and sucking. if that dont fix it crawl underneath, find where the vacuum runs to, looks kinda like a saucer, theres jelly in there, could be rotten and leakin vacuum from there. also my problem was the pin connecting that saucer to the transfer case to engage was missing. stuck a nail in it now were good! GOOD LUCK
Yes, our vacuum diagrams only show engine vacuum, nothing else. I don't know why AMC did it that way, but they did. What is missing are the 4WD diagrams, which are elsewhere in the Eaglepedia, the cruise control, which might be in there and the heater/ac lines.
I don't think I have ever seen a carb rebuild kit for $15. They are a lot more around here.
well, upon even FURTHER investigation, it turns out that my carb was untuneable, because one of the screws someone took a drill to, and the other one was capped off with red gasket maker. i have no idea what they were doin, but the point is, im picking up a a complete different carb, as who knows what the previous owners did to it. just solve the problem with a bit of extra money.
The adjustment screws were capped at the factory.
There is no point to adjust the mixture screws, that's why they are capped. If nobody disabled the computer, the air/fuel ratio should adjust automatically similar to that of a fuel injected car. It's just that the carb idle tubes get clogged and give the car the inability to idle. Clean them out and after 30 minutes worth of work, the car can run great again.
well i dont know boss, i live in florida and shop at discount auto parts, and i just got one for around 15 if you want i can look for the part number, or like you said get a new one...
Same price at Napa in southwest Fl.
so you found it?
Here,s something that also help. Vaccum lines may look and feel good, but they ma have an internal failure that will cause a problem. This is a failure similar to that of a hydraulic brake hose.
Another thing is the carb base gasket,it can deteriorate on the inside edges. This can cause minute peices of the gasket to get in to the carb, as well as cause fractures that lead to leaks.
As far as egr problems go, unplug the valve and check to see if the diaphram moves manualy.
If it moves and the hose looks and feels ok [refer to example ] above.
***** Warning this is unfortunately a true story***** I was at a shop in Beaver County Pa, and saw a man diagnos a car with a bad egr he sent a kid to go get a wooden box full of used egrs. He rooted around came up with one and slapped it on. He had an old drill with a length of transmission cable chucked in it, and was cleaning old egr valves.
I dont condone this practic
Thanks,Benamcfan.
Years ago I had an 83 SX4 that quit at every stop.
Of all things it turned out to be a rusty gas cap.
Seems the vent valve had rusted shut.
And when the motor idled down, the fuel pump could not draw enough gas.
loosen the cap and try it once.