MX-3.com

Hi everyone,

This is my first post and I'm glad that I found a community that will (at least theoretically) be a good place to learn and help others work on their car.

The car is a '92 4cyl manual with 170k miles. I rescued her from a crackhead (quite literally) out of South Sacramento. It needs a lot of work and I knew that when I bought it but I enjoy working on cars and I like having projects.

I changed the plugs, wires and the oil today. I also did a compression test on all 4 cylinders and they were between 155-170 which is not so bad for 170k mi... right? If I'm reading the (right part of the) manual, then I should be seeing something between a mininum of 142 and an average of 185. If 185 is the norm, then I'll consider myself very lucky.

The engine has a really bad oil leak. It looks like it's coming mostly from both sides of the block, but since I know the car hasn't been taken care of and cleaned, I can't tell how old the dirty oil is nor tell exactly where it's coming from. I was planning on changing the valve cover gasket soon, but I don't know if there are any other gaskets/boots/etc for the cams that I need to buy ahead of time. I may change the head gasket also, but if the compression readings are good enough (are they?) then I may hold off on that until later.

I am also planning on changing the belts while I am tearing the engine apart which will hopefully be all I need to do for the mechanical stuff for now.

A non-engine question if you all don't mind answering. Are there any cabin aka micro filters? I couldn't find anything in the manual or searching through the forum about it. The PO was a bad smoker so that even the air smells when coming through the vents.

Thanks for the help guys and nice forum/site.

Geroi

hey well for all the maintance you want to do to your car, you might as well swap a bp as a good bp from the wreckers, is around 200-400$cdn up here. and seeing that you have a 92 with the sohc it would be ideal. as for the compression its not too important the height of the numbers, so much as the consistency in them eg. 175,171,175,174 they should all be within 10% of eachother. but considering your mileage and the fact that you'd probably have to do a timing belt, which while your in there you might as well do the waterpump, timing belt tensioner, etc plus you wanted to do a head gasket. id say search under BP swap and ull see its plug and play. not nearly as difficult as a b-series honda swap since u can use the stock wiring harness even +2 wires for vics. good luck with the car tho. the cabin filter isnt hard to do and should be replaced more than it probably has so its a good idea but the chemicals like hydrogen cyanide and the smell will stay in your upholstery for 6 months and you can't change that except to overpower it with an air freshner or smoke some cheeba in there as it will smell better

Your oil leaks could well be the main seals. The front one is pretty easy, especially if you're going in anyway to change the belt and water pump gasket. The rear one, of course, requires you to remove the transaxle. Sounds harder than it is, but you'll need a friend. Your valve cover gasket may need to be renewed, and the right time to do it will be when you have to remove the cover anyway to line up the timing marks for the new belt. It's a good idea to identify all the taks you have to perform and make a plan to do them in the optimum sequence, to avoid doing things more than once. Good luck!

Engine change is not an option right now for several reasons.

What's a good place to buy the gaskets, etc? Is Autozone about as good as it gets?

Thanks for the help guys.

Geroi

i like felpro gaskets, and corteco is good to