kishy's 1991 Plymouth Acclaim

[87gtVIC]

Looks like it was last cracked open in 1994 according to the documents that were discovered.

[kishy]

Hard to say. We know the water pump and belt were done in 94, 260k km ago. It is plausible that they're the same ones still in the car now, but it's hard to be sure. Either way, clearly there is a meaningful coolant leak at the water pump (though, not exactly clear that the pump itself failed, it may just be gasket failure), and the belt is clearly aged, so it's best to do this now rather than try to limp it along just to get some seat time in it.

Yesterday, I went to a junkyard in Detroit, then had dinner with Lutrova, then headed home. I found heavy traffic at the border; it would have taken a long time to get across, and idling throgh a hot tunnel just didn't seem fun, so I went to a waterfront park and tried to figure out what window motors to buy for the Acclaim. I ran into some problems with the information I was seeing so after traffic let up, I headed home, then opened up a door to figure out what was going on.

As I may have noted either earlier in this thread, neither of the front power windows are functional. Trying to operate the switches shows dimming of interior lights, message centre VFD, etc, so I know that the switch is making contact and passing voltage to the motor, and the motor brushes are passing current to the commutator, and the windings are sucking up current, but the motor is stuck and won't move. On both sides.

A quick glance at photos on RockAuto backs up that this car uses the same style of window motors as my Fords - slightly different in various ways, but constructed the same way, and mounting the same way, and with the same potential failures such as the inserts in the gear splitting apart, or bad brush contact, or water ingress seizing up the shaft in its bore. Window motor application data for these is kinda patchy - it would be unusual (not impossible) for a domestic manufacturer in the 80s to have not reused the same motors between the front and rear, but the application data for the AA cars seems to suggest that the rear motors are one pair of motors (differing by being mirrored in design) and the front motors are a different pair which don't swap with the rears.







Inside the front right door, I found a 4445204 motor, which although is not listed in the cross-references for the cheapest motors (Dorman), sure eyeballs as being the equivalent to Dorman 742-300 which is listed as the right rear motor. Knowledge: power.

More importantly though, when I got the motor to pop out of its mount, a massive amount of tension in all the bits of the door was released. Apparently the previous owner was a believer in holding that button down long past the window simply being closed. I hooked the motor to a booster pack and found it runs smoothly in both directions. Seems highly likely to me that the motor gear was just jammed in its bore/on its shaft by the tension of the window being shut too tightly, combined with then being parked for a decade. I like simple fixes. Will inspect the condition of the gear before reassembly, but I think at the very least I can hold off on buying motors.

Also found the car has aftermarket speakers and they were installed in the manner that most aftermarket audio stuff gets done. Crimp terminals and electrical tape reign supreme in that market space.



I've now placed this car's first RockAuto order, and things got out of hand really quickly. It's going to be a laaaaarge box. On the bright side, there are wholesaler closeouts on a large number of Fel-Pro gaskets currently, including PermaDryPlus variants, so this thing is getting a lot of re-gasketing.

Apparently that aluminum "front cover" around the crank sprocket is actually the oil pump, not just a cover. I found this while trying to decide if I should change the front crank seal. Seems like it's probably worth changing, I'd lose my mind if I have to redo all of this due to a newly discovered oil leak later.

This is definitely a leaker in several areas and I'm going to try to get as many of them as I can all in one shot.

[gadget73]

I thought the Infinity systems were the deal with each speaker having an amplifier hung on the back of it?

[kishy]

I thought the Infinity systems were the deal with each speaker having an amplifier hung on the back of it?

Hmm...maybe?
All I know at present is that the front right speaker is aftermarket, there's a problem with the front left channel (be it the speaker or something else, idk - it is too quiet and seems to only be giving me the highs), and that the front door speaker connectors contain 4 wires.

Google finds this: https://www.allpar.com/threads/chrys...repair.228458/

So yes, it sounds like the original speakers had little amps on each of them, which are MIA at present.

[gadget73]

if the amps are missing I'd expect no sound at all. Should also be more than 2 wires involved, at a minimum it ought to have a hot and a ground.

unless maybe only some speakers got the amps. I really don't know these things in any detail, I just sorta remember Chrysler did that on some things. early GM Bose systems did it too. The Ford JBL and Premium Sound rigs with a central amp and conventional speakers is a lot easier to work with IMO.

[DerekTheGreat]

Hmm...maybe?
...front left channel (be it the speaker or something else, idk - it is too quiet and seems to only be giving me the highs), and that the front door speaker connectors contain 4 wires...

That sure sounds like the speaker is only getting the signal meant for an amp. See if one of those 4 wires is carrying battery voltage and triggered by the stereo turning on...

[kishy]

It occurred to me that this radio doesn't actually say Infinity on it. I spoke to a buddy more knowledgeable with these and he confirmed that radio is not original to the car and he believes it was introduced with the cab-forward cars e.g. LHS. But apparently the Chrysler corporate radio connectors remained the same for many many years, and the vast majority of stuff pre-Daimler (and anything built under Daimler but engineered beforehand) can plug-n-play swap. Cool. I know where a Chrysler minivan is with this form factor of radio, but with built-in navigation and Bluetooth. An Acclaim with outdated built-in nav? Maybe maybe. Anyway, that would account for why the speakers were replaced to begin with, and why they're working seemingly without amplification, and why I can hear the Infinity system power relay click on - it was an Infinity car, but it was owner-deleted.



After poking around with that for a little, I took apart the front right window motor. I cleaned up the commutator and replaced the gear plugs (the exact same ones our Ford gears take - maybe technically slightly larger but the Ford ones fit well enough that I'm not complaining). Slapped it back together, verified it runs smoothly, bolted it all back together and closed up the door. I then de-stickified the Armor-All goo using alcohol, which I know has a drying effect, but nothing else was cutting through the goo. I got the surfaces clean and I guess we'll see what happens. Hopefully they don't harden up and shatter or start splitting.







I then took apart the right rear door. This door has been "fully working" except I did have the window get stuck partway down on one occasion, so I figured I'd take a look inside the motor. I gave it the same treatment as the front door, then put it all back together, and all is well.



From there, I took apart both of the left side doors, but haven't taken either motor out yet. That will come another day.

Other assorted observations:

This car has a Traveler, which is Chrysler's equivalent to our Tripminder. At 3/4 of a tank it is estimating 490km to empty.

The pictograph thing showing which doors are open is only indicating the front right and trunklid - the other 3 door switches seem to have issues, maybe dirty contacts. There are two switches per door, one for the pictograph thing and the other for the interior lighting, and the right rear door seems to have neither working.

The doors all contained a foam insulation panel in addition to the plastic moisture barrier layer. The foam has totally disintegrated in all of them. If the car seems unreasonably loud I may put something in there in the future, but it hardly seems required.

These door cards are retained so much better than the Panther ones. The retainers are metal springy things that hold the panel tightly even after repeated removal.

The seemingly-original power lock actuators work perfectly, which seems to be something Ford could never achieve with boxes.

This car has no sort of shifter interlock whatsoever - not ignition, not brake, only the button on top of the floor shifter. I do wonder if it's supposed to have one but it has been defeated previously.

It is interesting that in a smallish midsize car, Chrysler managed to pull off a massive amount of legroom and excellent rear seat comfort, as well as rear door windows that go down all the way, and a gigantic door opening to match so there's no weird contortions required to get in or out of the car.

[gadget73]

Mark VII's' don't have a shift interlock either. Key not in the ignition, right into neutral.

Interesting that its basically the same window motor though. Only so many ways to get that job done I suppose.

and yes the panther door panel clips are trash. They are pretty much a single-use device.

[Lincolnmania]

Nice Acclaim!

Wow! I have had dozens of those 3.0's apart and never saw the timing belt crank pulley wear like that.

IF you still have it apart, replace the oil pump. these are notorious for worn oil pumps (causes low pressure at idle.)

I had a 1991 Spirit ES with a 3.0. Paid $200 for it and had it a few yrs, Gave it to the ex girlfriend when we split up in 2003, replaced the engine twice and the transmission once (ex gf drove it with broken and sticking planetary gears in the a604 and ruined the second engine, she also blew the first engine racing one of her friends lol.)

My mom had a 1991 Lebaron sedan. It was the same color as your acclaim. It had red cloth seats that were really comfortable! Replaced head gaskets, valve seals, timing set, water pump, and oil pump at around 150,000 miles. The transmission was rebuilt at 160,000, The transmission locked up while mom was crossing a bridge, car got stuck on the bridge.

one of my ex gf's had a 1994 Dodge spirit, it was powered by the 2.5 and 3 speed auto

ended up with a few parts cars too, People used to give me cars all the time back then.

I had a friend on the cruise strip that had a 1991 Spirit R/T. That car was faster than a new corvette that year!

Enjoy your new ride mang!

[kishy]

Last night, I believe I finished up the interior functional repairs. There is still some detailing to be done, but the functional stuff is all...uh, functional.

Left rear window motor taken out. Cleaned up the commutator, replaced the gear plugs, bolted back in, works great.

Left front window motor taken out. This one had some water inside it, but I was able to clean it out, gave it the same treatment, some fresh grease, and it works again. Though, it sounds like it's eating itself, so buying one of those might not be a bad idea. That one is a p/n 4445205.

Observed no faults with the wiring or speaker in the left front door. The issue is in the radio. The little joystick which does combined fade & balance seems to be at fault. Jiggling it has brought more of the sound into the speaker. Also, turning up the volume causes a similar effect - e.g. at low volume it may only be giving the highs, but bump the volume and jiggle the stick and now it gives lows also. This is an annoying enough problem that it will need to be addressed at some point, but not until the car's on the road.

I figured out that the indicators in the message center for open doors were simply burnt out. They're tiny little light bulbs, not sure what their original number is, but I had a bunch of #37 which fit, so those went in, and it works fine now. The bulb-out warnings (yes, it has those!) were also burnt out, but I chose to leave the bulbs out for those ones, due to my use of LEDs.







Fun trivia: when the Traveler loses power, it resets the digital trip odometer to 5535, which I'd bet is actually 65535 (the highest number that can be stored in 16-bit binary), but it only has 4 digits to display.



I then took out the instrument cluster and checked all of its bulbs. All were OK except for one illumination bulb, which I changed. I checked everything else which is supposed to have any sort of illumination and I believe it's all good now.



I've been tipped off that a Detroit area junkyard did have/may still have a set of the wheels I'm looking for, so I'll be going to check that out this weekend.

Mark VII's' don't have a shift interlock either. Key not in the ignition, right into neutral.

Interesting that its basically the same window motor though. Only so many ways to get that job done I suppose.

and yes the panther door panel clips are trash. They are pretty much a single-use device.

Aforementioned trim retainers:



I know this era of Chrysler (everything with the "glow ring" ignition lock cylinder) was and is considered exceptionally easy to steal, but not having a shifter-ignition interlock seems like it adds a whole new dimension of ease to it. Still, I appreciate the simplicity and there have been times when I wanted to put a Panther in neutral and had to go hunting for the keys to do so, so it may prove beneficial sometime.

Things like the window motor topic always intrigue me. Clearly, the parts share some aspects of their design, yet share seemingly none of their parts except the gear plugs. So who was the manufacturer of the gears/gear plugs which clearly dominated the market for that ubiquitous yet anonymous part? Unimportant, but these are the questions I ask myself when I make these discoveries.

Nice Acclaim!

Wow! I have had dozens of those 3.0's apart and never saw the timing belt crank pulley wear like that.

IF you still have it apart, replace the oil pump. these are notorious for worn oil pumps (causes low pressure at idle.)

I had a 1991 Spirit ES with a 3.0. Paid $200 for it and had it a few yrs, Gave it to the ex girlfriend when we split up in 2003, replaced the engine twice and the transmission once (ex gf drove it with broken and sticking planetary gears in the a604 and ruined the second engine, she also blew the first engine racing one of her friends lol.)

My mom had a 1991 Lebaron sedan. It was the same color as your acclaim. It had red cloth seats that were really comfortable! Replaced head gaskets, valve seals, timing set, water pump, and oil pump at around 150,000 miles. The transmission was rebuilt at 160,000, The transmission locked up while mom was crossing a bridge, car got stuck on the bridge.

one of my ex gf's had a 1994 Dodge spirit, it was powered by the 2.5 and 3 speed auto

ended up with a few parts cars too, People used to give me cars all the time back then.

I had a friend on the cruise strip that had a 1991 Spirit R/T. That car was faster than a new corvette that year!

Enjoy your new ride mang!

Thanks! I'm really happy with my purchase, so far. It stills remains to be seen if the transmission has all of its functions, but with how nice the rest of the car is, I had sort of pre-committed myself to fixing that if it turns out to be necessary.

I'd heard some rumblings from others about oil pumps as well, and am now regretting that one isn't in my inbound RockAuto order today, as that will prevent me progressing on the engine stuff this weekend. I'll call some local places and see if I can get one quickly. With the car's mileage I am certain the pump is not original or at least has had new guts put in it, but the most plausible time it would have been changed is in 1994 and 260k km ago, so it's probably due. edit: called two places, it's basically unobtainium in this country for some reason. AutoZone carries it but not at any nearby store, and of course RockAuto has them, RockAuto being cheaper by far, so I guess I'm doing another order. If I have to wait for it to ship from somewhere I might as well pay 1/3 the price.

I love this colour on these cars. I don't remember if I mentioned it in the OP or not, but my grandma had one of these (would have been an LE, column shift without console, in the airbag years but pre-facelift) when I was a kid, in this colour with this interior colour. Buying this was nostalgia-motivated - but nostalgia aside, I really do think they're nice looking cars. The seat comfort is unbelievable, but backs up what I've said for years; that Chrysler was making the best automotive seats on the market during the Iacocca years.

The A (AA) body cars used to be everywhere, along with the Tempo/Topaz and Sunbird/boxy Cavalier all seemed to stick around a good long time after they had been discontinued, but we've now arrived at a time where they are pretty few and far between. Of them, I think the GM J-bodies remain in the greatest numbers, probably thanks to absolutely rock-solid powertrains and not seeming to rust too severely, whereas the AAs got taken out by A604 failures and Tempos rusted badly, not to mention having poor fuel economy.

[Tiggie]

I must say those seats look quite inviting.

[friskyfrankie]

Sounds like the radio switches may be oxidized. Would probably have to take it apart but some electronic contact cleaner may sort that out.

[gadget73]

I think those wee wedgie bulbs are the same ones Mark VII's use in the climate control for backlighting. I want to say they are used somewhere else in my fleet but I can't say for sure where. Maybe its the backlight around the Town Car's headlight switch?

[Mainemantom]

Those door clip look just like the ones used in the 1960s and 70s Ford products. Nice Plymouth !

[kishy]

Things took a bit of a turn when I dug back in on the water pump job.

RE: recommendation from Scott above, I did order the oil pump along with a bunch of other stuff - we'll call it RockAuto Order #2. That should be landing here early this coming week. Order #1, which has arrived, was a giant box of gaskets, lugnuts, filters, belts, and other odds-and-ends.

Armed with some gaskets, I started tearing some more things apart, in a rather disjointed fashion. That includes:

• Removal of the timing belt and tensioner
• Removal of the front valve cover for no particular reason - it was easy and readily accessible. Gasket is totally petrified and requires replacement, fortunately I did buy a pair. Cylinder head looks reasonably clean for the mileage. Oil change does seem to be past-due based on the sticker in the door jamb (in months, obviously, but also in mileage by perhaps a lot).
• Removal of the thermostat housing and thermostat (note, found 180-degree tstat was installed previously). Scraped gasket surface clean.
• Attempted to remove water pump. It went poorly. A couple bolts broke, and then I broke the back housing. Located evidence of long-term coolant leaks from the O-ring seal on the pipe in the engine valley. Still fairly sure the water pump itself was not bad, but its gasketing and sealing job was definitely leaking a lot.
• While trying to determine if I should buy the pipe while buying the pump housing, I took the upper and lower intake manifolds off, and removed both pieces of the pipe assembly for inspection. I've decided to buy a new one. Found evidence that people have been here before: gaskets believed to be newer Fel-Pro items, pipe possibly being an aftermarket chrome-finished one, one of the bolts for the pipe being stretched and nearly broken off. Also found evidence of rodents in the engine valley.
• Inside of cooling passages appears remarkably clean, as did the coolant I drained out.

So, yeah. One might say this has escalated quickly. That transmission had better have all its gears when this is all done.

Mechanical efforts are more-or-less stalled until RockAuto Order #2 and Order #3 arrive - #3 being the box that contains the water pump pipe and housing, along with even more odds-and-ends. All 3 orders have been items that didn't ship from the same location as each other, at least, so the waste in that sense has been minimized. But the parts bill inclusive of shipping is now fairly ugly.

I received a tip that U-Pull & Save in Pontiac may still have a car set out in May - a 1990 LeBaron convertible - and when it was set out in the yard, it had a complete set of decent condition basket weave wheels. I went there today with a couple friends and the wheels were still there, in an indirect sense...they had been scattered across nearby rows, but all of them were there to be found.









Also picked up the headlamps from my friend, who originally got them from another friend, who is also my friend - each of those friends has recently owned different AA LeBarons which each of them ended up getting rid of without installing the headlamps. I endeavour to break the cycle.