kishy's 1991 Plymouth Acclaim

[gadget73]

Gotta love dealing with the aftermath of bad prior repairs.

[Tiggie]

Excellent choice on the wheels. Not that the others were bad - they just didn't jive with the car IMO.

[sly]

that water pump... ouch.

[kishy]

I saw this in traffic. It reminded me that I have a car torn apart and bleeding in my garage.



I received some parts. Then I received some more parts, and then I received more parts. I like to think some guy running statistics at RockAuto periodically takes a peek at what I'm doing when I clean out all their random junk for a given year/make/model, some number of months after I buy a new car.











Some of the machining on that Dorman pump housing is kinda bad. It'll work but it needs some minor cleanup first. Nice gaskets included with it though...rubberized texture to them. The machining may be sloppy but it fits together with the now new-old-stock water pump perfectly, as you'd hope.

Unfortunately, despite ordering the "inner" coolant pipe (inside the valley), I had not ordered the outer pipe which goes between the inner pipe and the lower rad hose and heater hose. It passed for OK at my first glance, but I've now realized it's not likely to seal quite right. Nobody is actually making a proper replacement for the outer pipe that my car has, but I'm hoping the one that is available will fit well enough. Application data seems to suggest 3-speed cars got a longer pipe (and therefore probably a shorter rad hose), which is the pipe that is reproduced and commonly available.



So one of that is in the mail and we'll see if I can make the longer pipe for the 3-speed fit properly. Worst case, I have a grinder and cutoff wheels. It's just nicer when you don't have to do that.

The other day I drained the fuel tank using the in-tank pump. Yeah maybe not ideal, but it'll either be fine or not. Approximately 45L of weird-smelling gas has been drained. The car did run on it, but I'd still rather dispose of it by diluting it out with fresh gas rather than just running it as-is. I am a believer in more-frequent-than-never fuel filter changes and this will be getting a new one shortly.



Tonight, I took more stuff apart.
Drained the oil. Took apart the front motor mount. Removed the starter. Took off the torque converter inspection cover.
Put back together the front motor mount, to the minimum extent necessary so I could get the jack out from under the oil pan.
Removed the oil pan. Removed the oil pump.
Found all sorts of scary looking shavings in the sludgey goo at the bottom of the pan. None of them stick to a magnet.
Took apart the oil pump and looked for scoring, didn't really find anything that alarmed me, so I think the shavings have stayed in the pan. Maybe, anyway. Soft metals may not have scored the inside of the pump.









Engine sounded fine when I pulled it in the garage so I'm not going to stress about it. If it ends up having hot oil pressure issues, I'll throw some thicker oil at it and drive it till it blows up, then throw an engine at it. It's a ludicrously high mileage car with ludicrously high mileage on at least most of the engine, gotta draw the line somewhere.

[kishy]

Progress has been slow, but it has been occurring.

The chunks in the oil pan appear to just be carbon deposits that washed into the pan from wherever. I found more like them in various crevices in the cylinder heads. None of it appeared to be metal so no concerns.

To illustrate the difference in coolant pipes I described before:



(laid out approximately as they are installed in the vehicle)

This will cause the stock-fitment lower rad hose to no longer really be correct, however, by the look of it, it should be possible to just cut a bit off of it and make it work.

As for fitment in the car, that outer pipe does conflict with one of the transmission cooler lines. I have no idea if mine is routed like stock or what, but it's going to need some tweaking. The trans line in question is really stiff so this will necessitate replacement.

Items changed/done are as follows:

• Replaced camshaft front seals and rear cover plugs
• Replaced valve cover gaskets and bolt grommets, and reinstalled valve covers
• Replaced oxygen sensor. The hole in the manifold is cross-threaded, but the crooked threads are well-formed and hold well, so I opted not to fix it and just install the new sensor at the same angle as the old one. If it's an issue later I'll pick up a manifold rather than trying to fix this in-chassis.
• Cleaned some mating surfaces and the block valley
• Installed the new oil pump, but a couple days later, noticed I screwed up the crank seal when I mounted the pump. Removed pump, replaced the seal, reinstalled the pump.
• Replaced the spark plugs
• Made an attempt to mate the water pump with the housing, but the housing is made of aluminum with the consistency of cheese, so the threads ripped out. This necessitated sourcing a different brand of water pump housing (bought a pump+housing kit from AutoZone).
• After sourcing the new parts, successfully installed water pump and housing, as well as the coolant supply pipe that goes in the valley.
• Reinstalled the alternator bracket and alternator. Inspected condition of brushes, found them significantly worn, will try to get my hands on a set.
• Installed the timing sprockets and new timing belt with tensioner
• Installed both the lower and upper intakes with new gaskets
• Assembled most of the front accessory mounting stuff
• Degreased and power washed the oil pan, straightened its flange, then installed it.
• Heater hoses have been replaced.
• New distributor cap and rotor.
• New coil, even though it ran, the casing on the old one is a little melty so I swapped it out.

Which leaves a pretty reasonable list of outstanding items:

• finish assembling accessories (mount AC compressor, install belts)
• put on the plug wires
• reinstall starter and torque converter inspection cover (not completely trivial due to how these parts interact with the motor mount)
• install upper and lower rad hoses, and fill with coolant
• fill with oil
• replace fuel filter and fill with fresh fuel
• install the newly purchased battery

So, hopefully, an evening of work to get the car mobile again, then hopefully drive it for a bit, then do a transmission service.

[gadget73]

yay for metallic cheese parts

[kishy]

Absolutely the worst. Why even bother making the part if you make it out of garbage? Should have taken the visible porosity/pitting and sloppy machining as signs from the first moment I saw it. RockAuto refunded it without requeting return (I used the workflow of "mechanic can fix it" and put in about a 98% refund amount; at the time I thought it would be helicoilable) but it was still annoying.

As for that to-do list, after going to see a boat this evening, I dug in on a good amount of it.

Done:

• finished assembling accessories
• installed the plug wires
• reinstalled starter and torque converter inspection cover
• connected fuel lines
• installed upper rad hose
• replaced fuel filter
• replaced headlamps (in doing so, found mismatched bulbs in the old ones, and one was 9004 while the other was 9007 which didn't even fit)

Outstanding:

• install belt splash cover in wheel well
• find correct screw to mount the coolant overflow container
• install lower rad hose and fill with coolant: determined the stock 3.0+4speed hose does not work and cannot be made to work. Need to buy a 3.0+3speed hose.
• fill with oil: just didn't get to it.
• buy fresh fuel and put it in the car
• install the new battery
• install the air cleaner assembly with a new filter in it

So if nothing else, I'm quite close to finding out whatever the next thing it needs is.

[gadget73]

There have been hacks over the years to fit a 9007 in place of a 9004. I think there is one tab you cut off or something and it fits. People see the higher wattage number and think it will make for brighter light, but the filament orientation is different and the beam pattern ends up completely f'd when used in the 9004 reflector housing. So yeah its more watts, but far less useful light output.

[Pvt.Hudson]

I remember getting a ride home from a coworker in one of these back when they were only approaching 8 years old and it was a Dodge Spirit variety. Thought it was ok but all things being equal I think I'd rather have a A Body (Century, Cutless Ciera, Celebrity or 6000) before the door mounted seatbelt retardation.

I had a 86 Century Limited which was really rotted out but the carbed 2.8L refused to die and even overheated on occasion but never failed to start.

[kishy]

A friend briefly had a Celebrity. It was a spacious and comfortable car, rode nicely, but one thing about period GMs...it always feels like the beltline is too low. I like a tall door with a low seating position and many period GMs are just too greenhousey, if that makes sense. Mechanically, it'd be hard to argue that a 2.8 plus a 4T-whatever transmission would be a bad choice...pretty much rock solid, really.

Yet the Chrysler AA-body is still pretty impressive for its interior spaciousness, while being a smaller car, and interior comfort while being basically an econobox. Granted, this one is a very un-econo-trim variant, but this is still the car that replaced the Reliant.

Sorted out the radiator hose business. Raided the local parts store hose aisle and found something that works - 95-99 Neon SOHC - got it all together today, got it running, and gave it a little shake down.







Pretty freaking fantastic.

[Pvt.Hudson]

A friend briefly had a Celebrity. It was a spacious and comfortable car, rode nicely, but one thing about period GMs...it always feels like the beltline is too low. I like a tall door with a low seating position and many period GMs are just too greenhousey, if that makes sense. Mechanically, it'd be hard to argue that a 2.8 plus a 4T-whatever transmission would be a bad choice...pretty much rock solid, really.

Yet the Chrysler AA-body is still pretty impressive for its interior spaciousness, while being a smaller car, and interior comfort while being basically an econobox. Granted, this one is a very un-econo-trim variant, but this is still the car that replaced the Reliant.

Yeah the early 90s were pretty interesting with what was out there. From the Taurusfied Continental, Chrysler stretching out the Dynasty, Imperial/New Yorker and GM go full bore with the H bodies in different flavors.

Wonder how the Acclaim/Spirit/Saratoga sizes up against GM's N bodies. Imagine its probably has more room then a Grand Am/Achieva/Skylark of similar year.

[kishy]

Alright, trying to catch this thread up with its sibling on Allpar as well as what I bother my Facebook friends with. Trying not to completely inundate this site with Chrysler crap.

Monitoring for fluid leaks has led me to the following conclusions:

• There does not appear to be any active coolant, power steering, or engine oil leak. Sweet, that's awesome.
• The exterior of the engine block and underside of the exhaust manifolds are still wet with oil from leaks which have been resolved. This oil is smoking off slowly when the engine is hot. Degreaser and a thorough power wash could resolve this but I don't want to get water into anywhere it shouldn't be, so I may just let it smoke.
• There may be multiple minor transmission fluid leaks at gasket surfaces, as well as a potentially larger leak most likely from the input/front pump seal as ATF is exiting the bottom of the bellhousing.

Since that last point requires transmission removal to correct, I'm going on a deep dive researching A604/41TE problems trying to sort out the best way to resolve this. At present, it looks like I'm probably replacing a bushing and seal in the transmission pump, as well as the gasket and o-ring for the pump itself. Converter lockup is not working and has a code set; replacing the converter may be how I address that. I'd leave the lockup alone, honestly, but if I'm pulling the trans anyway I might as well take care of that too. Research is continuing. The 41TE and its various behaviours is well-documented both officially and by random people across the internet, at least.

I've ran the engine for quite a while as well as collectively driven about 120km. All seems reasonable with how it drives. The ticking seems to be gone. There is an exhaust rattle which is proving hard to locate as it only happens when the transmission is in gear and there is some meaningful amount of engine RPM - sounds like either a rattling heat shield (but they all seem OK) or the internals of the cat or muffler are bouncing around.

As earlier photos reveal, the alignment of the bumper cover was a little weird. I loosened a bunch of relevant hardware and wiggled stuff around until it ended up in a better-looking position. I've managed to equalize the gap across the bottom of the grille, which has done wonders for it. It isn't quite right yet, but it looks a little less tweaked now.



My OTC Enhanced Monitor is capable of talking to both the engine and transmission computers in this car, including live data, which is neat. The live data is proving quite useful in figuring out some of the transmission stuff.



Fog lights. The ones that were on the car are aftermarket and while they worked fine, they didn't fit the openings in the bumper (too tall) which caused them to be angled way too high to be useful as fog lights. The dimensions of the openings in the bumper don't really match up with common aftermarket fog lights, but I found a set on clearance at Canadian Tire that seem to fit alright. They are now on the car and look alright. Not perfect but they'll work.



At the junkyard the other day, I collected 4 stainless air cleaner latches from a 3.0 New Yorker, as I've managed to lose one of the ones on my car, and mine are painted steel, so I guess I've mildly dressed it up in the process.

I took off the wiper arms and cowl trim, to discover an old mouse nest around the wiper motor. I vacuumed all of that out. Also set the wiper arm positions at more sensible angles than where they were before.

Findings from putting some mileage on it:
The suspension is oddly harsh for how soft it feels compressing it by hand. But it does have those brand new antique tires on it, which have a lower profile sidewall than stock and are probably hard as rock at this point. It'll be nice to get the factory LX wheels cleaned up and put on with some new rubber.

The steering is very heavy, but I don't know how light it's supposed to be, and box Panthers are hardly representative of all cars in this area.

Interesting discovery: the odometer does not work. It has counted up only two kilometres for the approximately 120 driven so far, one of them at the beginning and one of them near the end. Both the speedometer and the digital trip odometer seem to work fine, so my bet is on a degraded plastic gear inside the cluster, like the ones I had to replace in my 91 MGM cluster. It is possible the cluster has been in a degraded, erratically-counting condition for a long time.

Power is great and the engine is smooth. The car, quite frankly, absolutely rips. I distinctly recall, when my grandma replaced her 3.0 Acclaim with a 95 Saturn SOHC, my mom remarked on how much slower the new car was...and I totally get it now.

The brake light switch doesn't seen to activate until I have a little more weight on the pedal than I would assume to be correct. I'm going to continue poking around with this because I don't really want to get rear-ended over something stupid like this. Speaking of brakes, pedal effort seems quite high, as if there's not enough vacuum assist, but the car stops alright so maybe it's normal. The front brakes are possibly dragging a little tiny bit, so some attention may be needed there. They aren't getting super hot but there's definitely some heat, for sure.

At some point while working on things I knocked off a large wheel weight and there was no mark for where it had been, so I left it off. It was shaking quite a bit as a result. I had all 4 wheels balanced and it has smoothed out some of it. Some of what remains might be the tires, and some may be brake drag, which can translate into a pulse or vibration in certain conditions.

The Woodward Dream Cruise is this coming Saturday, August 17. I was looking forward to driving this car for it, but I don't know if that's wise now, given the transmission fluid loss. It's really quite substantial.

Anyone in the area want an Acclaim? No, not mine.

1989, looks to be an LX, but with the 4-banger (and therefore 3-speed). Looks real nice in the photos. Chatham-Kent, Ontario, about a half-hour drive from Windsor. It's been listed for a while and is priced reasonably at 1400 CAD. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...2832361133011/

Yeah the early 90s were pretty interesting with what was out there. From the Taurusfied Continental, Chrysler stretching out the Dynasty, Imperial/New Yorker and GM go full bore with the H bodies in different flavors.

Wonder how the Acclaim/Spirit/Saratoga sizes up against GM's N bodies. Imagine its probably has more room then a Grand Am/Achieva/Skylark of similar year.

My friend has a couple N bodies, so I've been around them recently. The Chrysler AA-car is more spacious. In fact, it even feels more "usefully big" than the Panthers do - which are rather lacking in specific dimensions.

[Pvt.Hudson]

https://www.auto-brochures.com/makes/plymouth/acclaim/Plymouth_US-Acclaim_1991.pdf

[gadget73]

The odo in my Mark VII was DOA when I got it, it had a bad cap across the small motor that runs it, and it was also gummy. One cap and a drop of oil in the motor got it going again.

[kishy]

Further developments:
I identified a few behaviours in the transmission that seemed like they weren't quite right. After some extensive Googling, I decided that my symptoms were problems, and posted on Allpar, a Chrysler forum, seeking some feedback.

My conclusions were that I absolutely needed to do the following:

• Re-seal and re-bush the front pump
• Locate and install a TCM with the latest programming part number, as my car has its original TCM with the flawed programming that is known to cause problems.

And that I probably should also do the following while in there:

• Replace the torque converter (its internal clutch may or may not still be any good, it may or may not be full of metal shavings due to improper clutch activation, and its snout may or may not be grooved and/or cracked)
• Replace the rear main seal on the engine (I do not suspect it of leaking, but if I'm there anyway and already have the seal...)

So, I sourced the right TCM on eBay, bought the stuff to refurbish the pump, got a torque converter, and set about removing the transmission. Removal took about 3 hours and was rather easy, as these things go.







I observed a lot of play in the converter fitment in the front pump bushing. The seal was also fairly hard. While I did not find any single "smoking gun" for fluid loss, there was evidence that fluid had been exiting around the seal and slung off the converter. There was also a loose pump bolt which may have allowed fluid loss around the pump itself.



I pulled the pump out of the transmission and replaced the bushing, seal, and square-cut O-ring that goes around the whole thing in its bore.



I opened the differential cover, found no damage or failure in the diff (the diff pin has a habit of egging out its holes and then going through the transmission housing on these), and installed the "case savers" which are intended to catch and retain the diff pin if it does try to wander away in the future. Basically, it will still be a failure that requires attention if that happens, but it buys extra time before it turns into a catastrophe. I closed the diff cover back up.





I removed the output shaft seals for replacement. The part store sold me the wrong ones, so I went back and got the right ones. Those have not been installed at this time, I'll likely do them right before putting the trans back in. Just simplifies getting any dirt out that may get into those openings, and also protects them from damage before it goes back in.

Unfortunately, while bolting the pump back in, there was "an incident". As I had removed the pump with the unit laying horizontally, the various pieces of the unit fell out of...I dunno what to call it. Concentricity? Basically, everything sandwiches in a specific order, and rotates around a single axis. Because I took it apart horizontally, a Torrington-style thrust bearing fell out of position. When I turned the unit vertically to put the pump back in, I didn't pull everything apart to be sure it was sandwiched properly. The bearing was outside of its correct spot, and bolting the pump in caused its races to shatter. Additionally, some of the little teeth on a couple clutch discs got bent, because they weren't properly engaged due to the bearing holding the parts apart until it shattered.



A set of Torrington bearings is in the mail. The clutch discs appear to have suffered no permanent harm. Nothing appears to be damaged except the broken bearing. I am confident I was able to fish out all the shards of exploded bearing race. Unfortunately, the car is down for maybe another week while waiting on the bearings.