I have an 89 Capri with the infamous 90 L-Drive, but what I really want to understand is the engine. Installed tell tale, rebuilt carbs, all is well except it won't idle after running a while. I'm very afraid to blow it up by my own stupidity, so my questions are:
- Ran for 40 minutes with no engine cover and it was cold to the touch. Tell tale was only dripping, which seems odd since it's on the feed side of the thermostat. Mecahnic said any water out of it means it's fine, but he's been wrong before. How do I 'really' know the cooling system is working right?
- Can I test the overheat alarm to see if it's good?
- What's up with the idle?
- Ran for 40 minutes with no engine cover and it was cold to the touch. Tell tale was only dripping, which seems odd since it's on the feed side of the thermostat. Mecahnic said any water out of it means it's fine, but he's been wrong before. How do I 'really' know the cooling system is working right?
- Can I test the overheat alarm to see if it's good?
- What's up with the idle?
I installed a tell-tale to gage water flow and it squirts out water about 3 feet at high rpm and about a foot at idle the water is warm to the touch which Ilet run on the ski deck (the kids like that). Anyway back to the point once it did start dripping as you stated and I started worrying as you but found that the hose had plugged at the fitting with some fine sand particals, and upon cleaning back to squirting. I would suggest checking water impeller for wear and replace if any doubt of age and replace every 2 to 3 yrs. needed or not. My thermostate opens at 130 degrees but even if it didn't the tell-tale is before that and should be squirting a good stream at all times.