mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 1:07 p.m.

Specifically, the 1996 Saturn S.

I know about the oil ring issue, and the general oil leaks. Is it possible that the "non-firing cylinder" is from wires? And is this the model that I need to be careful of trailing arms on? Would you spend $200 on this car?

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/cto/5538861361.html

I meant "second-Gen".....

IndyJoe HalfDork
4/14/16 1:26 p.m.

I'm a HUGE fan of that gen Saturn. I daily Drive a 1996, manual tranny with 203k on the clock.

I would buy it in a heartbeat.

I don't know anything about trailing arm problems on these.

COULD be one the coils have lost ground due to corrosion, or just a wire. Could also mean it truly DOES need an engine. Can you do an engine swap? You can usually find one of these that has the Auto tranny gone bad, and buy it cheap for an engine donor.

mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 1:30 p.m.

Trying not to do any engine swaps. I was hoping that these were known for bad coils or broken spark plug wires, etc. I'm trying to replace my current daily, and thought that this would be a good candidate.

JohnRW1621 MegaDork
4/14/16 1:31 p.m.

Note that the ad says that the picture is not the actual car.

mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 1:38 p.m.

In reply to JohnRW1621:

Yep. Trying to pics and more info from the seller now.

Doc Brown Dork
4/14/16 1:43 p.m.

I have seen a few twin cam engines with burnt exhaust valves on the #3 cylinder.

I seem to recall something about intake manifold gaskets being a problem. If the gasket is not fixed then its possible to burn out the exhaust valve.

mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 1:47 p.m.

In reply to Doc Brown:

Is there a way to "field-diag" a burnt valve if I start by to look at the car? I know that a leak-down test would catch this, but not sure how to do that w/o an air source and alot of time. Also, I don't think that most people will let me spend alot of time crawling over a $200 car.

IndyJoe HalfDork
4/14/16 1:55 p.m.

In reply to mrwillie:

Okay, Now I understand were your going with this question. Some more useful (hopefully) information:

These have the plastic valve cover (earlier ones had cast aluminum). I have yet to get mine to seal properly. They WILL leak oil into the spark plug 'well' I've had the entire well fill with oil. Yup clear to the top. Pull all plug wires and see if there's oil filling that area.

Also seller either is ignorarnt ('running on 3 valves' when they mean 3 cylinders) or else it truly is running on three valves in one of the cylinders. If valve problem, then new head/rebuild is necessary.

mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 1:59 p.m.

In reply to IndyJoe:

That's what I was looking for.

Looks like I'm third in line and someone is on the way now to look at it. If it makes it to me, I'll check that first.

Will some good old permatex blue fix the leaky valve cover?

IndyJoe HalfDork
4/14/16 2:07 p.m.

In reply to mrwillie: Best fix is to get the early style Aluminum Valve cover (they don't warp) and go from there. Note: gasket set is different between these two ( ask me how I know )

mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 2:11 p.m.

In reply to IndyJoe:

Thanks! Any other major issues that I should be aware of? And does MMO really work to free up sticking valves?

mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 2:54 p.m.

And..... its gone. I was hoping to be able to start a $200 Saturn build thread.

Doc Brown Dork
4/14/16 2:59 p.m.

cheer up, $200.00 Saturn's are not that hard to find.

mrwillie Dork
4/14/16 3:08 p.m.

In reply to Doc Brown:

I need to move to where you live. Around here, free lawn mowers don't even exist anymore. They're posted and then they're gone.

belteshazzar PowerDork
4/15/16 7:33 a.m.

i sometimes have to pay as much as $500 for a good saturn these days.

JohnRW1621 MegaDork
4/15/16 7:45 a.m.

There seems to be no shortage of sub $1k Saturns in your market.
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/search/cto?query=saturn&min_price=2&max_price=1100

For that price you could even get a couple; like one for a good engine and the other for a good body.

revrico GRM+ Memberand Reader
4/15/16 9:02 a.m.

The only major problem with my 95, aside from the driver, was a coolant leak at the temp sender. Repairs lasted maybe 5k miles before the drip would rot the wires.good heat shrink tubing would help as well. It never actually overheated, the temp gage just never worked. K frames tend to rust out as well, but I don't think that's a problem in nc.

The guy we bought it from used it as a dd for years and suggested we didn't. Well drunk Mike owned it 6 years and 30k miles including several trips to ocean city, then I had it another 2 years. Exhaust, k frame, and 3 alcohol assisted accidents later(tree, tree in snow, drop from yard to driveway) it got sold for scrap instead of getting another new k frame and windshield. Had I known about lemons races, we'd have never scrapped it.

Windshield are EXPENSIVE because they wrap around on the sides, just something to keep in mind.

mrwillie Dork
4/15/16 10:27 a.m.

JohnRW1621 wrote: There seems to be no shortage of sub $1k Saturns in your market. http://raleigh.craigslist.org/search/cto?query=saturn&min_price=2&max_price=1100 For that price you could even get a couple; like one for a good engine and the other for a good body.

Yeah. I kinda don't want an automatic and I usually don't see alot of wagons. I currently have a '01 accord w/ a bad HG, oil leaks, etc and a 1994 volvo 850 w/ a RMS leak. I'm being alittle picky, but I want something that is atleast as utilitarian as the volvo or as "fun" as the accord. Can beggers be choosers???

92dxman SuperDork
4/15/16 1:48 p.m.

JohnRW1621 wrote: There seems to be no shortage of sub $1k Saturns in your market. http://raleigh.craigslist.org/search/cto?query=saturn&min_price=2&max_price=1100 For that price you could even get a couple; like one for a good engine and the other for a good body.

You could buy a daily driver, a rallycross car and a parts car and only be a little over challenge price