Idle/smoke/fuel issues with a 92 plymouth reliant

Friend sold me a 92 reliant 4cyl auto. fairly cheap...it has some
problems and I am wondering if all/some might be related.

Car idles pretty high, in park I can tap the gas and it will rev up and
stay there for a good while then return to what still seems a pretty
high idle. In drive with foot off the brakes, it will boogie without
having to keep my foot on the gas...it'll pretty much drive itself up
to 25/30 mph. Not sure how to describe this one...but when I go from
park to drive (with foot on brake of course) it still wants to take off
so fast that I can feel the transmission 'thunk'

It's using way too much fuel...I can drive it across the street to
visit a neighbor a couple times and the gas gauge is down noticeably.

Also spits out black smoke when I hit the gas.

Other than THAT it runs great, motor sounds good, he took care of
it..so I wouldn't mind fixing it up

Any ideas? Thanks

 

You're obviously running way too rich. But first of all, the last Reliant
made was in 1989. Is yours an 82? The year is important because that
determines whether it's fuel injection or carb.

If it's fuel injection (85 or later) it sounds like a stuck injector. A
cheap first try at a fix is a bottle of good quality injector cleaner in the
gas, and take it out for a drive on the highway. If that doesn't do it, then
I'd suggest getting the computer analysed for codes before starting to
replace expensive parts. You can find instructions for accessing codes on
the Net, but you may need a pro to track down the real problem(s).

 

Is it a 2.2 or 2.6? If a 2.6 don't waste money time or effort on it.

 

The 2.6 was that awful "It's-A-Shitty" 4, wasn't it? I remember the
2.2 as a tough little mill that had a few eccentricities, but anything
from Mitsu generally seems to suck.

I don't know if this is widespread, but from what I've seen out on the
road, "It's-A-Shitty" (Mitsubishi) seems to have trouble designing and
building reliable power. Many's the time I've seen a Mitsu pickup,
Montero or Gallant tooling down the road with thick trails of oil mist
coming out of the tailpipe. Also I've seen catastrophic failures,
like clouds of steam belching from back. Not long ago, I saw a
Gallant scatter its crankshaft right through the oil pan in the middle
of an intersection, an interesting failure to see, to say the least.

My dad has one of the "box" Monteros for a short while...one of the
worst cars he ever owned. At 32K miles, #3 piston collapsed. After
that fiasco, at 37K, he started losing oil pressure and getting main
bearing noise, so he dumped it. He's not as big a fanatic about
routine maintenance as I, but pretty close, being an ex-Air Force
maintenance officer in the '40s, so this thing had clean oil and fresh
coolant on time. After dumping that turkey, he said to me, "How in
the hell did they build all those damned planes in the war? Maybe we
weren't shooting them down...they were falling on their own!"

It seems that Daimler was quite right in dumping its Mitsubishi
holdings, which were the crown jewel of Lee Iacocca's grandiose plan
to form "Global Motors" along with Daimler-Benz in the '80s. Daimler
moved Iacocca out, did pretty much what he wanted to do originally,
found Mitsubishi to be a loser and dumped it.

 

DESERTBOB aka OLDECHRYSLER (not its real name) is a troll.
It regularly frequents at least twenty news groups,
including many rabid/sex/racist groups.
Normally, it starts off with reasonable, even witty lines,
but rapidly drifts into lies, abuse and stupidity.
Check its details at Google Groups at these URL's:

http://groups.google.com/groups/pro...ADKWt-YFW4KG3QbhQogR222h-kUg4S0n7nbF1Te82ZIng

http://groups.google.com/groups/pro...AAf1goyQutX1XvM4SoVDe462TtJSBA4fw84ImzlcMxDpg

It is a sad creature, deserving of pity, not anger.
Any direct response simply feeds it,
but it will go away if you ignore it.
This troll does not even know its wrench sizes-it prefers Japanese cars
and still drives an aging Honda. Do NOT use any of its so-called tech
advice,
as it has destroyed others' property before with bad advice on
Usenet/Google Groups.
Notice how it has abandoned its new username "OldeChrysler", and
reverted back to "DeserTBob"

 

....kicking you to the curb.

Kill file list:





.....and a couple of others of which he's probably forgotten the
passwords. Most of his other Google troll accounts have already been
shut down.

 

The troll "duty-honor-country" has been banned by Google.

Click on "view profile" and you'll see he was banned for abuse. Now
this group can get back on track.

 

BICYCLE (not its real name) is a troll.
It regularly frequents at least twenty news groups,
including many rabid/sex/racist groups.
Normally, it starts off with reasonable, even witty lines,
but rapidly drifts into lies, abuse and stupidity.
Check its details on Google Groups at these URL's- it has
recently been banned by Google Groups. It has returned under
a second username- initially as "rt309 ragpicker", which it changed
just now to "bicycle" once again:

previous banned BICYCLE username profile:

http://groups.google.com/groups/pro...ADoCs8zXzYsnVqOau5U8h6ZOPANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A

new BICYCLE/RT 309 RAGPICKER username profile, created after the first
one was banned:

http://groups.google.com/groups/pro...AC3iL-5KmbLyzxQgTZiQOAPMxB39KJNQ76SLnMRgR9a0A

It is a sad creature, deserving of pity, not anger.
Any direct response simply feeds it,
but it will go away if you ignore it.

 

Thanks to your reports to Google Groups,
has been banned by Google Groups from polluting Usenet anymore.

 

http://groups.google.com/group/alt....aa049dbd679/7e89fa019aee24d7#7e89fa019aee24d7

 

On 30 Aug 2006 18:50:26 -0700, "duty-honor-country"

Ran you out of existing accounts, eh, Noodles? This one's going down
within the hour.

Google Groups will NOT tolerate you anymore, Noodles...do you GET IT
NOW?

Go play on the Pennsy Pike...get hit by a truck...do the world a
favor.

To the groupies;

ALL of Charlie Nudo's former Google Groups accounts are now BANNED.
Expect he'll try to create new accounts to post for awhile, but Epix
may pull the plug on his service based on complaints from Google due
to this incredible psychotic break.

 

attention group- "DeserTBob" also had (2) Ebay usernames- they were
VOXPOPPER and XCALIBER44- both have been banned by Ebay for auction
harassment- check and see for yourself on Ebay

he also has had many PREVIOUS Google usernames of his own banned- for
language, stalking, and posting personal contact info

BICYCLE has just had his own Google account banned- he also created a
fake username on Ebay, which was banned also

these 2 people, BICYCLE and DESERTBOB, are trolls. If they latch onto
you, they will harass you for years on Google Groups- BEWARE.