21st Feb 2022, 00:26
My grandmother just gave me her 1988 Toyota Corolla and it is running horribly; it only has 80000 miles on it, I'm the 3rd owner, her sister bought it brand new in 1988 and sold it to my grandmother in the 90s. The car sat for a very long time, and when I got it I had a tune up done on her, new spark plugs etc, fuel filter. It has a carburetor which we had cleaned and adjusted, so we thought anyway. The car is very under powered and back fires quite a bit. Also the car smells horrible when running. I want to sell it or trade it in very soon so I need to fix this issue please and thank you. Sincerely, Shawn.
21st Feb 2022, 20:20
Could be a whole combination of things. Did you check the head gasket? Perhaps it has failed. EGR and PCV failure can cause issues.
Debris in fuel tank. Intake manifold gasket. Clogged catalytic converters… etc
21st Feb 2022, 22:54
If the car sat for a while and you are running the engine on the old gas in the tank, that would be your first problem and would explain the smell as stale gas has a distinctive odor to it.
Secondly, cleaning and adjusting a carburetor that has also sat for a while isn't going to help anything. You need a rebuild kit for that certain carb. and it needs to come off the manifold, taken apart and soaked in various solvents overnight.
This should resolve your problems if you can find somebody to do it right, as most modern day mechanics have never even seen a carburetor before.
10th Oct 2018, 15:58
Got my '88 Corolla FX five speed in 2001. It is now 2018. Love it. It's my only car and I still drive it all the time. It's only got about 215k miles.