Ninety5five0

I know this has nothing to do with mustangs at all, not even close. But i have a beretta that was my pride and joy, just like my mustang is now. About 3 or 4 months ago it broke down, and thats what i was using as my winter car. So my brother sells me his beretta for 300 $ so that i can have a winter car. Well, last week some lady hit me and totalled that. I'd like to get my other beretta i have back and working cuz i still need to put the motor back together on my mustang , and i have to wait for my income tax check before i can buy parts.

There is a beretta forum, but those are guys are D!cks, and dont like to help out much, and all of you guys have been so helpful and full of information to me in the past questions i've had about my mustang.

Problem: The car totally lost power, i got it in one day and all power was gone. It sounds like a 4wheeler. Now, there is a bit of oil in the coolant, but all the plugs are fine and it doesnt overheat. I jacked it up one day and coolant came from the side of the motor, ( actually the back because its a 4cyl. and in sideways ) i'm not too sure where it came from. Also there isnt any smoke from the exhaust, it smells fine too. I'm pretty stumped here. The motor is a 2.3L quad 4 ( junk ) The motor i had in it before broke a rod and my dumba$$ bought another one to put in.

I am pretty stumped here. I'm thinking a cracked head or a blown head gasket, but then wouldnt it overheat ? and have white sweet smelling smoke coming out of the exhaust ? Maybe a few plugs arent getting spark ? but then there is the oil in the coolant.

Any suggestions would be great, i just need a temporary car for now. Thanks alot

gibb_erish

I heard from somewhere that a failed lower intake gasket could cause this. Instead of pulling everything apart to get to that, it might be easier to do a compression check on the cylinders. If any are lower than the others, pull the heads and start checking for cracks and cylider warpage. If the compression checks out fine, I would check the gaskets. If the gaskets are good, the only thing I can think of is a cracked head. If its a gasket or a cylinder, you may want to drain and remove the oil pan to clean it out because if oil is in the coolant then more than likely coolant is in the oil. Might as well check the main bearings while you have the pan off as well if you go this route. Hope this helps to some degree.

Ninety5five0

Would that also cause total loss of power ?
Also, i'm not too sure how a compression test works, but this car doesnt have sparkplug wires, it has boots. So when that top cover is on you can see the plugs at all.

PRO50SC

How does it idle, smooth or rough? Lotta possibilities here. Clogged converter, the coil pack on those are also very susceptible to failure. Take the cover off the top and look at the plastic housing that covers the coils. Look for dark or burned marks on it. If there are, that is part of the problem. Could also have a clogged fuel filter.

Try and get a little more info (better description) if you can. Can you get a fuel pressure reading, that would help as well. Understand, a problem like yours is very hard to diagnose over the internet.

G/L!

Ninety5five0

It idles pretty rough, alot rougher than it should. The idle is alot lower than it usually is too. Right now its about 700 rpm, and it usually idled about at 1100-1250rpm. There is a fuel leak, so that might be part of the pressure problem, but i had that problem about a month before this happened. I tried to get the cat off to see if that would help, but it wouldnt budge for me, i also didnt have the right tools or the energy to try when it happend tho. I'll go check out and seee how the coil pack looks. Thanks

PRO50SC

You need to secure that fuel leak first and formost

DavidSim

Here's some information I pulled from the web:

Want another horror story? I had an 89 Quad 4. At 82k the gasket went and took the whole motor. It was replaced with a new complete engine in 93. That motor had the oil pump go at 11k. It was repaired and would still loose oil pressure for 1 to 15 seconds on a daily basis. No one could tell me why. Pontiac told me they couldn't do anything until it Quit working. I traded the car after 51k on the motor, 1k out of warranty. The next owner that bought it had the pump go out on the way home and blew up the motor. With my experiences you couldn't pay me to own a Quad 4 no matter how good people say they are. My advice is if you are worried about it, GET RID OF IT!!!

Yeah, we see a lot of those cars (pre-'94) that blow head gaskets... usually it's one and done. GM had a problem with them from the factory. Usually after it's been fixed, you won't have the same problem again unless it is caused by something else like overheating the engine. Usually the rest of the car falls apart by 150k anyway though so we don't see very many of them beyond that point.

by 1994-95 GM had pretty well 'fixed' the head gasket problem on Quad 4 engines.. unless the head was warped and not refinished.. any current headgasket used should work for a long time. ( I sold Pontiacs for a while in 94-95)

Regards, and good luck.

Ninety5five0

Yea, pretty much the same motor but the one in my beretta is the HO dohc version. The car has 223k on it and its in pretty good shape except for that fuel leak and some brake problems. With my experience with quad 4's.....they suck. I only liked it cuz the beretta is the GTZ version, which is pretty rare and it was 5 spd, and for a lil 4 cyl it was fast as hell. Altho i still do like berettas. I've tried to sell it, but noone wants its, especially now with a bad motor. Like 8 different people told me they would buy it then backed out. I just need a car for the time being, and after that i would prolly be way more likely to sell it if it ran.
I know they are very very common for blowin head gaskets, but it never overheated on me. One time it got pretty got from a stuck thermostat, but i never let it hit red, and got it replaced right when that happend. After i got that replaced i drove it for about 5 more months with no problems. And from what i've heard, those motors are hell to work on.
I'm gonna check out that coil pack and cat. conv. first off.

Do i need any special tools to replace that fuel line ? i have the tools i used on my mustang for fuel lines, but i donno if GM has the same spring clip.