So, last year, I bought a '94 Duster on ebay. A friend and I drove a little over 4 hours to pick it up in my Shelby Charger. I drove it back and he drove the Shelby back. When I got there, I was a little miffed because the car wasn't exactly as described. The windshield was cracked (still is) There were way more dents than had been disclosed, and the interior was, shall we say, gross. Luckily, I have a '93 Duster that met Mr. 11-pointer last summer. While driving through Iowa on my way home from one of my routes, a semi driver who works for the same company I do called me and told me he ran into the fender of my car. He apologized about 10 times, but I kept saying it's ok don't worry about it. Normally, I would have been upset, but the only part on the front of the '93 that was still good after hitting the deer just happened to be the same fender that he hit. So, I got the check and fixed it for nothing.
The car was a nightmare electrically. The original fan had apparently burned up, so his buddy wired in some fan that fit in the space, but did not mount properly so it rubbed on the housing and on the radiator. Rather than fixing the wiring for the fan, he just found +12v on some connector near the injector harness, so when you'd shut the key off, the engine would continue to run for about 30 seconds.
It turned out that there's one 30? amp maxi fuse under the dash kind of attached to the steering column. After searching through the harness, checking fusible links, checking the relay, I found the fuse, replaced it and I finally had a properly working fan circuit.
I'm parting out a '90 Monaco which has a perfectly good fan, so I made some brackets, wired it in & no more rubbing.
It hasn't been idling properly since I got it and it's really been bothering me, so yesterday I got a new plenum gasket and injector o-rings so I could pull the fuel rail out with the injectors intact, pressurize the fuel system and check for leaks. No leaks at all, but surprise! the engine harness side of the injector plug had no insulation on 3 of the 7 wires.
I called a local JY and asked him how much for an engine harness. He said about $40 if I pulled it, which isn't too bad so off I went. When I got there, he was about to close, so I went out to the yard in a rush to find a harness, but they were all too old and the yard is a complete mess. I found a plug that looked the same, cut it off and went to the office. I explained to him that I couldn't find the right year, but this pigtail should work. He looked at me over his glasses in a jackass kind of way and said ok, that'll be ten dollars. WTF?!?! $10 for a measly 4 inch pigtail when I could have had the whole damn harness for 40?!?! So I reluctantly handed him my money and left. I hope Mr. Junk is happy with his 10 bucks 'cause that's all he'll ever get out of me. (He's the same clown that told me $100 for an Omni gauge cluster and a digital dash and $300 for a used turbo) Needless to say, I didn't buy either and I won't be back. Anyway, I soldered & heatshrinked my pigtail on, taped it up, put plastic split loom around it and put my car back together. I started it, it fired right up, BUT now my engine is knocking like crazy and it never did before.
I thought maybe I had knocked some carbon loose from the injector holes and now it's sitting on top of one of my pistons. I unplugged the FPR vacuum line, hooked up a hose with a .030" welding tip on the end of it, and put the welding tip into a coffee can full of water. I then started the engine & let it suck most of the water in. At this point my tailpipe was filling the shop with white smoke, so I shut it off. Then, I let it sit for about 2 hrs. without running. I started it up again with my fingers crossed, it died after about 5 seconds, so I tried again. After sputtering and almost dying again, it finally smoothed out. I didn't hear any noise yet, so I revved it up just to be sure. Guess what? That 3.0L runs better and quieter than it ever has! No more knocking, no more pinging on hills & under load, much smoother idle, it runs almost like brand new! The water got rid of the knocking & a lot of carbon build-up in the engine, and the wiring fixed everything else.
When I bought it, I really didn't feel that it was worth the $810 and who knows how much gas to go get it, but now, after a few cheap & easy fixes, I think I have a pretty decent DD. I guess what helps, too, is the check I got for the fender damage was more than I paid for the car. I only paid $24 for the fender when I put it on the first Duster, but I guess it had already paid for itself in the time it was on that car. I love my FWD Mopars!
TurboDodge.com 
