i thought the battery has to get hot before it explodes, and he was only putting 1.5 amps on it for just a few minutes, i believe an alternator does more than that doesnt it?

Well, it doesn't matter.. battery is above it'* normal voltages with the car on and off [could just be the gauge.. oh well it'* good].

The oil was a bit low, so I added a quart, and now i'm at 30PSI idle, and just a hair higher at 2,000RPM. I'm not going past 2,000RPM no matter what anyone says. Even if they say it'll make my car 'grow' horsepower, and in a year or two i'll have 1,000hp.

anyone with an 88-91 FSM, go to page 6B-11 in the cooling system. Figure 17, on the bottom left corner.. see the drain ****? Well right below it is that tube.. that'* where it is leaking. I don't see anything on it, in either the haynes or the fsm. anyone got a clue what that is and why it is leaking?

isnt that tube normally what the drain plug drains out of? you MAY want to tighten up the plug, but i will let the nuts chime in on that

I removed the plug, and it turns out the gasket had become bent.. and that'* where it was leaking out. a little 180 on the gasket, and it was all fixed up.

I broke the vacuum distribution block for the 3rd time now.. i really need to be more careful with that thing. I backed the car up about an inch or two away from her car to **** her off.. and then the distribution block broke, so i can't move the car for the rest of the night .

Oil pressure is now just a smidge above 30PSI, and doesn't change with RPM. Is it safe to drive the car like this? Again, remember i don't want to go above 2,000RPM with the car for a while.. so I won't be revving the crap out of the engine. After I rack up a couple miles, i'll do a fluid/filter change, and maybe that shall bring her back to specs. If not.. should I worry about it?

30 psi at idle is respectable. Unless you rebuild the entire bottom end I would think 30 is very good.

Well 30 is OK, is that at operating temperature? If you remember, my car doesn't have the greatest PSI at idle either, and the highest i've ever seen it when warm is about 42 psi. Here'* the pic from my car, if i remember it was ~ 75 degrees outside and the car had been driven about 20 minutes.

Got the vacuum distribution block fixed, and now the car runs 100x better, even though i didn't think i had a vacuum leak before? Oh well, runs great now. Topped off the transmission fluid, and tightened up the modulator. It now has super positive shifts, that are instantanious [loosening it delays the shifts slightly, but still much quicker than before]. The whole car does NOT shake to bits or anything like that. It is a good, firm, positive shift. Much better than stock, that'* for sure.

Oil pressure is up. It'* just a hair under 40PSI at idle, and doesn't noticeably increase at 2,000RPM [maybe 1PSI at most]. Although I did not drive the car, I turned on the A/C for the first time in about a year. Still fairly cold parked, and for only running 5-10 minutes. Heat works even better. And REALLY cools the car down. I mean, I went from a smidge under 1/2, to 1/4. Good ol' heat . I want to flush the coolant [still water] a few more times before I put in coolant.. and to make sure there still won't be any leaks. Cooling systems and I don't really get along very well :(.

Idle is a little high today, but it doesn't surprise me, since I have always had idle issues. The idle is only 1200RPM not under load, and 900RPM in gear. So obviously it'* getting a little throttle [gotta adjust that].

I didn't have much to do while the car got up to temp, so I decided to plop my *** down by the tailpipe. And listened. It sounds like it always has, except maybe every 5 seconds I get a little hiccup.. it isn't loud, and you really need to listen for it. 5 seconds sounds a little long to be one cylinder'* firing at idle? For this to perhaps be one cylinder? I have a spark plug theif, and I am missing one TR55 and one AC plug. So I have 5 of each.. and the ACs are better than the NGKs, so I put in 5 Acs and one TR55 until I can get a new set. The TR is in #6. Can this cause it?

I would think that one plug could. What are the TR55'* gapped at? If the AC Delco'* are gapped at one gap, and the TR'* at another, It could mess the timing up maybe?

I don't know about the plug... My car does that too. Just a random hiccup. Always has.

If it'* every 5 seconds or so, it'* at least firing all cylinders most of the time. At 650 RPM (just to pick a number), each cylinder fires 325 times per minute, or 5.42 times per second (I know, that seems like alot, but that'* what the math says). So, using that number, you're only hiccuping once in 27.1 firings of any given cylinder.

But again, I don't know what would cause that.

started the bonneville today and found the following:

it took a couple of cranks to fire <who could blame it>
started, then died as the rpms were coming back down
started again, rpms dropped again, bottomed out at 1k, then hung at 1500
oil pressure at 60 psi at this point
voltage @ 14-15v
car warmed up as normal
when the temp was halfway between 1/4 to 1/2,
oil was at 42-45
idle dropped to 1k rpm and fluctuated a little, kinda sounded like the engine was rumbling a little <very deep, very sublte, very random, only when below 1100 rpm>