Well the time has come for me to service all 3 cars in my driveway (and all at the same time - arent i lucky???) Now the patrol is a peice of cake coz its a diesel and ive been doing it now for about 3 years. This isnt the first time i ahve changed the oil and plugs etc. on a petrol but what i was wondering was the TN wagon ( carby) is being a bit of a ***** in the mornings and running on 3 cylinders for a couple of seconds then running "fine"My question is why is this fixed with a new air filter? We do have a few dirt roads around here but i wasnt thinking that we do that much of it... Secondly as i am going to change the Oil, Oil filter (i have already done the air filter about 3,000 k;s ago) what else do these guys do when you take your car into them? i mean that is pretty much it isnt it? It aooears the car is running on a knife edge coz every time the air filter gets clogged - about every 5k - it runs like a real ***** and wont idle in fact half the time it wont rev which meakes it really embarrasing when you are trying to get this heap of crap out of a car park and its billowing smoke and with your foot flat to the floor doing about 1200 rpm and running on 2 cylinders...

BTW - its only got 173 on the clock and it is fairly genuine...

Try pouring a can of carby cleaner down the carby. Could be dirty.

Oil, oil filter, check the levels of all the other fluids, clean the engine bay, that's about it for a minor service.

AstronII - my TN got an oilchange every 5000.

What are the condition of your plugs? One (#4) of mine used to foul up with oil... it was wet oil seeping down the treads so its not a ring/combustion thing. Valve stem seals weep when parked, imho.

Every 1000 or so I'd pull that plug off and scrape off the soot; or just swap it with one of the other 3 otherwise yeah, coldstarts on 3 cyls. Plus I had like 8-10 sets of plugs lying about to swapover too - 5min blind job once you've done it a few times.

Check coolant, check tranny & pwrstr level, check belts.
Check all hoses - don't forget the heater hoses too!!
Check brake pads.
Check CV joint boots, if cracked fix immediately.
Check front subframe bolts are tight... :confused:
Shoot the hose thru the radiator backwards to flush out bugs.


As for airfilter... changing it will wiggle the airflow sensor,
if the electric contacts are dirty that could 'fix' a few things.

Check corrosion of engine position sensor too - elec plug on dizzy.

Check all the rubber tubes going everywhere, rubber perishes.

Try pouring a can of carby cleaner down the carby. Could be dirty.

Oil, oil filter, check the levels of all the other fluids, clean the engine bay, that's about it for a minor service.

Where do i pick up this carby cleaner and how does one use it? is it jsut a matter of simply shoving it down the throat of it?

And its a carby too so i dont think they would have had a air fuel sensor would they? i should do it more often and to be honest its getting to be a real pain in the bum lately with not actually starting and jsut kicking over sort of thing, although i dont think the cold weather is helping it out.... and man is it cold here at the moment!

carby cleaner from places like supercheap autobahn etc

no air-fuel on carby as far as i know

carby cleaner from places like supercheap autobahn etc

no air-fuel on carby as far as i know


i didnt think so..... but i ahve splashed out the $3.95 on some carby cleaner and will give that a go soon - mind you wont happen for the next 3 weeks as i am off to the snow :badgrin: itll just have to wait till after

hi all i know its been a while but thats life i have decided to fix up the the tp i bought lst week up as all its needs is a new head and my will fit straight on i will post some pix tomorrow