My little Zastava is finally back from the shop! It went from dying at every stoplight, to making the hour’s drive home under its own power, drama-free. Here’s what it took to get it to this point:
Fuel tank and fuel system cleaning. They cleaned out tons of dirt from the fuel tank! There was so much, that it was visible through the filler neck. Definitely not good for combustion.
Carburetor rebuild. Instead of trying to adjust it again, I decided to cut my losses and buy a rebuild kit. It’s as close to a new carb as you’ll get without actually buying a brand new carb.
Brand new spark plugs, fuel pump, and water pump, just to be sure everything’s truly ‘reset’.
Cooling duct mechanism repair. There’s a cold air intake duct below the engine bay which wasn’t connected to anything! My mechanic had to fabricate a part so that it would function.
The positive battery terminal was loose. This was the simplest of the fixes – all it needed was a good tightening. This was also likely the root cause of the engine dying when coming to a stop.
While I was at it, I had a few other non-mechanical matters taken care of at the same time:
1. Installing new window regulators (now the windows roll up/down smoothly)
2. Realigning the passenger’s side door (now it closes properly)
3. Fixing the rear seatback cover panel (it’s no longer loose)
We’re not out of the woods yet, though. The task ahead is to test drive it as much as possible, to both check if this repair did the trick completely, and to identify any potential new problems.
But so far, so good. I’ve been successfully driving it all last weekend, and took a few pics in the process...
