The engine is tired and showing signs it is on its last legs. I’m not really sure how to feel about it. When I bought this car four years ago, I told myself I’d hang on to it for five years before moving on to something else. It wasn’t that I was telling myself I needed to sell it and move on after five years, just I wasn’t going to sell it before five years were up. So with four years gone and the fifth ticking down, I feel a bit ambivalent about this.
The matter is that the engine has been running poorly for a couple of weeks, and getting worse. I went to do a tune up this weekend, and found evidence of massive blow-by in one cylinder. Fouled spark plug and puffs of smoke out the rocker cover when the oil cap was removed and the engine revved. I already knew the engine was kind of tired a couple years ago, always warmed it up with a gentle circle around the block before going to work, never floored it, and kept the oil changed every 3000 miles. But it’s an old engine, and I suspect the previous owner flogged it. There’s not much I can do about it now. I don’t have the space or time to tear it down and rebuild, and I’m already deep into repairing the ‘68 96 that ttyymmnn helped me rescue from the farm.
My options are basically find a good running engine for cheap and swap it in, or sell the 95 and buy a new (to me) car. Right now I’m giving a nominal effort to fishing around for a new engine, but it’s most likely I’ll be selling the 95 soon and moving on.