Help with some problems with my 92

[jcruz]

Hi all,

After a few years I'm finally able to spend time troubleshooting some problems with my 92. About 43,000 miles. I've had the car 9 years and only put about 2000 miles on it.

I'm sort of stuck on what the problems are and how to get them fixed, so I'm looking for any information, leads, advice, ideas, and other helpful information to make some progress.

Gathered some pics & vids last weekend when I had a chance to get the car up on a lift.

Issue #1 -- my car stinks

I'm having some sort of exhaust problem(s)...the exhaust stinks, so bad my wife won't ride in the car any more. The smell is bad in the cabin and, as you can imagine, worse when sitting at a light. The kind of smell that stays on you and can give you a headache. Seems like I have an exhaust leak of some kind.

Here's a short vid of smoke from the exhaust:

https://vimeo.com/504324317

I get a LOT of condensation out of the muffler. Black:



Also, I'm wondering if there might be something wrong with the catalytic converters, so I took a vid with the engine running. Is this useful in any way?

https://vimeo.com/504323929

Issue#2 -- Clunk/click in the rear somewhere

When the car is cold and moving, I hear an intermittent clunk/click that's driving me crazy. When it happens, you can feel it in the steering wheel. When things warm up, like by the time I get out of my driveway, problem goes away. I first thought it was the brakes binding but I think now it might be a bad U joint or bad spline? The half shafts looked okay but the rear seal seems to be leaking badly. We checked the rear fluid level and to my untrained eye, this oil looks like it really needs to be changed:





Here's a couple pics around the rear seal area. The cover and the surrounding area were very wet.





Should I plan on replacing the seal and seeing what else might be wrong when I'm in there?

Issue#3 -- car stumbles under hard acceleration

Not sure where to start with this one. The car stumbles/bucks badly no matter what speed. With the power key on it's not quite as noticeable. Idles fine and runs smoothly under normal driving conditions.

I had the coils replaced a few years ago. That helped a bit, but didn't solve the problem. I've never changed the plugs, had the injectors replaced, or anything else done on the motor.

What can I do to help diagnose & isolate this issue?

Issue #4 -- what's this port?

A question, really. This port looks like it needs some kind of hose attached. There's a matching port on the other side of the plenum. It looks like someone re-routed the hose so it now goes around the front of the plenum? Wondering what should be hooked up to this port and if it might be contributing to issue #3?



Thanks in advance for any information you can provide!

John