The K-Car - One of the cars that helped save Chrysler

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by ls1mike
Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by Miller88
The neighbor across the street had an Omnirizon. It would stall no less than 10 times backing out of the driveway. People seem to love them, though. There's a few of them (somhow) still running around and they are a cult classic.

The K platform definitely saved Chrysler. I can still hear the horrific piston slap as an Aries or Caravan drives by in my memories.

That wasn't piston slap that you would hear. That's the chain for the oil pump that was always loose on them and would knock back and forth on these 2.2/2.5's.



Chain? The pump had a gear on top of it that ran off the lower shaft of the timing system. The distributor and oil pump ran off this shaft. The distributor had two pins that slid into the top of the pump.

It was in fact piston slap. All of these engines are known for it.

The balance shafts on the 2.5 had chains

Oil pump for 81 to 1995 2.2/2.5

The slot in the top was where the distributor slid down into. It was a really simple design easy to maintain.

The Cam sprocket and oil/pump distributor sprocket are the same size all driven by the crank pulley.

I could do a timing belt swap in 30 to 45 minutes. The beauty of it is the engine is non interference. The car will run with the timing REALLY far out but there will be no low end torque.

Could have sworn it was the chain in the lower end making the noise when I was told about it. I stand corrected. (I know the engine is timing belt but there was a short chain in the bottom end I thought)

 

[StevieC]

I just looked it up... It was the Balance shaft chain. I knew there was a chain and they were always loose when we would take the engines apart. I still stand by that it's the chain making the noise and not the piston slapping. But hey it was 20 years ago I saw the last of these so maybe I'm remembering it wrong....

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog...,1069398,engine,balance+shaft+chain,5188

 

[kschachn]

My 1979 Horizon had the original 1.7L Volkswagen engine, was that design similar to the later one?

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted by PimTac
Originally Posted by john_pifer
Guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are some BITOG members who are gushing over one of the worst cars ever made!



Those cars didn't sell themselves, it was Lee Iacocca who was a master salesman. The streets were filled with these Lean Burn cars that pinged everywhere they went.

IN the '80s somebody, I forget who, coined the phrase "Buy a Chrysler, win a date with Lee Iacocca"!

 

[ls1mike]

Originally Posted by StevieC
I just looked it up... It was the Balance shaft chain. I knew there was a chain and they were always loose when we would take the engines apart. I still stand by that it's the chain making the noise and not the piston slapping. But hey it was 20 years ago I saw the last of these so maybe I'm remembering it wrong....

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog...,1069398,engine,balance+shaft+chain,5188

Yep balance shafts but that was only the 2.5 cars. No 2.2 ever had them and they were quiet. Piston slap was horrible on those. The whole point of the balance shafts was to keep them quiet and help smooth idle.
I had 2.5 turbo swap in one of the Daytonas. I removed the balance shafts. Most guys who hot rodded them removed them. We didn't care about quiet or smooth idle.
Last 2.5 turbo I had was I sold in 2012 it a was loud 13.50 1/4 mile Lebaron.

 

[StevieC]

Mike yeah it was 20 years ago... And we did far more 2.5 work than the 2.2 unless it was the 2.2 Turbo then it was usually heads/gaskets and turbo's... Bottom ends seemed fine on those.

 

[addyguy]

Folks bought a baby-blue 1985 Reliant 4-door sedan used in 1991. It was 'one of' the cars I learned to drive on; and then was the car I passed my drivers test on.

For about the next 6 months, until I got my own car, I drove it almost every day. Besides having issues with starting in the extreme cold, and having a small hole in the floor on the drivers seat, it was a great car. Lots of room, very comfortable bench seat, fairly peppy...I had no real issues with it.

I bought a 1985 Buick Skyhawk as my first car, bc it wasn't 'cool' to drive your folks hand-me-downs...but I knew they were trading it in soon. I SHOULD have bought it for the $500 or so they got for it, fixed the floor, given it a good tune-up, and driven it for a few years.

My first big automotive regret...that Skyhawk cost me a fortune to keep on the road for the next two years. that Reliant wouldn't have, I'm sure of it.

 

[92saturnsl2]

My folks drove K cars for most of my childhood. First one I remember was a 1983 Dodge Aries. I remember it leaking oil like a sieve and my dad always having my mom run to the store to buy oil. One time she came back with a quart of Quaker State, my dad was madder than a hornet-- Not sure why he got so mad, I guess QS had a bad reputation in the early 90's?

They got rid of that car and bought a 1987 Plymouth Reliant for like $6k IIRC, it was fairly new only 2-3 years old. They drove that car many years, perhaps to about 120k miles and they got rid of it when it started having transmission problems.

My brother in law had a 1989 Dodge Daytona w/ the 2.5L that I used to drive around on occasion when I was in high school. I really liked that car. I ended up trashing the engine by downshifting into 2nd gear while going too fast.. I remember the RPMs going up a bit past redline (7000 rpm or so); pretty sure it spun a rod bearing. He drove it around for a couple months with a rod knock and nearly 0 oil pressure before one day it decided to spit a rod out of the side of the block.

Only other K car I remember driving was a early 90's Dodge Shadow convertible w/ 2.2L. This was in the early 00's and the thing was a rust bucket, but still fun to drive. I have fond memories of K cars!

 

[caprice_2nv]

My memories of the k car are sitting in the back seat as a kid when the car wouldn't start or died on the side of the road...happened a lot. It was an 84 with the lean burn carburetor. They also had a hand me down 77 Toyota Corolla. It was not reliable either, only had it for about 2 years before the springs came through the rusted trunk but the alternator died a couple times and it would die or fail to start from time to time.

It was replaced by a 79 impala that never really left us anywhere stranded in 6 years. Bought for $800 safeties when it was 14 years old.

 

[GMBoy]

I enjoyed that video...actually I would love to have a luxurious Imperial or New Yorker turbo if I could find one. With so many K cars made, I cannot remember the last time I saw one.

 

[dishdude]

I logged a ton of uneventful miles in K-cars growing up.

I was visiting my parents a few months ago and on the way to dinner the topic of cars we had growing up came up. I was mostly listening, but they seemed to agree that a silver '83 Reliant two door with a blue landau top and an '86 Accord LX that was champagne gold with pop up headlights were their favorite cars of the 80's.

They also had an '84 Accord DX, an '86 and '88 Reliant, but for some reason those two stood out. All gave good service, even with the issues 80's cars were inflicted with. When I started driving they had a Cherokee XJ and an Acclaim, and I ended up with an old Reliant and Sundance before moving on to a Neon.

All are laughable by today's standards, but at the time they delivered reliable transportation.

 

[hank2]

I bought a '86 Reliant wagon in '97. Ran it for a 2 or 3 years. Fairly low mileage. It had a transplant 2.5 engine in it. I believe it originally had a 2.2. I remember that the oil pan was pretty low to the ground but never thought about it much. On a hunting trip with the my Dad in northern Pa., I managed to catch a high rock and holed the pan. After hiking to a paved road, we lucked out and hitched a ride to the closest town of any size, about 10 miles away. I managed to get a tow truck to bring it back to a garage in that town. We were holed up at a motel for 3 or 4 days as the garage desperately searched for a used oil pan. Seems that my car had an unusual Canadian engine oil pan and no jobber or local yard pan would fit. Somehow, they finally located a suitable pan in far upstate NY. The only pleasant memory I have of that car was that it got a respectable 25 mpg highway with a 3 speed auto and that the 2.5 was smooth. 13 inch wheels and welded on door hinges!

I recall reading about the design of new K cousin mini vans in the early 80's. Chrysler management and the bean counters thought that Americans would be quite pleased with a 3 speed manual trans in the 2.2 powered vans. The engineers knew they were out of their minds, so they intentionally designed the main shaft just a little longer than necessary. As manual trans were in vogue for regular passenger vehicles at that time, they were soon thankful that a 4th gear could be added to the existing design. I "blasted" past families in 2.2 mini vans on mild upgrades in my '82 Ford Escort GT.

 

[StevieC]

This popped up in my feed this week... Thought I would add to the discussion.

 

[addyguy]

When I was looking for my first vehicle, I looked at a 1979 omni O24 5-speed. Low mileage, and from the pics and in person looked good.

Then you got in it, and you realized it had basically NO floors whatsoever, completely rotted out underneath.

It was from one of our Atlantic provinces, and had spent its life near the ocean. Owner thought it was no big deal, and wouldn't budge on his price because 'it has really low mileage'.

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by addyguy
When I was looking for my first vehicle, I looked at a 1979 omni O24 5-speed. Low mileage, and from the pics and in person looked good.

Then you got in it, and you realized it had basically NO floors whatsoever, completely rotted out underneath.

It was from one of our Atlantic provinces, and had spent its life near the ocean. Owner thought it was no big deal, and wouldn't budge on his price because 'it has really low mileage'.




In those days, a large coffee can cut and flattened made a pretty good patch for holes in floorboards.

 

[Andrew1972]

The K car was great for Chrysler as there was no where to go but up in that time period for them.

It seems like if you create one great platform many vehicles can be produced.

VW/Audi have done in with their MQB platform that underpins Golf all the way to Audi Q7 SUV.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted by StevieC
I just looked it up... It was the Balance shaft chain. I knew there was a chain and they were always loose when we would take the engines apart. I still stand by that it's the chain making the noise and not the piston slapping. But hey it was 20 years ago I saw the last of these so maybe I'm remembering it wrong....

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog...,1069398,engine,balance+shaft+chain,5188


I had a 91 dakota with the 2.5 and it sounded fine. The longitudinal engines didn't have the balance shafts.

Worcester, MA had all k-cars for taxis in the year 2000. They sounded awful. Whoever the big taxi operator was looked like he bought $300 cars and sprayed them yellow while they were still rolling.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted by eljefino

Worcester, MA had all k-cars for taxis in the year 2000. They sounded awful. Whoever the big taxi operator was looked like he bought $300 cars and sprayed them yellow while they were still rolling.


The worse they sounded, the better and longer they ran!

 

[nthach]

A friend's grandma had a pristine Dynasty she only drove to church and the store. Bought new from the local CJDR dealer, it was serviced at the local Goodyear shop. I remember driving it, it wasn't spectacular and it felt like I was going back to the bizzare world of the 1980s when K-Cars seemed luxurious compared to the offerings from GM and Ford at the time.

It had the 3.0L Mitsu V6 and 42TE, the engine wasn't burning oil to my surprise even though the cheapest swill(probably Amtecol was) was being fed to it.

 

[WylieCoyote]

Wasn't a fan of the K itself, but loved the H, K and P derivatives. I came of age with Daytona Turbo Zs, Shadow CSXs, and Lancer ESs giving the Camaros and Mustangs a run for their money on the strip. I bought a Sundance Duster with the Mistubishi V6 in 1993 and it stands as the most dependable and trouble-free car I ever owned. A lot of good stuff came from the K. Better days for Chrysler, for sure.