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Wiring harness / MPG / oil consumption questions 700

This weekend I drove my 86 740T with 168K from Maryland to Kansas City and back. The weather was marvelous. The car performed pretty well. The gas mileage was a little less than I expected (mid-west gas costs just as much as east-coast gas does these days, which was a big surprise) and I calculated about 24mpg hwy, most of my driving being highway driving. Those big old trucks were no match for me, and whenever I needed to blow past them that it just what happened. (: However at one point when I was driving for about 11 hours straight on US 70 in Indiana I noticed a burning smell (aarg). Got out to check it out and there were some wires from a harness touching the turbo and the connecter they attached to started to melt. Just prior to that I noticed that when the car went into boost it seemed to hesitate just before hitting the "yellow" area of the turbo gauge. So I took some thin metal wire and tied the wires up around the AC/evaporator to move them away from the heat of the turbo and it drove just fine for the rest of the trip. Not sure what those wires are though. There are eight wire connections that plug into a hard squre (now partially melted) plastic socket, and the two on the end melted down but not away (meaning the wires are still inside of the connector). I'm sure I'm going to need to replace it, but I was curious if anyone knows what they control. Didn't have any other (noticeable) performance issues, other than I the trip took about two quarts of oil (is that normal?) and a half-quart transmission fluid (is that normal).

Other than that, I put 2912 miles on the car since Sunday noon








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    Wiring harness / MPG / oil consumption questions 700

    I'll take pictures of the wires in question and upload them tonite.








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    Wiring harness / MPG / oil consumption questions 700

    two quarts in 3K miles engine oil and half quart ATF is NOT normal. Whether you can live with it is another matter. Hard to tell from your post where the oil is coming from...sounds from condition of car that it may be leaking. If you're using dino oil it could be normal if you're running 75-80 mph and there are some hills between MD and KCMO. I've found that some cars will consume oil when you take them on the highway for a 3-4 hour run after driving around town/little highway usage for a couple months. If you monitor oil usage closely you may find that the first quart went out quickly and the second quart may have taken 2K miles....2K/quart is maybe a little high but well within factory specs. Heck, you could COOK a quart in 2K miles (means distill the light dino oil fractions) running at 80mph with a marginal old engine and cooling system (betcha have your stock radiator on that car?).

    Dunno what connector there is there with eight wires on it that would drop onto the turbo/exhaust manifold and still allow the car to run....







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