Quick Question About 1988 Corolla Wagon - Pre-1997 Toyota Corolla and Geo Prizm

There's an 88 Corolla wagon for sale in town. 350 firm. Body is rough but mechanically it's pretty good. Needs one tire and the seams of the gastank are wet. Clutch and brakes were replaced last year, one new strut in front, 2 in rear. Somewhat of a long story why I'm looking at it (will explain if you want) but the main thing I want to know is, is it fuel injected or carburated? I don't particularly like old cars with carbs, they all seem to not work right and they end up flooding and hard to start when cold.

Can't you tell by looking at the engine? A fuel injected engine will simply not have a carbuerator. It will have an air duct leading to the throttle body and ultimately the intake manifold, with a fuel injector(s) located somewhere South of the throttle body along the route to the intake ports on the cylinder head. Or the injectors may be in the heads themselves. But a carbuerator is unmistakable; it has the typical air jets to which is usually attached the air cleaner, with fuel lines leading to the throttle jets inside the carbuerator body, and the choke/flapper valve mechanism visible inside the air intake ports. The whole thing sits on top of the intake manifold on the side of the engine opposite of the exhaust manifold.

There is no reason why a carbuerated engine should run poorly, assuming the carbuerator is functioning properly. They do wear out, but a replacement should not be difficult to find.

LOL, well I haven't been up to look at it, so I don't know what it looks like under the hood, and I do know what a fuel injector looks like. Sorry if I confused you with that info, that's just what the car's current owner has told me. I'm hoping to take a look at it tomorrow.

I went to look at it just a few hours ago. It's carb'ed, but man it runs nice. Idles nice and smooth, no noise in the engine at all. High mileage (231000 miles) but the clutch and brakes were done about 2 years ago, Timing belt was replaced 31000 miles ago. The body isn't in bad shape at all, a few dings and one hole about the size of a quarter. It needs a few little things, 2 front tires, small exhaust leak needs to be fixed, E-brake needs adjustment and there's a noise on the left rear strut. Overall, it's quite the deal for an 18 year old 350 dollar car. I'll be paying for it tomorrow and should have it on the road by Wednesday. I'll snap a few pics tomorrow when I pay for it.

As promised, pictures!

https://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/Inf...orolla%20wagon/

it sure looks carb'd...and pretty rotten too.

Woo - that body is rough - but will make for a good project car.

Hard to tell from some of the photos - but it looks like someone tried to fix some of the body damage (bondo on the lower part of the door). Gaps between the panels seems to be pretty variable - I hope that is due to just some of the body rot and not because the body it not true.

Good luck and can't wait to see some updated photos if it fixed up.

Heh, yeah the body is pretty rough, but I wasn't expecting anything good really. For 350 bucks I ain't complaining, I'll drive it til spring, maybe summer then sell it for parts or something.