Cascade Crew

[aaron_sK]

Admitedly this is a long and pointless post, but I'm completely ticked off, so here goes.

About three months ago, the O2 sensor on my work car (1991 Ford Thunderbird w/NA V6) goes out. The car still ran acceptably well, and since I didn't feel like putting money into a car I was planning on selling, I decided to just leave it alone up until the time I actually did try and sell it. Unfortunatly the EEC defaulted to max rich fuel setting, and I was getting all of about 12mpg.

After a few weeks of putting about $20 worth of gas in it a week, I broke down and pulled the old paperclip thing to blink the codes out of the CEL. Sure enough left bank HEGO came back as bad. So after spending $52 ona new sensor, and $15 on a socket to remove the old sensor, I finally get a day off when it is not pouring down rain, so I decide to change it.

Long story short, about an hours worth of work later I fire it up, no exhaust leaks, everything seems to run fine. I run it about 15 miles down the freeway to heat the engine up completely, and the car is running perfect. No problems at all. For the first time in a long time I actually enjoyed driving that damn Ford.

After my successful fix I'm feeling pretty good, and I decide to get some gas, and drive to the bank. I stop by the Shell station and buy $15 of "V-Power" premium (that car's EFI will not run on anything less than 89 octane, and so I usually run premium). 15 bucks turns out to be just over 6 gallons. I make it maybe 3 miles before I'm sitting at a light and the car starts to shudder and shake at idle. Thinking maybe I stirred up crud on the bottom of the tank, I pop it up into Neutral at the light, and rev the engine a little. Damn thing starts bucking like a sonofagun, but the wierdest thing is that it doesn't stall. Doesn't even come close to stalling.

Off the light I had no power at all, it was struggling just to get up to 30mph. I pulled into the bank, took care of my s***, and then pulled into a parking lot around the corner. I checked my plug wires, checked the new O2 sensor, and a few other things to rule them out. The exhaust wasnt steamy, there was no under-hood steam, and no water in the oil, so I decided to rule out a head gasket. The entire time I hadn't gotten a Check Engine light, so I figured it wasn't something like a knock sensor.

I nursed it back home, going about 25mph. I talked it over with my Dad, and we checked a few things before deciding that it was probably water in the gas. Not having anything suitable to siphon it into, I decided to just buy a couple of bottles of Liquid Iso-Heet, and run it out. Ended up driving it about 35 miles, with not much change. Damn thing still runs like a piece of crap, but with no stalling, or Check Engine light.

At this point it runs, and it's enough to get me back and forth to work, which is all I need. Right now the only thing I can think of is the gas. The problem came on suddenly, one minute it's running fine, next minute stumbling. It's not a consistent thing, and increased RPM's seems to help it a little, so I've ruled out spark. The exhaust is flowing fine, no steam or smoke. Oil is fine. Car was to hot to check the coolant, but it's not overheating, and it's at normal levels in the overflow. At this point, I'm just going to keep driving it, but it is a serious pain in the ass. I just get done fixing one problem, and run up against another.

End of pointless rant against Ford/Shell/humanity/ect.

BTW, one other interesting thing: after I dumped in the fuel additive, I decided to run it down the 509 freeway, since I-5 is pretty much at a standstill around that time of the evening. I was sitting at the stoplight where Taylor Way crosses 509 where it changes from Frontage Rd. to Marine View Drive, and I glanced up in the rear view mirror, and happened to see an early 90's red TA. I also noticed that it had what looked like foglights in the lower grill. I knew I had seen that somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. As I rolled off the light, I glanced up in my mirror again, and saw that it was a vert. At that point I vividly remembered iansane's car, and his wierd headlight setup.

I didn't get that good of a look at it, since I turned up the hill, but I gotta tell you man, that is a hell of a nice looking car. I'm not what you would call a huge fan of the convertable f-bodies, but that one is extremely sharp.

Anyway, I'm done. Feel free to flame my car, or whatever.

[iansane]

That sucks man... Sure it's not just a clogged fuel filter or something? Bad o2 sensor off the bat? Where'd you buy it? Try pulling it and having the store warranty (get a new one) to check it. Other than that I'm at a loss.

509? I had to google that. My buddy lives up on dash point so I'm out there a lot. When did you see me? Any parts or anything you need come up to schmucks on 6th and pine. I work there.

Thanks for the compliments. The headlights need to be finished still. Anytime you see me, give me a wave or a honk. I'll probably be confused but I figured it out later.

[Schultzy89GTA]

[aaron_sK]

[Xophertony]

i had to pull the entire front body work of of a jeep charookie to change a thermostat once, so i know how you feel. good luck with the f*rd

[iansane]

[aaron_sK]

Vacuum test came back rock solid. The compression tester I tried didn't fit, for some reason there is about a half-inch of smooth tube before the threads start in each spark plug hole. I've got work tonight, but tomorrow I'm going to check the timing, and see if I can get an adaptor or something for the compression tester. I'd really hate to have to buy one just because of Ford's damn engineers.

[Sellmanb]

Checked quality of spark?

Fuel pressure?

Good places to start atleast Welcome to the board btw

[aaron_sK]

Timing is spot-on, suprisingly enough. I tried twisting the disributer back and forth to see if I could smooth it out at all, and the wierd thing is that it did exactly what you would expect from a timing change, but it was stumbling and bucking the entire time.

Also tried unplugging the new O2 to no avail.

sellman - I don't have a gauge or anything to check the fuel pressure, nor do I have an ohm meter to check the plug wires. I replaced the cap and roter today since they where a little coroded, and it did nothing.

ian - Does your Shucks sell adapters for compression testors to work with a longer spark plug, or am I going to have to buy a new tester?

[iansane]

We don't stock one but that doesn't mean I can't get ahold of one. We've got a pretty large commercial side and the guy that runs that is a pretty young chevy dude that'll probably help me find it. I'll talk to him tommorrow when I go to work, see if he can find anything.

[Sellmanb]

another way to check spark is to pull a plug and attach the wire to it, have your buddy (cuz I'm sure you wont wanna do this haha) hold the spark plug by the plug wire boot close to some metal, and check the color of the spark, then report back with the color. That there should determine if it's a weak spark issue or not.


For it to all of a sudden just start acting weird instead of a progressive problem, it almost has to be something electrical, or very deeply mechanical (like bent pushrod or something, if that motor has pushrods? lol)

[aaron_sK]

ian - That's cool. I'm going to call around tomorrow (today, whatever, been a late night) and see if anyone has it.

sellman - Once I do the compression check, then I'll start digging into the electrical. Right now I'm not to eager to do that.

[aaron_sK]

Updated:

Compression came back good, range was 150-165 psi with 155 being about average. Checked and gapped the plugs, they were a little worn, but all were in decent condition, and weren't obviously damaged or not firing. Completely removed and rerouted the plug wires, checked all the boots and cable for damage. Everything seemed a little worn, but in decent condition.

Right now I'm focusing on two ideas:

1) An ignition solonoid or some damn thing has a weak signal. When I checked the timing, the light was plenty bright, with no missed pulses, but since I don't have any way to check the quality of the spark itself, I can't say for sure.

2) An injector is clogged, dirty, misfiring/not firing/ect. I seem to remember that some injectors can be tested with an ohm meter. But considering that I don't have one, and I have no info on the type of system Ford used, other than Chilton which claims it is a "TFI" system, it's going to be hard to check them.

For now I'm running premium gas (from Chevron, not Shell, to make sure I didn't just get bad gas) along with some Gumout Fuel Injector cleaner, and just driving it.

[aaron_sK]

Heh. Well, fixed that. Cost me all of $1.69. #5 plug was bad. Runs great now, so I'm currently waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

[Mangus]

One cylinder not firing keeps you from going above 30 MPH? Yikes. I drove my TA for about a year with no #8 cylinder (injector took a dump) and the thing ran great, almost normal. I barely even noticed it (it just sounded like it was pinging).

Ford.

[aaron_sK]

That was mainly nervousness on my part, mainly because I at first thought I had blown a headgasket. The fact that it was a V6 probably made the cylinder drop seem much more dramatic, but trust me, it bucked like a mother... and had no power at all.