Build Thread As Requested: Project Horse Manure

Today was part two. Lesson of the day was, in ancient car, carry tools. We had a loose hot post on the solenoid causing low voltage for the eec and smoke on the connection. I made a nine mile drive with tools to tighten the connection, and followed him to the corner store to buy a quart of oil. He came out, topped off oil, and she wouldn't spark. Zero. I let it cool about ten minutes and checked again, and it sparked like nuts... All connections seemed good, so i bought a tfi module, and we'll see if that does it. It starts fine now... Just dont know how long. Haven't checked codes yet...long day. Maybe tomorrow.
Ah the joys of a daily fox . eBay has Nos motorcraft tfi . I bought one to keep as a spare . If you need a motorcraft I have an extra distributor with one I could mail you the tfi.
 
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Ah the joys of a daily fox . eBay has Nos motorcraft tfi . I bought one to keep as a spare . If you need a motorcraft I have an extra distributor with one I could mail you the tfi.

I appreciate the offer man, i just put in a fresh chinese one. Let's see how it does. It was literally going from having spark one minute to nothing. Kept flip flopping. I'm hoping this is it, and not another bad connection somewhere. If this gets it, I'll buy a motorcraft throwdown.
 
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Your boys car still surviving DD status?
It made it a couple hundred miles and started spitting codes. It's gotten so bad it's in limp mode and I can't seem to get it out. We didn't have any of the smog stuff, so it went together without it. I'm trying to figure out how to satisfy the computer or maybe just buy a twEECer and turn the smog junk off. I did find the TAD and TAB solenoids unplugged, but there are no air valves for them to actuate, no thermactor piping in place... and no smog pump to pump the air. I cleaned up the connections on the two solenoids and plugged them in, and ran a vacuum line to the egr valve so the sensor could see it move, but still cant get it out of limp mode. It's also getting a temp sensor out of range code, and I don't know why.. I guess I can start throwing parts at it.. very frustrating. I just thought I hated this car before.
 
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Non of the smog stuff not being there should put it in limp mode, mine was running for a good long while without any of that crap (except the charcoal canister to keep the garage stinking) just fine, and actually better than before I had the car tuned and that :poo: turned off at the ecu level.
 
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Well, its thrown 81,82,85,95,51,21,94,44, and 33. It passes a cylinder balnce test.

The car is underpowered and wont rev past 4000 rpm. If anyone has any suggestion, I'm all ears.

I'm pretty good with mechanical stuff, Not so much with electronics. I prefer trouble shooting carbs.
 
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Well, its thrown 81,82,85,95,51,21,94,44, and 33. It passes a cylinder balnce test.

The car is underpowered and wont rev past 4000 rpm. If anyone has any suggestion, I'm all ears.

I'm pretty good with mechanical stuff, Not so much with electronics. I prefer trouble shhoting carbs.
Switch to a carburetor.......:eek:
 
Switch to a carburetor.......:eek:

Yeah, I didn't say that. The thought did cross my mind, but i have so much money and time invested I may as well try to make it work.

That said, I've been tinkering with carbed engines since the mid 80s. I love em. I chuckle when I hear people trash carbed foxes... Half of them came with carbs, and I've had some insanely fast carbed cars.
 
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Yeah, I didn't say that. The thought did cross my mind, but i have so much money and time invested I may as well try to make it work.

That said, I've been tinkering with carbed engines since the mid 80s. I love em. I chuckle when I hear people trash carbed foxes... Half of them came with carbs, and I've had some insanely fast carbed cars.
Just tweakin' you Allen, I'm a little bored since I ran out of welding gas....
 
Well, its thrown 81,82,85,95,51,21,94,44, and 33. It passes a cylinder balnce test.

The car is underpowered and wont rev past 4000 rpm. If anyone has any suggestion, I'm all ears.

I'm pretty good with mechanical stuff, Not so much with electronics. I prefer trouble shooting carbs.
51 and 21 (coolant and air temp sensors) are what I'd be worried with in that list. Make sure the engine is at proper warmup temp before running the scan. Could also be the 10-pin connectors, bad sensors (a bad ect sensor can cause some weird starting issues), or since they are essentially the same sensor could be swapped (I think they even share the same kind of plug).


EDIT: never mind, they're both coolant temp errors. Looks like it thinks it's too hot. Would definitely go to limp mode on that Imo. Make sure you actually have coolant flow through the heater tubes where it's mounted, and/or new sensor (assuming of course it's not actually running hot).
 
51 and 21 (coolant and air temp sensors) are what I'd be worried with in that list. Make sure the engine is at proper warmup temp before running the scan. Could also be the 10-pin connectors, bad sensors (a bad ect sensor can cause some weird starting issues), or since they are essentially the same sensor could be swapped (I think they even share the same kind of plug).


EDIT: never mind, they're both coolant temp errors. Looks like it thinks it's too hot. Would definitely go to limp mode on that Imo. Make sure you actually have coolant flow through the heater tubes where it's mounted, and/or new sensor (assuming of course it's not actually running hot).
Yeah, the boy is actually on the way to the auto parts store for those right now..

The coolant temp sending unit hasn't been working, I just tested the gauge, and it's good. The sensor for the computer is what I'm concerned with.. but we are going to get the gauge working and see if we are too hot or not.
 
Yeah, the boy is actually on the way to the auto parts store for those right now..

The coolant temp sending unit hasn't been working, I just tested the gauge, and it's good. The sensor for the computer is what I'm concerned with.. but we are going to get the gauge working and see if we are too hot or not.
That sensor will make all kinds of :poo: go nuts. It's like that sensor , the maf , and 02s make that motor sink or swim .
 
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That sensor will make all kinds of **** go nuts. It's like that sensor , the maf , and 02s make that motor sink or swim .

Well, i got an o2 code last round, and they're new too.. So, now we have a new coolant temp sensor, and I fixed the temp gauge. So, Sam is driving to town to buy gas and see if it'll line out. Did I mention I changed the tfi recently because it would randomly die and not spark? ..and a fuel pump... The list keeps growing.
 
Well, i got an o2 code last round, and they're new too.. So, now we have a new coolant temp sensor, and I fixed the temp gauge. So, Sam is driving to town to buy gas and see if it'll line out. Did I mention I changed the tfi recently because it would randomly die and not spark? ..and a fuel pump... The list keeps growing.
The joys of DD a fox . Atleast he's getting an education . Only reason why I haven't rushed to rip it all out and put the fast in mine is because I cut the salt and pepper plug off my harness and hard wired it and the car has never ran better . Just trying to enjoy it .
 
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The joys of DD a fox . Atleast he's getting an education . Only reason why I haven't rushed to rip it all out and put the fast in mine is because I cut the salt and pepper plug off my harness and hard wired it and the car has never ran better . Just trying to enjoy it .

Hey tell me something. How come when i try to dump codes, disconnect the batt and all that, it won't come out of limp mode? Codes are all there still, and it wont rev above 4000.. I thought it would start all over???