Car Stalls Randomly While Being Driven

criticman

Member
Sep 7, 2003
723
1
16
Rome, GA
Okay, so my gf told me that my car died randomly on her as she was coming to an intersection - she had the clutch out, only realized it was dead when power brakes failed. She is a good driver, hell, maybe better than me (at least she has been driving a manual longer), but I questioned the situation and hoped something went wrong on her part. Stupid me :(

So I was driving today and it happened to me, I took it out of gear at about 45 MPH to coast towards a red light at an intersection, and all of the sudden I realized the car was stalled (power brake failure made me look down to see the "check engine light" on).

It started back up while coasting, no problems and has had no other issues stalling.

It idles pretty solid, fluctuates periodically though.

Any ideas?
 
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IAC

pull the IAC and clean it out with brake clean and also set the TPS sensor to .98 and set timing to 14 degrees after all that do a tune up cap rotor wires, plugs also clean the MAF meter sensor wire with carb cleaner by sprying it about a foot away from the wire after all that it should run like a champ
 
New rotor, cap, plugs, wires (11 months old - I lost license for 6 of those) - checked and double checked, all proper parts and installed properly.

IAC? Sorry, but I am a newbie, so anyone want to explain that to me?

Thanks.
 
Dump the codes and see what the computer says is wrong…

Here's the link to dump the computer codes with only a jumper wire or paper clip and the check engine light, or test light or voltmeter. I’ve used it for years, and it works great.

See http://www.troublecodes.net/Ford/
OR
See http://www.dalidesign.com/hbook/eectest.html for more descriptive help
OR
See http://www.mustangworks.com/articles/electronics/eec-iv_codes.html

IF your car is an 86-88 stang, you'll have to use the test lamp or voltmeter method. There is no functional check engine light on the 86-88's except possibly the Cali Mass Air cars.

Codes have different answers if the engine is running from the answers that it has when the engine isn't running. It helps a lot to know if you had the engine running when you ran the test.

Trouble codes are either 2 digit or 3 digit, there are no cars that use both 2 digit codes and 3 digit codes.

For those who are intimidated by all the wires & connections, see http://www.actron.com/product_detail.php?pid=16153 for what a typical hand scanner looks like. Normal retail price is about $30 or so at AutoZone or Walmart.