Maybe you wont believe but it still have all my old vehicles, even the Cougar , in non-running condition.
Still have the ford explorer 96, but i dont drive that truck anymore. Developed a front seal transmission leak and became a money pit, so when i need to drive this, i pour half quart of Mercon Oil, and call it a day.
Still have the old F150 01 , V6. Since its a single cab truck its useful to carry the junk produced for the previous cars.
Bought a chinesse 250 cc bike. Makes sense living in a place where year round we are averaging 85 F. Got 75 MPG.
But since i had 2 previous accidents with the bike (all my fault, nothing very severe) i though of having a car. Wife had a 2010 ford focus with the auto transmission, the same US model, so she gave it to me.
Car is boring....it has very decent MPG (low 30´s) but thats all. In the highway it grows and runs well but i have the distinct feeling of something assembled at gunpoint, hard plastic its everywhere, too much weight in the front. Otherwise traction is fine.
I know this was an entry-level, cheap ford vehicle, but i am reluctant to understand how bland Ford cars become with the time. Torque is not existent at any rpm under 3500, and thats the way the car it is.
I guess tighter smog restrictions made the cars more efficient, more eco-friendly, and very, very boring.
Hi , havent posted a new thread since...well, ten years or so...
I still have my 85 V6 Cougar, however , it hasnt run since 2005, when i had a small crash between the car and a motorcycle.
Now if you done the math, thats nearly 15 years. The last time i started it, was in 2016, and a fire began because i dripped some fuel in the carb and backfired. It didnt do a lot of damage, but i had to remove the intake manifold to clean everyting.
The car is NOT roadworthy, its full of rust and had 4 flat tires.
City hall towed it last year because i had it parked in the front of my parents house. But i recovered it quickly, i simply cant let it go.
Thats the problem, i cant let it go. With almost 20 years of ownership, even in the poorest state it has, i refuse to s it. In rainy days, even with all the paint chipped and dryed , it looks like the first year i had. It is my first car, mom and dad gave it to me and went to the university in it.
So, here i am. Definitively it cant be repaired, but which parts should be recovered for a new project ? engine and transmision are in working condition (and engines are expensive!, i have spent a few thousand repairing my f150 4.2 and realized how expensive everything is !)
Thanks in advance, sorry for my poor grammar, havent write in english for some looooooong time....
Yesterday a friend gave to me an old battery tester , which he said it worked great until the switch blew. He said when the CCA test its being done, you shouldnt have too much time handling current with the device or it blow up.
I bought a switch similar from a photo from the net about the same device.... the problem is, i dont know how to wire it.
There are
a)One wire from the input ground terminal.
b)2 wires from output of the resistor
c)3 wires coming to the positive terminal.
I can attach 4 wires to the switch, and i need to attach 2 wires to the voltage meter, but i dont know what the order it is.
I am attaching some pictures so it can be more nicely understood.
Hi all. Since at the explorerforums im far from popular and nobody gives a for me and reply my topics asking for help, im finally here.
Background:
Old Ford explorer 96, 4wd (not working, suspecting hall effect sensors at the transfercase, near impossible to get them here) v6 Ohv engine. Has like 150,000 miles. Recently got coolant on the transmission. Drain flush 3 times and replacing the radiator . It behaves the same as before.
Friday i went to the firefighter station to work, i was a little late so i speeded up a bit. I noticed a little high idle, maybe 1300 rpm in D, stopped. I did not take care very much since i was on a hurry. I ended my workday like 12 hours later, and returned to home. This time, besides the normal 2000 rpm at cold startup, i noticed the idle speed was high all the way to home. I was really tired so i left that day.
Saturday i needed to go to the mall, and the idle got very high instantly, 2500 rpm. i guessed the engine will eventually get a lower rpm while driving, but no, it was really hard, i was doing like 30 mph without any trottle input. Suddendly the engine acelerated itself to 3000 rpm. I killed the engine, and returned to home.
I have already did:
*Trottle cable and trottle body are ok. These are not getting stuck anywhere. it was my first guess. I even had a helper to mash the gas plenty of time, but it looked normal.
*Mass air flow sensor is plugged in.
* Trottle position sensor appears to be working. Minimun voltage is set at .975 volts, voltage at WOT is 4.6 volts. Again, pressing the gas multiple times does not getting any value "stuck", returns to normal.
*No visible vacuum leaks, but i think i need to get this professionally checked. I dont have a vacuum detector.
*Suspecting of the IAC Valve. If i disconect the harness , nothing changes. If i remove the iac valve completely from intake manifold, it starts +and tries to climb+ to 2500 rpm, but less than a second later the engine kills off. At the inside of the iac valve there is an small spring. Its really hard and barely moves. It is not a cleanable part (anyway i tried it to no avail)
* No codes stored at the ecu. All the monitors are OK.
Before i start to throw money into this, its ok to change the IAC, or what i do first? IAC costs here 95 USD so i want to be safe, if i had to buy it, no problem, but im not the guy that only changes parts.
Hi Guys, long time i dont post something here. I check almost daily but since my Cat its not working since 2005 i rarely post here. Well, im still driving and old explorer 96. It´s a good truck, really expensive on gas, but its good.I was surprised how long the truck has been in the last 18 years, and from the last two weeks, its has been a truly nightmare.
First, i did a complete tune up a month ago (i usually do tune ups every 8 or 9 months, depends of my driving), changed plugs, wires, oil, air filter, oil filter, fuel filter , etc, an did a transmission pan drop (i do pan drops every 2 years without problems). Everything went fine, all was good. Engine ran good, tranny shift good, everything well. Two weeks ago i have installed a pair of new headlights, and backed up the truck a bit from my driveaway, and noticed a pink drop at the ground. Been working on cars from the last 15 years gave me a bad feeling about this. Checked radiator fluid and was oily and pink......checked transmission fluid and was from the same color. I inmediately drained all the fluid from the radiator, dropped the transmission oil pan , and removed a transmission cooling line to evacuate all the water contaminated fluid. I even tried to drain the converter, but since the 4r55e doesnt have a plug, i ran the engine briefly until no ATF went from the pipes and the valve body.
I left the truck sat for almost 10 days, until i got a new rad. I know and i have read about how many damage does water inside an automatic transmission, even read a techincal bulletin from ASE about how bad is the water for the clutches (a little surprised.....its really weird when you run for 150,000 miles an auto transmission at temperatures about 100 degrees of more and nothing happens.....but when you run a few miles a tranny with oil mixed with water its completely doomed....but well im not an engineer...) Anyway, my plan consisted on running the engine and tranny a few miles, like 30 or less, with new AT Fluid, drop the pan, remove all fluid, put another filter, put the pan and fill and run till it dies, it may be tomorrow or maybe never....
Well, i did it. The tranny worked normally as before......the bad, was when i was driving at the test drive, (i wasnt driving very fast at the time, maybe 10 mph) the engine shut down completely. Tried to restart and no luck, only spins the engine slow. I opened the hood and the engine was super hot! water temperature gauge did not work! and all the water poured some miles away from me and the truck, because when i checked fluid levels it was completely empty from i dont know how far ! radiator was completely dry because i forgot to clamp securely a cooling hose.
While kicking myself for my stupidity, i went to look for tap water. I left to rest the engine like 10 minutes with the hood opened, and started to add some water slowly to the radiator. I only had a gallon tank, so i have to return walking to the place where i got water like 3 times (fortunately it was not very far from the truck broke down) . It was not easy to start again, i have tried like 10 times (i know, engine got seized from the heat) and finally started. It was rough at first block, but from the way home, it ran fine like before. I was expecting white cloud of smoke from a headgasket or warped head, but it was at night so i could not see very well.
Today i restarted the engine and everything looks normally. No weird noises from valvetrain or white smoke, normal idle, no tumbling, acelerates normally, etc.
Well, now that you know all the story here are the two questions which are killing me right now, and would decide if its worth to spend more money on it, if its going to die soon from engine, trans, or both, or what.....
1.- Did the transmission would have permament damage from the situation described above ?
2.- Did the engine have permament damage from the overheating, what i can expect from the damage if this is the case, blown head gasket, piston rings, cracked head ?
Trust me i have been searching on the net about this, but i got mixed reviews, from the normal "dealer charged me 5000 for and entire rebuild" to the unexpected "i filled all the fluids, restarted, and ran until i rolled down/sold/trashed 10 years after.
Truck is an explorer 1996 V6 OHV 4X4, 4R55E Auto, with like 140,000 miles (odometer doesnt work) in case i have missed something.
Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
So long the last time i have posted here. But i check the forum every now and then, so mny new people here. It is good to know about more people interested in our now 30 old cars. Still have mine, but it is not roadworthy, i have fired last year and well...got a small fire because the improper adjustment of the carburetor literally "exploded" and fill of fuel all the engine bay. No problem, the car still lives.
Well, i am driving currently an old Jeep Grand Cherokee 94 with full time 4wd . I work for the fire department where i live, so i needed a "reliable" (i missed this point...) car to drive between sand,water, mud, an what not. Got this truck borrowed from a friend, and the only mod i did was to put 31*10.5 R15 tires. Worked real good for some time.
6 days ago i was driving normal and feel a "thump" at the front. I stopped at the next block and checked the front suspension, and all looked normal. Running two more blocks and feel a constant clunking noise, so i headed right to home (thankfully i was near from it...) and checked again.
Like i said before , the truck has de 4.0 liter inline six with the quadratrack 1; for those who dont know, jeep says that there are like 50% torque between front and rear wheels all the time, so its a "true 4wd" ,and yes, gas economy is abismal, like 8 mpg at town.
Well, back to the main idea, checked underside the truck, put in park , and no noise is produced. Put in "D" with the parking brake locked, and the front driveshaft turns, but the front diff doesnt, and the clunk is produced like 1 per second, varying with the car speed, so i think the front diff is toasted. I did an small test, mashed the gas pedal quickly and yes, no front wheel drive action.
At this point i think i will need to rebuild the front differential. I have never done a differential rebuilt. But now i have lots and lots of tools, because i still always works on cars.
i Have done lots of research, and some people says that is not a easy job. But i have been reading that an important part of the differential rebuild are the adjustments; backlash and bearing preload. I need a micrometer for the backlash, and a torque-meter (i have one) for the bearing preload. Apart from that, what else adjustment is critical for the rebuild. Im still researching and checking books and youtube which bring some light to this matter, but i want to know if somebody did some of this work before.
Thanks in advance, and sorry for the typo, never learnt enough english....
My cougar sat in the driveaway the last 6 years. It have the 3.8 V6 and the C3 tranny. Not very often i try to start it, running a few minutes and forget the car for another months/years. I moved 3 years ago to another town, so the car is in mom´s home, so its very dificult to me to get some attention for the car.
Well, yesterday, i went to moms house and saw the car. I remembered which things went wrong the last time, so, with nothing to do, i picked my tools and tryed to start it.
No luck yesterday, for some reason i had no spark. Well, i left right there.
Today i figured the problem with the spark (needed a Duraspark module, i had one laying around) and finally the car got some signs of life. But i discovered that the carb had a bad gasket (a vacuum problem)
Went to Autohole and bought spark plugs, wires, oil, carb cleaner and some fuel in the gas station. Changed it. The car started like 10 seconds. But backfired. I had a small gas leak and started a fire. The car was off. Too bad for me, my fire extinguisher was in the other truck, so the first i thought was to get some sand, which was very close to the place i was working. BUT a "good neighbor" came with a bucket full of water and yes, you are right, the hell came loose.
I ended with a car full of sand and WATER trough the intake. Nothing got burned. Well, i "thanked" my neighbor" and continue working.
The car was off went the fire started, so i though that i havent hidrolocked the engine. I cleaned the entire area (took me like and hour or so...) , cut the fuel supply, removed the carburetor, removed all the spark plugs and watched the intake manifold. Well, it had not very much sand, very little, but it had a lot of water.
With the engine in that way, i turned the engine with the starter like 20 seconds (three times, with 5 minutes at every attemp), some water got trough the spark plug holes. Put some fuel to try to clean the intake ports and repeated the operation two more times.
Just to make sure, i decided to remove the intake manifold and clean completely. No sand came from it, and i cleaned with the carb cleaner inside and out. I left like two hours and reinstalled it.
I havent see nothing wrong in the engine block, i saw the lifters moving normally (with the intake out) and no strange noises.Cleaned everything But i know that this is not a reliable method to describe what happened really to the motor. Turned the engine with the intake out and nothing more came from the ports. Added some more fuel to the ports and repeated again. Just wanted to make sure that all the water came out.
I am not going to try to start the car after this. Im going to wait some weeks or months to try again. I know im going to need new gaskets for the intake manifold
My question is.....Did i ruined my engine? i have never been trough this situation, i just did what i thought was correct. I know that i need to change my oil very soon. But what more i can do? Did something like this happened to you?
Hi, my ford explorer is doing something weird . When i am driving normally, the shifts in the tranny are good like 90% of the time. However, when im going uphill at low speeds (less than 2000 rpms) the transmission delays a little in the engagement between gears , less than half a second, but i can see the revs jump a little (like 100 rpms or less) , mainly in the 1-2 shift . This condition does not happen every time, more like one of 10 times. O/D engagement is fine.
There are no apparent leaks under the car. What could be ? "rebuild time" like the advice in the explorer forums ? or time for a flush.
Transmission has 106,000 miles. Was serviced a year ago. Thanks in advance....
Hi, yesterday i was driving my truck and i noticed some oils drips in my driveaway. It was ATF fluid, comming from the bellhousing seal between the engine and transmission. Well, i guess the truck loose enough oil because it refused to run. I added 1/2 quart of Mercon V and the truck is fine, but the leak is still there, obvious. I guess oil leaks are a very common problem in old RWD fords.
Yep, i know, changing that seal will be costly, but i think the leak has some time there, so i guess is not losing much oil. I though there are somewhere a way to fix it (maybe changing the coolant, using hi-temp silicone, trying to retorque the bellhousing bolts, or even a tranny aditive) but im open to suggestions. Feel free to recommend any idea.
I asked about how to know if my clutch is working correctly, so i received an answer: Somebody wrote:
"If you suspect a bad clutch, then park on a hill, turn off the engine, drop the truck in 1st, and let off on the clutch. Does it hold on the hill? If it does, then you are fine. Just make sure it is a VERY steep hill if you want to really make sure. If your truck starts rolling back with the clutch engaged while in 1st... then my friend, you need a new clutch."
I did that, and my truck rolled back......
EDIT: It was reaally a step hill.....
Is that true or there is another method to test the clutch without taking apart the tranny ?
Well, Dad has currently 2 trucks, a F-150 and a Exploder. He has been driving fords since 3 decades or more :
A little recall.... Ford Galaxie 71 at mid 80`s, Ford Fairmont 81 at late 80`s, Mercury Cougar 84 at 90`s (lasted until 1999) Ford F-200 89 at the same time (still has this one somewhere) Ford F-150 01 (New from the dealer) Mercury Cougar 85 (it`s mine actually) Ford Explorer 96
I guess he likes how to fix many cars in the same way (same outdated technology from Ford, i think), but now i think is tired, because since a month or so, he wants a Mercedes Benz;a 1998 ML-320. I dont have a minimal idea how bad or good are these fancy cars.....ok , for sure i know two things: these are expensive to buy and very probably expensive to fix. But i`d like to hear if somebody here have or had one, or knows somebody who has one or fixed one.
Mainly i want to know if those cars are enough good to travel 1600 miles to bring one here and keep it as "Dad's-luxury-gasguzzler of the sundays" (i like to go cruising in sundays) Dad really wants one , so i need to get info....
Ok, i need your opinions about my typing in the english language...
Why?
This is the last year of my career in Informatics and Computing bla,bla.... and now is a mandatory for all the students in my University to have a good knowledge about English language. Well, its time, i have to do an exam to accomplish this. its claimed to be VERY HARD (maybe they dont want IT`s without a single idea of what the fvck means WTF) and i have two weeks since this day to study.
So feel free to give me some advice in my flat spots when i write something (until now i know that i write wrong times in verbs, or forget some "s" , or simply i use incorrect expresions) , but you guys may know more of my errors in the use of the English .
So again, flame me about my typing ! its free ! (and its for a good cause....)
