Stalling in gear

[Zivon23]

She starts fine. As soon as you put into reverse or drive, she stalls unless you give her gas(more than halfway on the accelerator)to keep her running. She has a new PCV Valve. She "sounds" like she idles between 6-700 rpms{No Tach}. Battery is new. Fuel pump is new. Idle Air Control Valve?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advanced,

~Z23~

[bobbyspider]

auto?

[JohnGunn]

I'll start.

Can you describe the car we're talking about here?
My guess from your post, EFI with automatic transmission.

The idle speed you estimate is much too low for an automatic. According to Haynes it should be 830 to 870 for a warm engine, higher if cold. Just correcting this might provide the added power needed to keep the engine running when the transmission places its load on the engine.

Are you describing how the car acts when it is first started before warming up or does it always display the stalling behavior even after it has been run and is up to temp?

Logically, this could also indicate that the load added by shifting the automatic from park to reverse or drive is abnormally high. I have managed to avoid much contact with automatic transmissions throughout my life and will have to defer to others to judge that possibility.

When the car is accelerating and running at speed does it run smoothly and with adequate power? Or does it stagger and appear to misfire?

If it shows any running roughness do the following:

Buy a new set of NGK V-power spark plugs. Carefully set the gaps to 0.044" using a wire-style gauge until the resistance felt when pulling the gauge through the gap is "exactly" the same for each plug. Then torque them in using some anti-sieze compound. Do this no matter when you last replaced the plugs or how sure you feel that they are not the problem. If this doesn't help, take them out, save them for your next tuneup and wait for the next suggestion.

John Gunn
Coronado, CA

[Zivon23]

Thanks for the help so far.

Firstly, It is indeed an automatic.(Sadly. I want a 4 or 5 speed but beggars can't be choosers)

Second, When I did get the chance to drive it, it did seem to run rough. Depending on where the gas pedal was, it either seemed to want to die or had power. At 35mph, it lost power until I was at 30mph then gained power again. I have replaced the Idle Air Control Selinoid and replaced the wires and plugs. I gapped the plugs to .040(according to my Mitchell's Maintence book the plugs should be gapped between .039-.041). I am running Duralast 7mm wires and Motocraft(sp?) plugs.

The Troubleshooting section also suggests the Vane Air Flow sensor.

Also, it is a 1989 L. 106086 mile on the odometer. It has been sitting for the last 1 to 1 1/2 years but the previous owner said he started it on a regular basis. The gas tank was empty when I bought the car.

Any other suggestions are appriciated.

Thanks in advanced,

~Z23~

[Zivon23]

I couldn't figure out how to edit a previous message....soooooo.....


UPDATE: Bought a new battery for it. Last on was a used battery. She starts and runs well...for a bit. After about 10 miles it stalls.......starts back up after a bit and runs as long as I give it gas....otherwise it stalls. Temp gage is just above "C" Drove around for about 20 minutes before stalling out.

Also, when it is in park or drive...it seems to idle fine.(judging idle by sound). As soon as I put it into gear, Idle drops to maybe 4-500 rpm(again by sound). And seems to want to stall.

[Tim]

My car did something similar when I put it in gear. I traced it down to dirty grounds and oxidized battery terminals. A year later and no stalling yet.

My idle also drops pretty low when I put it in gear. I'm almost sure there is a faulty idle-up solenoid to blame, but it's never stalled out on me.

-Tim

[mikeycar500]

hey was thinking i had a bronco II i had the same prob with it i put a new fuel filter on it and it smoothed right out.
could try that

[JohnGunn]

I have spend some time reading over your messages and while your powers of expression are good, I am not getting a very clear picture of what your car is actually doing. For example, you mention stalling several times. Here is one of them. "Drove around for about 20 minutes before stalling out." From that statement I don't know exactly what happened. In the previous 20 minutes had it run smoothly without any sign of problem? Or did it occasionally misfire? When it stalled did the engine suddenly go dead or was there some missing and roughness immediately preceding the stall which use of the accelerator would not affect?

What you present here is one of the most difficult trouble shooting problems. Mainly because you were not around to see how it failed the first time. If you had owned the car and it had been running well and then one day it stopped running well you could be pretty sure you were dealing with the failure of a single part. In addition your car had been sitting for over a year and that might have introduced problems that even the previous owner did not know about. The one thing in your favor is the low mileage. 106,086 miles is extremely low for a car this old. And most people on this list would agree with me that it should serve you well for many thousands more.

With that assurance I would ask you to be patient in finding and fixing the problem or problems, because after it is done you can look forward to years of inexpensive, reliable, and, best of all, enjoyable transportation.

I would think the drop is idle speed when you shift into drive is a pretty clear indication of a defective Idle Speed Controller. I just wrote about my understanding of what it does in the following post:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?p=312631#post312631

Reading that will help you understand why I suspect it. But you say that you have replaced that already. Did you buy a new one or did you find one in a junk yard? I would have thought with so few miles your original unit would not have failed. I hope you kept it, just in case it turns out to be better than the one you replaced it with. I think you might have been too eager to start replacing parts and would have been well advised to have first concentrated on getting the engine running smoothly before blaming the ISC. A poorly running engine may well cause problems throughout the full range of rpm, including and most especially the idle.

When you have such an ill defined and apparently intermittent set of problems you must stop and think about your approach to a solution. Of major importance is that you never allow anything to be beyond suspicion. For example, even though you just replaced the spark plugs, it is possible that one of them could be defective. It is not likely the case, but it is possible. So if nothing is above suspicion where do you start? Since you just replaced the plugs you probably would not place them at the top of your list of places to start, even though it could eventually come to that.

You might be tempted to immediately try to answer the following question. Does my engine run poorly because of a failure of the ignition system or of the fuel delivery system? The problem with this is that it gives the false impression that they are equally likely to be at fault. I personally doubt that. Already you have heard one member say cleaning the grounds and the battery terminals helped him. Another say replacing the fuel filter helped him. What I have discovered is that any smart person should be able to trace his particular problem back to the failure of just about any part in the ignition or fuel systems. I know I am able to do that. The unfortunate part of being able to do that is that it allows you to justify replacing just about any part someone or some manual tells you could be at fault. Already you are asking about the Vane Air Flow Meter, because you read it in your manual. Of course, from what I said earlier, it is not beyond suspicion, but do you have enough evidence to place it at the very top of the list of suspected parts? I don't and don't think you do from what you have written. The low mileage on you car also makes me think parts like that and the Idle Speed Controller, which are not routinely replaced parts should end up low on your list of parts to replace. They also are usually the most expensive so replacing them to find they were not the problem hurts all the more.

The reason I would advise against immediately trying to ascribe blame to the ignition or fuel systems, is that my experience tells me that most of the problems you seem to be having stem from ignition failure. I guess that says something about the relative complexity of the two. For that reason I would start at the spark plugs and work back from there, replacing all the things that are included in a normal tune up, plugs, wires(I personally think they are overrated and have never had a plug wire cause problems.), distributor cap and rotor. You can look inside the cap and get a good idea of when it was last changed, but it is cheap enough to replace on principle since you probably don't know when the last owner changed it.

I've never seen this done before but I would like to suggest that, as an experiment, you make your best effort to describe in as much detail as possible exactly what you observe as you start your cold engine and allow it to idle up to temperature. Your gauge seems to be reading too low. You might want to call the last owner to ask if he took the thermostat out. At the same time, you might want to ask him why he stopped driving it and exactly how it was running when it did.

Here's what I suggest you do.

1. Get into a cold car.
2. Relax and take a few deep breaths, and focus your mind on the task at hand. Observing the behavior of your car in as much detail as possible. You might want to take notes.
3. When you feel relaxed and focused turn the key until the error lights come on. Check to see that the "engine check" error light comes on along with the others.
4. Turn the key to start the engine. Note the time it takes to catch. Try and estimate the idle speed and whether it is smooth or misses or surges.
5. Get out of the car and place you hand on the top radiator hose and notice how long it takes for you to feel it suddenly start to warm. Write that down.
6. When the engine gets completely warmed up the idle speed should have stabilized at its set speed. Write down what you estimate that to be.
7. Shift into drive and record every thing that you observe, noises, engine missing, idle speed change, etc.
8. Press the accelerator and start driving. Does it accelerate smoothly?
9. Take it up to speed on an open highway and cruse along, observing how the engine sounds. Take note of anything out of the ordinary.
10. From what has happened before, you should expect it to stall at some point. On this cruise spend all your time listening to the engine, radio off and mind undistracted, so that you are keenly aware of the first sign of failure which might precede the actual stall.
11. I guess you should use the accelerator to try and keep it going if you have time to do that. Describe all that, the more the better.
12. Stopped at the side of the road with stalled engine. Start over again with relaxed breathing until the excitement of the stall is dissipated.
13. Try and start the car, noting reaction of the car to your efforts. Write them all down.
14. Drive back home and immediately write down all that happened in all the detail you can. Don't worry that it is long. Some won't bother to read it but I will and others might. This is, after all, an experiment. If it works we will have made a useful discovery.

After you do this, my hope is that any of us who take the time to read it will feel as if we were the ones who did, saw and heard the things you write about. A lot of the detail you include might not be helpful, but unless you know the car well you will not be able to decide what is or isn't important. Better to err on the side of too much for the purpose of this experiment.

But on the other hand, I'm just one member here and not the most experienced or knowledgeable. If this is not something you are comfortable doing, feel free to follow the guidance of someone else or no one but yourself. I'll follow this thread and add what I can, whatever you decide.

John Gunn
Coronado, CA