1996 Ford Festiva Problems

[toasthall]

Hi everyone,

I have a 1996 Ford Festiva WB. At the moment it has a few problems that are concerning me. Its running really sluggish, my father used to drive it but very rarely so it sat in the yard for most of the time, there was hardly any fuel in it and when i filled the tank the running improved. I took out the fuel filter and found there was some dirt particles inside, so I swapped the fuel filter. It may be my imagination but when it gets to about half a tank the car starts to run really sluggish, i could be going 100kph and then suddenly the speed would start to drop. If i pull over and turn the engine off and then on again it seems fine. I have read through these forums and noticed mentions of the MAF sensor and the throttle body switch neither of which i have yet checked, but will check out tomorrow, i was just wondering if anyone had any other thoughts on this?

The other issue is the fuel gauge isn't working correctly, is there any information on checking and fixing the sender unit?

Thanks very much,

Dale

[ajb999]

fuel pump maybe. others will have better suggestions i'm sure.

[htchbck]

sounds like when it was sitting in the yard with very little gas the fuel pump probably got kinda gummed up. if the gas did gum up inside the tank then the float for the fuel level sender is probably stuck too, which would explain why the fuel gauge isn't working. The fuel pump and sending unit are located under the floor underneath the rear seat (fold the seat forward and pull the carpet back to get to it. Then you can pull it out and check to see if its gummed up or not. I recently bought a festiva that had sat for seven years and I had to replacet the pump on it cause it was gummed up from the gas sitting.