wadejake
New member
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2023
- Messages
- 11
- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 3
- Vehicle Year
- 1986
- Vehicle
- Ford Bronco II
Hello, I've never posted here before but I love the form and have used you guys to diagnose and fix many issues before! I would like to start by thanking y'all for your immense knowledge. I now come with an issue that I have not yet seen and am very confused about.
I have a 1986(mid-year) BII XLT, 2.9L Manual, 4x4. I bought it almost a year ago now. It has almost 170K on it, however the previous owner (I am the third) had two other BIIs he took apart to keep this one in good shape. Most major things were done before I got a hold of it, clutch, suspension, brakes, ac swap to r34, blah blah blah. That's not what matters.
Long Story;
The thing sat all summer as I was away, came back and it drove great. Drove to college shortly after, did some fun four-wheeling and general use, ran great. Labor day came and I tried to drive it home, as I was going up a mountain pass, (I go to school in Gunnison CO), the thing did some funny hesitation under load. It felt as if it only ran on five or four cylinders for a little, (1-2 seconds) then back to normal. As I continued up the pass it got worse. I chose to turn around, as I didn't want to be stuck between passes, and driving the 40 minutes back to school, it drove smooth as ever. When I got back, I decided to open up the cap, clean the points, put new plug wires on as well as plugs. Well I was a dork and swapped the five and six wire on the distributor, giving me a few days worth of confusion trying to get it to run right. After realizing my mistake, I made the switch, it drove great for two days, then the hesitation/running off less than six cylinders began happening again. It went from being under load and in short intervals, to slightly longer, to way longer, to it would only run on five cylinders. I pulled the codes after finding the OBD1 port, and got code 18 a few times, SPOUT grounding issue, along with a few others. I only mention 18 because the others would change depending on when I read the codes, as in 18 was the only consistent one. Also replace ECC relay thing, get no change. I traced the wire through the entire loom to the computer, and found no connections to ground. For safety, I checked all my wires coming off of my TFI module. Everything came back good. So I said to hell with it, I'm just going to start from scratch and get a new distributor and fuel injectors incase it was a sticky one. And that's what I did, replacing the distributor and injectors in the college parking lot. I set the timing to 10* BTDC by turning the crank over by hand to 10* with the plugs out, and made sure the rotor was directly at point 1. Timing is set, new injectors, new distributor, new wires, new plugs. So I go to start it and it runs rough for a while, eventually smoothing out and idling correctly. I rev it, and after 2000 RMP, the tach freaks out and the engine shits itself. I had read that TFIs are extremely specific to your engine, and I noticed the one that came on the new distributor was a different color, so I changed it to one of the two old ones I had. (I bought one when I bought the car, and the other worked fine when I got it and when I took it off) Lo and behold, she runs great with the old TFI. Replaced TPS. Drive it almost 100 miles, trying to see how she's doing. I can tell the new injectors are not as good as the old ones, but one of the old ones was cracked when I took it out. New injectors have four small ports, unlike old that have single large port. Whatever, it's a little slower, fine, at least it's running well. Checked fuel pressure at the rail and I'm getting 36-38, not great but not bad. Picked up a fuel filter today to see if that was restricting flow, and right as I get back from the store, it starts doing the hesitation/not running on all six again. Shut it off, turned it on, still doing it. I have to keep my foot on the throttle or it will die. It cannot drive while running like that. I think it's not running on all six because there is extreme vibration in the engine. It revs the full RMP range, and when it does it back fires like crazy. No not a fuel issue because the new injectors I think actually have less flow, since I had less power while driving, but maybe no spark? But I replaced the distributor assembly, TFI, wires, plugs. What?
Short story;
BII runs good, go over MTN pass, under load feels like its running on not six cylinders for short periods of time. Replace wires and plugs, fixes issue for two days. Begins running on not six for longer and longer, until it is rare it runs on six. Run codes, get 18 consecutively. Replace ECC relay thing, get no change. Replace distributor, and injectors. Set timing manually with crank and rotor position. Runs good for 100 miles with NEW plugs, wires, distributor assembly, and injectors. New injectors have four small ports, unlike old that have single large port. Replaced TPS. Slightly less responsive, but runs very smooth and correctly. Getting 36-38 PSI of fuel at rail. Feels like the auto timing set itself correctly and the car is running well. Come back after drive, suddenly stops running on all six and have same issue prior to replacing everything. WTF.
Confusion sums up myself right now. I figured there is something wrong with the og pick-up assembly, thus why I was getting code 18 and bad running with occasional smooth running, thus why I got a new distributor assembly. However, now out of no-where the engine is running like doo doo again. Could my ECM be sending a bad signal and corrupting the pick-up assembly within the distributor? I have no idea, and few recourses. I am so beyond confused.
Fair warning; I have read so many of y'all's amazing informative threads, and this is most likely not a common issue. I mean things like 'did you check for spark, fuel pressure, timing,' all that jazz. I have read and tried mostly everything y'all start with. Maybe it's something simple but I doubt it. Please let me know what y'all think, any advice is appreciated.
Also, I am a college student, It's hard to justify spending the money on throwing parts at the thing, but if that's what I have to do then I do. I am also doing all of this work in the dorm parking lot, with basic tools, I'll be it a wide variety of tools, but no power and nothing super specialized. It's also going to get cold soon, real cold, CO winter in Gunnison is especially gnarly, so looking to try to diagnose and get this fixed somewhat soon.
I have a 1986(mid-year) BII XLT, 2.9L Manual, 4x4. I bought it almost a year ago now. It has almost 170K on it, however the previous owner (I am the third) had two other BIIs he took apart to keep this one in good shape. Most major things were done before I got a hold of it, clutch, suspension, brakes, ac swap to r34, blah blah blah. That's not what matters.
Long Story;
The thing sat all summer as I was away, came back and it drove great. Drove to college shortly after, did some fun four-wheeling and general use, ran great. Labor day came and I tried to drive it home, as I was going up a mountain pass, (I go to school in Gunnison CO), the thing did some funny hesitation under load. It felt as if it only ran on five or four cylinders for a little, (1-2 seconds) then back to normal. As I continued up the pass it got worse. I chose to turn around, as I didn't want to be stuck between passes, and driving the 40 minutes back to school, it drove smooth as ever. When I got back, I decided to open up the cap, clean the points, put new plug wires on as well as plugs. Well I was a dork and swapped the five and six wire on the distributor, giving me a few days worth of confusion trying to get it to run right. After realizing my mistake, I made the switch, it drove great for two days, then the hesitation/running off less than six cylinders began happening again. It went from being under load and in short intervals, to slightly longer, to way longer, to it would only run on five cylinders. I pulled the codes after finding the OBD1 port, and got code 18 a few times, SPOUT grounding issue, along with a few others. I only mention 18 because the others would change depending on when I read the codes, as in 18 was the only consistent one. Also replace ECC relay thing, get no change. I traced the wire through the entire loom to the computer, and found no connections to ground. For safety, I checked all my wires coming off of my TFI module. Everything came back good. So I said to hell with it, I'm just going to start from scratch and get a new distributor and fuel injectors incase it was a sticky one. And that's what I did, replacing the distributor and injectors in the college parking lot. I set the timing to 10* BTDC by turning the crank over by hand to 10* with the plugs out, and made sure the rotor was directly at point 1. Timing is set, new injectors, new distributor, new wires, new plugs. So I go to start it and it runs rough for a while, eventually smoothing out and idling correctly. I rev it, and after 2000 RMP, the tach freaks out and the engine shits itself. I had read that TFIs are extremely specific to your engine, and I noticed the one that came on the new distributor was a different color, so I changed it to one of the two old ones I had. (I bought one when I bought the car, and the other worked fine when I got it and when I took it off) Lo and behold, she runs great with the old TFI. Replaced TPS. Drive it almost 100 miles, trying to see how she's doing. I can tell the new injectors are not as good as the old ones, but one of the old ones was cracked when I took it out. New injectors have four small ports, unlike old that have single large port. Whatever, it's a little slower, fine, at least it's running well. Checked fuel pressure at the rail and I'm getting 36-38, not great but not bad. Picked up a fuel filter today to see if that was restricting flow, and right as I get back from the store, it starts doing the hesitation/not running on all six again. Shut it off, turned it on, still doing it. I have to keep my foot on the throttle or it will die. It cannot drive while running like that. I think it's not running on all six because there is extreme vibration in the engine. It revs the full RMP range, and when it does it back fires like crazy. No not a fuel issue because the new injectors I think actually have less flow, since I had less power while driving, but maybe no spark? But I replaced the distributor assembly, TFI, wires, plugs. What?
Short story;
BII runs good, go over MTN pass, under load feels like its running on not six cylinders for short periods of time. Replace wires and plugs, fixes issue for two days. Begins running on not six for longer and longer, until it is rare it runs on six. Run codes, get 18 consecutively. Replace ECC relay thing, get no change. Replace distributor, and injectors. Set timing manually with crank and rotor position. Runs good for 100 miles with NEW plugs, wires, distributor assembly, and injectors. New injectors have four small ports, unlike old that have single large port. Replaced TPS. Slightly less responsive, but runs very smooth and correctly. Getting 36-38 PSI of fuel at rail. Feels like the auto timing set itself correctly and the car is running well. Come back after drive, suddenly stops running on all six and have same issue prior to replacing everything. WTF.
Confusion sums up myself right now. I figured there is something wrong with the og pick-up assembly, thus why I was getting code 18 and bad running with occasional smooth running, thus why I got a new distributor assembly. However, now out of no-where the engine is running like doo doo again. Could my ECM be sending a bad signal and corrupting the pick-up assembly within the distributor? I have no idea, and few recourses. I am so beyond confused.
Fair warning; I have read so many of y'all's amazing informative threads, and this is most likely not a common issue. I mean things like 'did you check for spark, fuel pressure, timing,' all that jazz. I have read and tried mostly everything y'all start with. Maybe it's something simple but I doubt it. Please let me know what y'all think, any advice is appreciated.
Also, I am a college student, It's hard to justify spending the money on throwing parts at the thing, but if that's what I have to do then I do. I am also doing all of this work in the dorm parking lot, with basic tools, I'll be it a wide variety of tools, but no power and nothing super specialized. It's also going to get cold soon, real cold, CO winter in Gunnison is especially gnarly, so looking to try to diagnose and get this fixed somewhat soon.
... hopefully! (Knock on wood, fingers crossed, etc.)