I have a 1986 thunderbird with the 3.8l engine in it. The car has problems stalling. Sometimes when I start the car, it will stall right out, other times i'm able to drive it for a little bit then it will stall out and have troubles running. I have changed the spark plugs/wires, the distributor cap and rotor, fuel filter, and the TPS sensor. The only other problems that I could think it would be is the IAC, fuel injectors, or fuel pump. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Chris
Koeo/koer ?
how many miles on it.....how's the spray from the fuel injectors?....was the fuel filter clogged at all??...could you blow thru it like a new one??...do you still have the two pre-cats on it???...i have the same engine and i am the original owner....so i have seen quite a few problems....i had stalling problems, because my two pre-cats were contaminated and would stop the exaust when heated....would be a good idea to get rid of them....and just keep the one big cat-convertor.....does it start right up or turn over a bit? ....i would check the fuel injectors first...let us know what you find..
one more thing....check the fuel pressure....there's a valve on the side of the throttle body..schradder valve( i think thats what u call it..) auto zone or a good parts store should have the tool needed to check it....i mention auto aone because you can rent it free....if i think of anything else i'll post it..
Actually you can't rent a fuel pressure tester from autohole.
you can take your control module down to the hole and test it in minutes. do the test a couple of times to see if it heats up and starts going out. but my i think if it stalls out and then has trouble starting back, it's the control module
Thanks for the info, I will try to take a look at the car soon.
-The fuel filter looked as if it was brand new. It was not clogged at all. It still has the pre cats on it. It will normally start right up, work for a little bit, then stall. Then it will start right up and stall out but sometimes it will start right up and work fine. Sometimes it doesn't stall out at all. It just doesn't make any sense. The car has around 129k on it.
hey blu84302....are u talking about the ignition control module in the steering collum...or some other control module (computer?) i heared the ignition module can run hot and actually melt some wires. mine is original, so i don't know. i would be interested in knowing where the other control module is. thanks.
There is a moduled called the TFI module, that is on the side of the distributor. They are known to cause funky stalling/running problems randomly.
Take it to Advance Auto and AutoZone, and tell them to do a code scan. Theyll probably say it wont work unless you have a check engine light on, but tell them to run it anyways.
If you take it somewere to have codes pulled ask the guy doing it if he knows how to do the KOER test. While I was at autohole I was the only one there who knew how to do it.