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Topic: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,  (Read 6099 times) previous topic - next topic

no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Totally hate my 83 cougar.  5.0 65000 miles California EEC 3 “ not using god  i’s”.   Did all the proper tune up . Plugs/wires/cap/rotor/fuel filter. About melted the starter and battery in rage. Will not start unless it’s 3/4 throttle hot/cold/Craig T Nelson poltergeist mode...... So today I had it sideways power sliding at 50 onto the expressway left a dent in the floor. Got it to blinking 85 and started over revving the trans. .? 105/115? Not one dam cough nor chug. Yet about  a hour beforehand on the same road would not achieve 40 bucking coughing full on Uncle buck!

What I need is some FREE checks. Where the hell is the grounds on this car? Locations no I dont have $36 bucks for a eBay chiltions book nor a scanner/multimeter/sun pro diagnostic center. I drive a 83 mercury. Asked summit for a Aod Holley. “Doesn’t exist but if you try your gunna smoke your transmission”  Mechanic wants to go one by one every sensor. About ready to get my 2nd gen ram and Have a derby. 5 times it’s left me stranded. Yet it gets towed home it fires right up. No clue. Where do I even start.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #1 –
Also noticed going up over a mountain grade. It started acting like it was running out of gas. Fell from 65 to 30 and completely dropped dead. But instantly fired back up and ran like a top. Thinking maybe running a hose from the schrader valve out of the cowl to a basic pressure gauge. See if I’m losing fuel pressure. But how can I test for spark. Either I’m losing fuel or spark. Or time.......but I maybe nuts but I see no timing marks.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Knocker – on
Totally hate my 83 cougar.  5.0 65000 miles California EEC 3 “ not using god  i’s”.   Did all the proper tune up . Plugs/wires/cap/rotor/fuel filter. About melted the starter and battery in rage. Will not start unless it’s 3/4 throttle hot/cold/Craig T Nelson poltergeist mode...... So today I had it sideways power sliding at 50 onto the expressway left a dent in the floor. Got it to blinking 85 and started over revving the trans. .? 105/115? Not one dam cough nor chug. Yet about  a hour beforehand on the same road would not achieve 40 bucking coughing full on Uncle buck!

What I need is some FREE checks. Where the hell is the grounds on this car? Locations no I dont have $36 bucks for a eBay chiltions book nor a scanner/multimeter/sun pro diagnostic center. I drive a 83 mercury. Asked summit for a Aod Holley. “Doesn’t exist but if you try your gunna smoke your transmission”  Mechanic wants to go one by one every sensor. About ready to get my 2nd gen ram and Have a derby. 5 times it’s left me stranded. Yet it gets towed home it fires right up. No clue. Where do I even start.

Uh ok. You had your 83 Cougar sideways power sliding onto the interstate and then started doing 105 or 115 mph?

Bub, you've got bigger problems then some wonky chassis grounds or CFI throttlebody.  Some friendly advice.  Best thing you could do is sell it to someone with the maturity to correct any issues any 36 year old car could have. Then you can use the money to pay for Uber or Lyft so you don't kill someone doing 115 mph on a public highway.

If you think you're broke now, wait till the lawsuits start hitting you from a vehicular manslaughter wreck you've caused.  After the courts and prison system sodomize you, it'll make your current problems seem like a vacation at a 5 star resort.

Calm down, grab a pen and write out the car's symptoms, borrow or rent the scan tool from your local Autozone or Advance, get a cheap Harbor freight or flea market multimeter for $5 and start eliminating possible causes until you narrow down your problem. Everyone has to do it. Or eliminate the CFI and do the carb conversion. Or if you're willing to educate yourself, you can do the SEFI conversion using junk yard parts like others have done.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #3 –
Your car wouldn't happen to be white with a brown half vinyl top would it? Cause everything you're describing sounds a whole lot like my old 83 cat. Mine was also a California emissions car. Check the EGR. Check temp sensor. The car has 2 fuel pumps a low pressure intank lift pump and a high pressure inline pump. Timing is locked on them and run off a crank trigger.

Do yourself a huge favor if it seems like you can't get anywhere with it. Swap the timing cover get a real distributor ditch the crank trigger and throw a 2bbl carb on it. You really won't lose much in the way of mileage and drivability

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #4 –
Well tempers are flaring spend $450 bucks for a tow. Then $150 tow. I got AAA now lol Car gets home and fires up instantly.  No rhyme or reasoning. Hell I watched a completely dead battery come back from the dead a hour later lol.
On top of  parts changers claiming their Mechanics. “All I can do is start replacing sensors “

Got some gunk out of the schrader valve 3/5 black rocks. Fuel looks very foamy like a shaken pen 15e. So if I got crud up this far my instinct is to drop the tank and inspect and replace the fuel filter.  Cleaned a few grounds I found out under the hood. Like to know where the computers ground is located. Not very educated with Fords but was told they do crazy things due to bad grounds.

Egr is fully functional , no vac leaks tested with spraying carb cleaner. All California smog is equipped.
Grandfather owned since original delivery. Was Lincoln/Mercury  maintained until they said they wouldn’t work on it . 2000s it was parked due to this problem but he kept the fuel fresh and did drive it around a few times a year. But that’s California gas. So I’m also looking at fuel pressure regulator....or a intermittent pump issue. What my gut says. But after spending a few thousand getting the car here to Pittsburgh and it’s lack luster reliability. My wife refuses to get in it. I already over spent this year. May have to wait until Christmas bonus time.

There is a Restoration company.....$300.00 evaluation where they completely go thru the car. Sent him pics said it’s worth $3000/$4000 because it’s a brand new friggin car lol. Perfect body interior got some sun fade on the read leather. But it just drives me crazy I can’t find the issue.

Btw Here it’s very rural. It’s a unused toll road at 1AM so lil more mature than those $50k mustang owners at cars n coffee. ;)

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #5 –
Or do I just give them $6000/$8000 And install a ford racing crate and T-5 , screw the Aod TV rod and Ecc iii altogether. Other option is convert to a Fuel injection edelbrock makes. Was hoping to keep it original or was a $100 part. But literally it’s a brand new car. Even got the factory 14” caps. Think the used turbines look better.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #6 –
If you're getting trash out of the fuel at the Schrader valve, probably better get the tank down for inspect/cleaning and plan on replacing filter, blowing out fuel lines. Sounds like the car has inadequate fuel delivery issues, enough fuel getting thru to start and idle but once the elec fuel pump gets hot, its performance starts failing. If it has the original fuel pump you've gotten your moneys worth, probably better plan for its replacement sooner rather than later.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #7 –
I'm feeling curmudgeonly, but if you can't afford a $20 repair manual - maybe you can't afford to drive a car?  ::)


Have you at least checked the codes?
Ford's EEC-III Trouble Codes - Tomco Inc.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #8 –
I bet the sock fell off the pump in the tank.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Jeremy Belcher – on
I'm feeling curmudgeonly, but if you can't afford a $20 repair manual - maybe you can't afford to drive a car?  ::)

Its fine im also curmudgeonly.  There was a budget involved in my hobby. I blew that completely for the year. So its either back under the covers until JAN 1 or I find somethings stupid.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #10 –
The trunk has 2 wires down to the tank. Looks halfway easy to drop the tank.......is there room to drop or will I get hung up on wires and exact length fuel hoses?

Here is part 2......... Since there is no timing marks.
I have 2 other engines laying around at the farm.

60's 302 maybe a 289 out of a dump truck......
71 460 with a C6 trans saw a swap kit for the mustang but will the C6 bolt in or is there substantially difficult fab involved.

My background is 80s GBods and 70s puppiesanese. Thought this cougar was going to be a walk. Just trying to get a carb on it seems like a huge PITA. Thanks for the advice.

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #11 –
It's probably  in the tank.

I don't remember whether this car sat around for a while or not, but yeah, if you're getting crud out of the fuel rail, I bet there's  in the rest of the fuel system.
Long live the 4-eyes!  - '83 Tbird Turbo - '85 Marquis LTS - '86 LTD Wagon-  '81 Granada GL 2dr

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #12 –
EEC3 is a little different.  Definitely replace the fuel filter, blow the lines out.  Could have dirty/plugged fuel injectors also.  I would also drop the tank, clean out and put in a new pump.  There is also a pump by the fuel filter.  We just did this with my brothers 83 Thunderbird that sat may years.  Fuel tank was rusty, filter full of rust sediment.  We put both new pumps in and filter and new fuel tank.  Ran like a top.

He sold the car because he didn't even want to deal with the EEC3 stuff, thought it was EEC4 when he bought it.

EEC3 doesn't have the standard ability to read codes, (easily).

Could also be the crank sensor acting flakey.  Not reading codes, you kinda just have to throw some parts at it.  EEC coolant temp sensor causes weird stuff like that also.
Mike

Re: no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,

Reply #14 –
Your negative battery cable should have two wires.  The big wire goes to the chassis and engine block.
The small wire goes to a one wire connector near the battery. This is the ground for the EEC III computer, the ignition module, the EEC power relay and the crankshaft position sensor.