That's about the same setup as my wife's '01 Mustang convertible. There's really no better way you could do it. I don't blame you for wanting the shoulder belts!
I don't know if the mechanic that I have payed to fix this problem has thought to do that, but one would believe that he would have the necessary knowledge to properly troubleshoot such an issue. He has said he has checked and rechecked all the grounds to make sure they were good. The bottom line is that I think I am just going to have to take it to someone else as it seems that this guy has obviously given up. It's frustrating when someone is running a business but they just blatantly do people wrong like this. It makes me want to take out a full page ad in the local paper to let everyone else know what happened so he doesn't get anymore business.
I have. Just been saving money so I could get some stuff done. I know this sounds dumb, but I would feel like I was letting the car down if I didn't find a way to get it back on the road. I've owned it for ten years and it was a good car for most of those years.
Hey guess what? He still has the car! It's my fault, I know. It just hasn't been a priority and now it's been sitting for a couple years. I'll get it done one way or another...
Talked to him on Thursday of last week. He had the harness all back together. He said he checked each wire as well as all of the fusible links and did not find any problems. This came as no surprise to me. He said that he hooked up the original SO computer and still couldn't get the injectors to fire. So we are going to get another HO computer and give it a try. Hopefully that is the cause of the issue, although I cannot explain why the car ran fine with the original ECM before and now putting the original back in doesn't change the problem, which is the injectors not getting the ground pulse that causes them to spray fuel.
Went by this past Tuesday. He's got the sheathing off of the engine harness and says he's tracing a short somewhere. Wires under the hood are a mess. Looks like he started tracing back from the "salt and pepper shakers". My gut tells me the issue isn't the harness, but he says he hooked the original ECM back up and the injectors still wouldn't pulse.
Well he has been given more than half of the money. And I don't want to piss the guy off since I still need him to do the work. And I'd be hard pressed to find another mechanic I can bring the car and all the parts to and say, "Please fix this."
Plus I don't need the car for transportation. So I am choosing not to blow up about it as I don't see any obvious recourse. I am hoping he will get tired of me coming by every day and that will motivate him to get the job done. We shall see...
Well I went by on Friday during my lunch break from work and I got the tag. I talked to him and he told me he was getting ready to move the car into the shop as soon as the truck that was in there was out. He was going to try to put the original ECM in and see if he could get the injectors to work. So he had not even done that yet even though we discussed it like a month ago. I said okay and went to turn the tag in at the office.
I got off work at 6:00 and went by there again and the car had not been moved. I asked him what was going on and he said he was getting ready to move it into the shop so he could work on it some on Saturday. Right. So I left. I didn't have time to go by there on Saturday because I'm in the middle of remodeling a bathroom in my house. I rode by the shop late Saturday evening and the car appeared to be in the same spot it was in when I left on Friday evening.
I'm going to go by again on my lunch on Monday and every other day until I see some progress being made. I've been more than patient up to this point.
Hey Shredder. Thank you for the offer to help. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. I hope it does not come to that. I really think the guy could fix the problem if he wanted to but the money initially paid to him is long gone so it's like he'd be doing it on his own time so he doesn't want to.
I'm in Franklin. It's about a 3.5 hour drive from here to Charlotte.
Thanks, guys. The tag on the Cougar actually expired at the end of October and I can't renew it because the inspection is out of date as well. In NC you have to have a valid inspection before you can renew your tag. So I'm going to have to take the tag off the car and turn it in because it has been at his shop for so long. Since July, in fact. I intend to make sure he is there before I go by so I can talk to him face to face rather than over the phone. Perhaps that will have more impact.
Thanks for the offer on the DA1, 88CougarGT. I will let you know as soon as I can find something out about the car.
I can't get a straight answer out of this guy and it is starting to tick me off a bit. If I didn't call him for the next month, I can guarantee I wouldn't here from him. He came recommended to me by a couple of different people that had him do some work for them in the past but I must have caught him in a mid life crisis or something because getting him to work on the car is like pulling teeth. If he doesn't know how to fix it I wish he'd at least be straight up with me about it so I can find someone that does. The only problem is that I've already given him money and finding another mechanic willing to take on someone's half finished job would be tough to say the least. Ugh.
Where's the smiley banging his head against a brick wall when you need him?
