I'm a bit of a film nerd. Whilst nerding out, I just stumbled upon imcdb.org (the Internet Movie Car Database) and have now wasted several hours there.
It's a boring base 3.8, but we've grown quite fond of her. She was a godsend, dropped in our laps just when we needed her most. She's been a reliable workhorse, and we've decided she deserves some love. Mechanically she's in pretty good shape, but oh man she looks horrible, as you shall see when I collect some more photos. Going to log process for posterity, to keep myself motivated, to keep my head screwed on straight, and of course moral support. Diving right in:
ing around today. Mowed the lawn and cleaned up the center console switches (serviceable switches FTW!): Mirror switch sporting 30 years worth of food stuffs, dead skin cells, and god knows what else. It all cleaned up quite nicely (toothbrush, mild detergent, isopropyl, contact cleaner), unfortunately the PCB traces are shot - but amazingly only traces controlling the passenger mirror, both axes work fine on driver's side.
Modest start to non-essential repairs, good enough for now.
Hi all! We all have our vital accessories that live in our cars. Things like jacks, spares, sunglasses, etc. There's a very special vital item in my Thunderbird's kit - the patio cushion. White with neon pink and powder blue flowers, same approximate vintage as the car. This special cushion allows us to work the pedals...
Yeah, the driver's side power seat is stuck in the rearmost position. Made a spiritless attempt at rectifying the situation when we first acquired the car - no dice. Now I'm revisiting the issue with some more gusto. I can get the front two bolts and the 1/2" nut on the left rear of the seat, but I've nil clearance to get at the plastic nut cover - much less the nut itself - at the right rear of the seat. It seems clear the seat needs to move to be removed.
Electrics are good, I can hear the motor working in forward and reverse directions. No ugly grinding or clacking sounds, just the whir of the motor and the bowden cable spinning freely within its sleeve.
Anybody run into this and/or have suggestions? At this point, my mind has gone to pondering fantastical solutions involving destruction and lots of fire...
Ha, this car's been yoyoing all month! Fix one thing, another breaks down. Noticed a couple hairline cracks around a post on my dist cap which definitely need to be addressed, but my current issue seems to be one of starvation. Finally got myself down to harbor freight for an injection tester. Initial tests didn't look great - it primed to 16 PSI and ran at 35 PSI. No gas in the line, but slight fuel odor and no change in pressure on removing the vacuum from the regulator. I've never changed the filter
Cool, cheap stuff. Start with new filter, new regulator. Got new filter on - old one clogged as $#!7.
Decided to give it test before fooling around with that regulator. (From what I've gathered, it seems folks find it necessary to pull off the plenum. Anybody around here ever changed a FPR on a 3.8 without pulling the plenum?)
First prime, 0 PSI. Cool, lost an oz. or two of fuel changing the filter. Give it three primes, still 0. Another three - ah, 5 PSI. A handful more and I never got it above 10 before I decided to just crank it. She stumbles and starts, gets up to speed. Steady idle at 35 PSI. Pulling the vac off the FPR, now it's jumping up to 41. Still going to replace it, but I guess it can wait for a less windy day. Gauge won't reach past the cowl so wasn't able to do a full road test with it.
Shut the bird off and the pressure drops from 35 to 30. Drops from 30 to 20 in about a minute and holds. Ten minutes later, she's at 10 PSI. Twenty minutes 8 - thirty minutes still at 8.
Guess I'm going to be dropping the tank, checking voltages and replacing pumps tomorrow. I've dropped the tank before, so I know it's actually one of the easier components of the vehicle to remove - but sucks nonetheless. C'est la vie. Replaced a kinked nylon line near the fuel rail input and found a worse kink under the heat shield hose. I could see how all that regurgitating fuel could kill an already aging pump. I've no doubt we kinked those lines replacing the head gaskets. Live and learn I suppose. I'll definitely take the time to get the spring locks loose or plan on replacing the rail lines with injection hose off the bat next time.
Hey folks! Hope you all had a good Halloween! Spent mine learning more about these engines. Never owned a car with a 'puter (save the Neon, whcih I really didn't care to work on, and the Cordoba whose computer was so primitive it didn't require any tune up procedures beyond the regular 'old engine' stuff), so my diagnostic skills are still pretty poor here.
We did a top end rebuilt on our '88 thunderbird 3.8 after HG demise. Had some issues and codes after rebuild, got it all cleared up with some assistance from the EVTM (thanks Trinom!), but there's an unused barb on the PCV valve that was previously wrapped with duct tape. Nothing's been deleted as far as I can tell. All the smog and A/C equipment is present and working, but can't seem to figure out what's supposed to plug in there. Now, if I plug the port, the car runs like . If I let it leak, the car runs like . If I restrict it, the car runs great - no idle issues, no stumble, nothing untowards. Still throwing no codes KOEO or KEOR. No vacuum leak with the port plugged.
Unfortunately, the fan shroud is no help... Can't even find a picture of the emissions decal for the 88 3.8 online - but lots of pictures of 88 5.0 decals and even decals themselves on ebay.
Neither was this Chiltons diagram for the '87 3.8 (they had diagrams for 83-87 and 89-90. WTH? :flip:) PCV runs to purge valve and intake (assuming that the electronic fuel control assembly is the throttle/plenum/intake), but still has an open port.
Here's what I'm looking at: (New TPS connector is on the way. Roadside crack lighter solder job isn't going to hold to much longer...)
:punchballs: Been pulling my hair out over this for days. Sure, I could just stick an inline filter and a vrest on it and call it a day, but I kinda like this car - don't wanna ghetto rig it. Anybody know what's supposed to go there, or have a 88 3.8 efi specific emissions decal/vacuum diagram that may shed some light?
Hey folks! Newbie to the forums - lurking since the lady and I got ourselves an '88 3.8 'Bird a couple years ago. Fell in love with the 1956 birds when I was a kid and learned to love the fox when it fell in our laps (that, and we were down to an '83 E250 7.5L 460 punching a massive hole in our minuscule savings as a daily driver following the untimely death of our :barf: Neon.) Well, she blew a head gasket last week. The Thunderbird is a bit of an heirloom (her uncle is OO) and she's in great shape mechanically (despite the rusted roof and the destroyed interior. She had a full rebuild at the dealership 15-20 years ago.), so we thought it'd be worth saving.
It's back on the road now and didn't fight us too hard to get it there, but she's not quite herself. When it's cold, she just can't get up and go. She has no power, backfires if you try to gas it too hard, and just doesn't want to talk to anybody until she's had her coffee. Once everything's nice and warm and the thermostat opens up, she's mostly groovy. She hesitates a bit, but I suspect I missed a vacuum somewhere, as I have a lonely nipple on the rigid line from the PCV valve to the upper intake manifold. Do these 3.8s usually have a double port PCV valve?
EEC is throwing code 51 and code 54 on KOEO. I've replaced the coolant temperature switch and cleared the codes (I think), and she's still throwing 51. I'm also not quite sure what an air charge temperature sensor is, if I have one or where it is, or how it differs from the intake air temp sensor. The ACT and ECTS look really similar in appearance - have the same round/square-corner electrical connectors but one's terminals is rotated 90degrees from the other, and the ACT's thermistor is exposed while ECTS's is not. Not sure if wrong part, or Ford changed the connector... Any info would be greatly appreciated!
tl;dr : car runs py cold. code 51 & 54 KOEO. New therm switch, still 51 and 54. Not sure what/where ACT is, is it this thing on the front passenger side of the lower intake manifold? They look a lot alike and threads fit, but I'd need to replace the electrical connector to plug in ACT.
