Im having problems with my 85 cougar

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Im having problems with my 85 cougar

March 01, 2005, 09:11:23 PM

Ok this is the deal, this is lenthy, but I really am stuck right now, so I want to get it all down.

A couple of weeks ago my car stalled out on my wife. A friend helped her home and mentioned it sounded like a bad fuel pump. Well I got home and couldn't start the car, so i took his advise and got a new fuel filter.Changed it but that wasn't the problem, it did have brownish gas coming out of it, but freely flowing. Soon after I noticed that the fuel pump wasn't making a noise.So we took the high pressure in tank fuel pump out and replaced it. Which is btw a discontinued part...., installed it and still it will not start nor does the fuel pump make a noise. I've looked in my book and it doesn't say anything about a fuse for this but Ive been told about an extra fuse box behind the left fender apr0n which I cannot find either :shoothead . If you have any suggestions please let me know.You can contact me at Lordlocnar@hotmail.com .

Thank you for all your time.

Aggravated in Alabama

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #1 – March 01, 2005, 09:27:29 PM

pop the trunk
remove the interior dressing covering the driverside tail light.
look down in there and press the button on the "inertia switch".
you will know right away if it was triped cause it will reset.
if it does not reset the move on to the fuel pump relay.
it is located in the trunk pass side near the pass hinge. remove dressing and you will see a (green top relay?) mounted there. If you ground out the smaller guage tan/green looking wire, that will active the pump but the key has to be foward. Ground it out then turn your key forward. This will make the pump runn continuous.
you can also find the tan/green wire up at the self test connector in the engine bay and ground it out there with the same effect.
If you get the pump running that way,, its not the pump and the problem is elsewhere.

thats enough for now to get you started,, let us know.

scott

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #2 – March 01, 2005, 09:31:07 PM

Quote from: Locnar

I've looked in my book and it doesn't say anything about a fuse for this but Ive been told about an extra fuse box behind the left fender apr0n which I cannot find either :shoothead .

Aggravated in Alabama

no such animal

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #3 – March 01, 2005, 09:57:47 PM

My guess would be the fuel pump relay.

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #4 – March 01, 2005, 10:42:42 PM

If the inertia switch isn't found by the driverside tail light like mentioned by jcassity, check the passengerside behind the shock tower and brace the trunk lid hinge is on. I had an 84 Tbird that had it located there.

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #5 – March 02, 2005, 06:30:21 PM

Alright, I checked the "inertia switch" and it did nothing. So I went to stage 2. Ive done that and two things have occured.
1. the fuel pump didn't make a sound
2. clicking noises are now coming from what apperently is the distributor and the acspoogeulator & switch assebely

Im not sure what this means

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #6 – March 02, 2005, 06:35:30 PM

but when you played with the relay it did't do a thing? so replace the relay there like 10 bucks. but take the old to match it up.

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #7 – March 02, 2005, 08:11:27 PM

ok,, one other suggestion you could try before the night is out

go outside with a hammer and beat the heck out of the bottom of the gas tank (with the key forward).

if it suddenly kicks in,, theres your problem. I know you said you put a new pump in but if you have to jar a new one in order for it to work, that would piss me off.

try it in a while and let us know.

to me, it sounds like the pump is maybe in a bind (ie-silent)
or
the pump is getting no power (ie-silent)

either way it aint pumping.

also...

locate the fuel presure test valve,, sharader valve. it will look like a tire fitting with a needle in it. turn the key forward and crank it for the heck of it. Now go to the shrader valve and press in the tiny pin,, does fuel come out? if not, you do infact have a fuel problem.

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #8 – March 03, 2005, 05:52:07 AM

Quote

go outside with a hammer and beat the heck out of the bottom of the gas tank

I tried that but all I could find was my old bodywork hammer and since the flat part was broken off I used the pointy part and now the pointy part is stuck in the bottom of the tank and all my gas is running down the driveway. What should I do now? :hick:

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #9 – March 03, 2005, 11:27:52 AM

Quote from: MasterBlaster

I tried that but all I could find was my old bodywork hammer and since the flat part was broken off I used the pointy part and now the pointy part is stuck in the bottom of the tank and all my gas is running down the driveway. What should I do now? :hick:

:rollin: :rollin:
stop already,,, this guy's new
where's your manners :giggle:

i guess now its time to hardwire some power to the pump itself to verify its goann spinn up.

tan/light green (signal from computer pin22 to relay coil
red (is inline with the inertia switch which ends up as on huge splice somewhere with other wires which originates at pin 1 primary power on the computer

pink/black(the power input to the fuel pump),stand alone harness
yellow (from pin 1 on computer to pink black)

tan/light green and red create the magnetic field in the relay coil
the contacts pink/black and yellow are sucked together transefering the computer pin 1 power to the fuel pump.

TRY THIS
what i think you do next is to leave the key off.
crawl under car and locate the harness going to the fuel pump
get yourself a couple stick pins
insert one into the orange wire.
use a jumper wire to ground out this pin.
turn key forward and try and start.
if it does then you have a bad ground on the fuel pump.
if no change
insert another stickpin into the pink black
use a long wire to get power to the pink/blk from the battery.
now you have the org wire grounded and the pink black ready for power
add power to the pink black, If the pump is good, it will turn now cause it has no choice.

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #10 – March 03, 2005, 12:09:47 PM

I might have stumbled on something here i was not aware of looking throught therangerstation.com.

I found the very first statement very interesting,, was anyone aware of this symptom? tieing the TFI to lack of fuel?
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/TFI_Diagnostic.html

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #11 – March 03, 2005, 05:18:00 PM

Alright now, can you bondo a gas tank? I stuck a tampon in to clog it but its lossing alot of gas... :D

No but really, I tried bashing it and it didnt work. So we hardwired it and the ground wire test made the pump spin. So do we replace the ground wire to a new point or could it be the relay.

I truely appreciate the help in this situation, I probably would have takin a tourch to it by now, or just took it to a mechanic. Both seem to do the same trick around here :)

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #12 – March 03, 2005, 09:03:06 PM

good new eh? your pump works.
bad news,, you might have replaced a good pump with a new one.
oh well.,, makes for a good pump in a homemade parts cleaner.

ok,,leme see.
Does anyone know if there is another relay just like the fuel pump relay mounted under the dash that could be borrowed to test if the relay is bad or not?

question,,,

couple important things i hope you can say yes to ..........quote me back on your reply

you added just a ground and it worked?

with this ground installed, do you have to turn the key forward to make the pump humm.

when you truned the key forward, did the pump run a couple seconds then stop humming like its suppose to do till you start?

when you turn the key backwards to off, do you hear the relay in the trunk click after a couple seconds?

if you say yes to all of the above,, then it looks like there is an open on the ground side of the pump.
its possible that the relay is good cause if it were bad, no power would get to the pink black wire via the supply yellow coming from the computer pin 1.

id say its best to find the open on the orange wire but adding one in place of it wont hurt till you dig into the harness better. Its a pretty tight spot under there and it just might have gotten cut where there is a support clamp around the harness above the axle.

Re: Im having problems with my 85 cougar

Reply #13 – March 03, 2005, 09:30:46 PM

this ground your dealing with is called "ground 208"
its final termination should be under the pass seat in the area called the RH floor pan.

you might feel a hump in the floor on the pass side of the pass seat,,,perpendicular to the car's length. in that small hump there should be where its final connection is at as far as i can tell.

so in theory, if you have a meter you can set to "BEEP" or diode check,, you should be able to verify if its broke or not.

put your meter on the stickpin you inserted (remove you temp gound)
put the other meter lead anywhere on the car thats metal.
the meter should beeeeeeeeeep if that ground was intact. id be a visual inspection will be all it takes to see the break.

page 70 on the 1987 EVTM

---------------------------
Checking the fuel pump relay out of car

remove relay to a work area
supply +12vdc power to where the Red wire hooks
supply ground of the power supply to where tan/light green hooks
(any old power supply will work from 9-18 or so volts dc. power supplys from printers , chordles phones , ect that plug into the house outlet and converts to dc is good enough, the higher amperage may be your only problem.)

now, put your meter to ohms
put the red lead and the black lead on the remaining contacts where the pink/black and yellow hooked up.
There should be a path or continuity.
remove the power from the coil
the path should now be open.
you should hear the relay click when power is applied and removed.

Checking fuel pump relay (in the car test)

power at red wire? yes (relay coil power from inertia switch and eec pins 37/57)
ground at tan/light green wire? no (ground applied when key is forward from eec pin 22)(if you cant get a ground to the relay coil, the eec is bad or an open in the harness somewhere)
power at yellow wire? yes (input relay contact from computer pin 1)
power at pink/black? no (transfers yellow wire power to fuel pump)

turn key forward
power at pink black? yes (in put power to fuel pump)

**tid bit
the tan/light green wire is also located at the EEC self test conn. If you have a cfi system and need a gallon of gas to cut the grass, saw fire wood or something then unhook your pass fuel feed line on the rear of the cfi. place your gas container somewhere to catch fuel. ground out the tan/light green wire and turn your key forward. out comes the gas you need.