1998 windstar

[CAP1]

Wesley Willis was a musician that toured back in the 90s.  He suffered from severe schitzophrenia.  I think he liked Ford Windstars.

hhmm....i think that makes him weirder than a bunch of grown men and women that fly cartoon airp......wait a second!! yep......sounds normal to me. 

[Rob52240]

He was a patriotic man.  He also drew his own album artwork and sold many drawings of the same bus stop outside his apartment.

[edog1977]

^ Isn't Wesley Willis the guy that would head butt his fans? I remember a buddy of mine bragging that he got a head butt from him at one of his shows in Morgantown, WV.

[mbailey]

Figured out the problem.........Its a Ford     

[CAP1]

Figured out the problem.........Its a Ford     

 it's a windstar. they don't count as real fords. 

[guncrasher]

this is closest. it was indeed an egr problem, although not sticking.

 while looking at data, and trying to duplicate the misfire, i noted that the dpfe at idle was at .62v. slightly low, but acceptable. as i power-braked, to fool the computer into opening the egr valve, i noted  the dpfe voltage at around 1.3v. when it got to this point, i felt a "lean" miss, which is normally an egr opened too far too soon. it almost immediately smoothed out to a steady miss, on #1. disconnected the vacuum supply to the egr, and zero misfire of any type under any condition. i removed the upper plenum, to look at the egr ports in the lower intake. 3 were completely clogged, 2 mostly clogged, and #1 was in perfect condition. THAT was the misfire. what was happening, was that the egr valve was working properly, in how far it was opened, and when it was opened, allowing the proper amount of exhaust gas to be recirculated into the engine.
 the ports in the lower intake being clogged, were forcing the exhaust all into the #1 port, thus putting out the flame, and creating the misfire. i removed the egr from the side of the intake, and took a pick, a can of carb. cleaner, and a vacuum cleaner. i chiseled the hard parts of the carbon out of the ports, with the vacuum right there, so the carbon wouldn't drop into the engine. once the hard stuff was out, i took a pipe cleaner, nailed them all with carb cleaner, and the pipe cleaner....then blew shop air through the passages backwards to clear them out. reassembled everything, and she runs like a champ.

 what disturbs me, is that the guys at the ford dealer never even took the time to actually put a mechanical compression gauge on this engine, or even do a leakdown test on the #1 cylinder that they were telling this guy was bad. either of those would've shown them that the engine is mechanically sound.

 oh yea.....the headlight fluid was ok. 

ok I am not a mechanic.  in simple terms what was wrong? as I am curious as hell. 


semp

[mbailey]

it's a windstar. they don't count as real fords. 

 

[CAP1]

ok I am not a mechanic.  in simple terms what was wrong? as I am curious as hell. 


semp

 ok. the egr system reciruculates eshaust gas into the combustion process to lower combustion temps. this reduces nox. the computer opens the valve a specified percentage in order to achieve this. when the valve is opened, the gas is supposed to be evenly distributed between all 6 cylinders through small ports.when i works properly, you'd never know it was there,but with 5 of them plugged, it was all going into a single cylinder. since it is exhaust gas, it can't burn, as there's nothing flammable left in it(for the most part). so when all of it gets shoved into that cylinder, it acts as a suppressant, putting out the fire in the cylinder.

[eagl]

ok. the egr system reciruculates eshaust gas into the combustion process to lower combustion temps. this reduces nox. the computer opens the valve a specified percentage in order to achieve this. when the valve is opened, the gas is supposed to be evenly distributed between all 6 cylinders through small ports.when i works properly, you'd never know it was there,but with 5 of them plugged, it was all going into a single cylinder. since it is exhaust gas, it can't burn, as there's nothing flammable left in it(for the most part). so when all of it gets shoved into that cylinder, it acts as a suppressant, putting out the fire in the cylinder.

The car is old enough to not have to get smogged, so why didn't you just plug the remaining port on cyl 1 and give the guy an extra few hp to play with?    Or just plug the EGR tubing with something and re-tune to compensate for not re-circulating exhaust back into the engine for a second try at full combustion.  On modern gas the engine without EGR should run just as cleanly as it did brand new with the older formulations...

[CAP1]

The car is old enough to not have to get smogged, so why didn't you just plug the remaining port on cyl 1 and give the guy an extra few hp to play with?    Or just plug the EGR tubing with something and re-tune to compensate for not re-circulating exhaust back into the engine for a second try at full combustion.  On modern gas the engine without EGR should run just as cleanly as it did brand new with the older formulations...

 obd2. they don't get smog checked, but they do get computer checked. cel on=fail. any codes=fail. readiness monitors on this year any more than 2 not ready=fail.

 also, modern cars will not gain horsepower by disabling the egr system.

[Rob52240]

They circled the problem

[CAP1]

They circled the problem

(Image removed from quote.)

 hehehehe.....i can post just as many goofy problems like this one from gm and/or chrysler. in fact, i've got a v6 chrysler coming in on thursday with a p0401. that one'll need the intake off too, as i'm fairly confident that the egr passages in that intake are also clogged.