wilincoln
May 28th, 2007, 10:18 PM
:)I am posting this thread as it has come up several times over the last several months.
Most people have a fuel pump problem, replace pump strainer and filter and are good from there out.
Others have continued to get a no start conditon with no apparent explanation and a lot of frustration.
I recently went through some of the above. 98 TC would crank but not fire (no prior history of this).This was at the top of fire road in the back hills of Kentucky while vacationing two weeks ago.
My wife is freaking and our cell phones would not work. Nobody had been up there in probably a week or more! I had amateur radio gear that may have been pressed into service if needed!
The car did make it home to WI and only produced a no start condition once along the way home in central ILL at a rest stop. Again it started after a few minutes of waiting. I rapped on the relay box under the hood thinking that might be related.
It did start just as unexpectedly as it had quit.
I started or cylced the engine at least at least a dozen times before I got back to my home and driveway with no more problems. This car has 96k miles on it and there is no history of the fuel pump ever having been replaced. I have the log book and maint. record.
No codes were set with the car and of course no "engine" light either.
Decided to take the car for a grocery run and danged if it didn't do the no start routine again. Time for trouble shooting:
Fuel pressure guage installed and got 22lbs on the fuel rail.
Flamable carb cleaner blasted up the air horn while cranking and car poped right off.
Above indicates that I have a fuel problem of course.
The question then becomes: Are the injectors not working or is 20lbs not enough to fire the injector due to low pressure.
The spec from Ford is 35-45 PSI and reccomends replacement of the fuel pump if pressure is below 35PSI.
Now understand friends that I have friends and aquaintences that are professional mechanics at dealerships and I generally value their opinions. All of them to a fault said it was the fuel pump. And as I was unable to effect a replacement in my driveway of the pump I caved in and had the car picked up on a roll back wrecker and delivered to a quality repair shop.
Once there the owner check and verfied that it was a bad fuel pump and would be done the following morning.
The next day I arrived early and paid $319 including the towing charge to retrieve my wheels. Not bad when I considered that most places wanted $389 plus towing and could not get the car in for 4 days to a week!
I paid and drove off to my office. Along the way I stopped at McDonalds for a large coffee walkin style. I returned to the car and guess what...the same no crank won't go problem...hummmmm. I cranked and I cranked and I cranked etc and no go. Damn!! I opened the glove box to get the phone number of the shop I had just left and slammed the glove box (in a childish frustrated anger). Tried onc emore before I called the hook. The car started right up! I drove it to the office where I had meetings all morning. That afternoon I was supposed to be in conference with a client 15mi south. One of my associates was going down there too and agreed to follow me down just in case. I got to my cleint with the 98TC ok. But once again it was doing the crank no start routine. Several tries and no go. I open the glove box once again and then again slammed the door shut on the glove box and guesss what...starts right up!
See where I am going with this??
To abridge this story I can tell you that I was able to get the car started by slamming the glove box door almost every time now.
This was conveyed to the shop owner and he had the car for another 26 hours. Cleared all of the codes drove and cycled the car and turned it over tp me indicating that everything was ok now that he cleared the codes...
I asked him what codes did he show?
There were three of them of which two of the numbers I don't recall.
One was for the fuel pump failure.
another was eveporative code (due to me putting fuel in the car while I had the engine running as I was afraid the car ould not retart).
The third was a P1260. That is a PATS failure or code indicating the Passive Anti Theft Systen has been activated or the pats has failed!
This is the one I was really conccerned with and asked the mechanic what had caused the code and what would it do. He said he had reset the code and there should not be anymore problem. I really wasn't convinced but said adios to him and drove the car away. (Remember I am not a professional mechanic that has been trained to work on Lincolns as I am just a marketing specialist and am supposed to pay the "professionals"). Being a skeptic I drove the car around the block, came back to the shop and turned it off. It started right up. I tried the same thing several more times and again always started...maybe this guy really did know what the hell he was talking about?
From there I went 12miles west to join my wife for lunch at a nice place out on the interstate. She drove off in her reliable GM vehicle(just poking fun dudes!) and there I sat with the same BS I have had previously. Not to worry...slam the &*^% glove box again and away we go. Yes I did tell the mechanic and shop owner about the violent dash routine and it's effect on the starting of the car. Once is coincidence, twice might even be but more than that I was pretty well convinced that there was a direct cause and effect .
Now it is my turn to fix what everybody said was definately a fuel pump! I had asked a lot of specific technical questions from many people that are supposed to be in the know and got a lot of wrong answers.
First off the P1260 code didn't show up for me because the car had cleared the code after many successful starts.
The mechanic should have recognized this as a PATS problem that needed remidy as it was an intermitant problem. He had been told of the slamming door effect too. That is two items that he dismissed and should not have.
Will the car run with 20PSI on the rail? Absolutely! It ran just fine too by the way. Everyone that I talked to said no. They are wrong --period.
Will an injector pass fuel to the intake with less than 5 psi on the injector?..all said no. It will pass fuel but will not atomize properly or with enough fuel to run right etc. It would stumble, pop, stutter etc .The point being is that the pros are suggesting that a crank but no start condition like I had would be present.
Actually the crank no start condition that was specifically described to them would more likely be characteristic of secondary primary ignition loss (compter etc).
What could I expect for total current draw on 8 fuel injectors while in the crank / start position...they had no clue and did not understand why I would even ask.
As this was clearly now a PATS problem or a computer problem and not a bad fuel pump problem it was time to figure out what was going on.
I was thinking that I might have a lose connector, barely broken wire, bad computer circuit trace broken in the pats module, bad key or keys, to name some of the things that ran through my head. I did trade off keys early on to eliminate that possible problem.
I removed the radio, dash panel, igniton key, instument cluster steering column supports etc to get at the first piece of the PATS that I was going to check.
There is a "tranciever" mounted under the keyswitch bore and around the bore that "reads" the key transponder. This was removed carefully and when I went to unplug it from it's harness connecter I immediately had a wire snap off. There are four wires that go into a connector of about 28 gauge. I looked w/ a magniying glass and and it looked like there had only been one strand for quite a time. The other three wires were secure and could not be pulled off etc.
I replaced the entire tranciever at a cost of $47 from the Lincoln dealer. Reassembled all of the componets and have been driving it for a week no with no problem.
It makes sense too in retrospect. The door slamming was just enough vibration on the column to effect a start path for the wire to the tranciever. The wires on that plug are all work hardened and very brittle.
The constant up and down of the tilt wheel combined with 10 years or so of age and extreme summer temps in the car all contributed to the failure of this line and connector. There is movement on that harness (slight but present just the same) at the connector causing fatiuge.
I wanted to everyone to know that when you all know for sure it is the fuel pump to make sure that there is not a PATS code set. Also the on dash LED that comes on steady with key then goes out is normal. If it blinks rapidly , about 3 or pulses per second then the PATS has been activated and your injectors will not fire preventing start.
I hope that this is useful to some or all of you.
By the way I don't regret the pump instalation either as it was only 22LBS and would completely fail in the near term anyway.
WILINCOLN
Ron in WI
Most people have a fuel pump problem, replace pump strainer and filter and are good from there out.
Others have continued to get a no start conditon with no apparent explanation and a lot of frustration.
I recently went through some of the above. 98 TC would crank but not fire (no prior history of this).This was at the top of fire road in the back hills of Kentucky while vacationing two weeks ago.
My wife is freaking and our cell phones would not work. Nobody had been up there in probably a week or more! I had amateur radio gear that may have been pressed into service if needed!
The car did make it home to WI and only produced a no start condition once along the way home in central ILL at a rest stop. Again it started after a few minutes of waiting. I rapped on the relay box under the hood thinking that might be related.
It did start just as unexpectedly as it had quit.
I started or cylced the engine at least at least a dozen times before I got back to my home and driveway with no more problems. This car has 96k miles on it and there is no history of the fuel pump ever having been replaced. I have the log book and maint. record.
No codes were set with the car and of course no "engine" light either.
Decided to take the car for a grocery run and danged if it didn't do the no start routine again. Time for trouble shooting:
Fuel pressure guage installed and got 22lbs on the fuel rail.
Flamable carb cleaner blasted up the air horn while cranking and car poped right off.
Above indicates that I have a fuel problem of course.
The question then becomes: Are the injectors not working or is 20lbs not enough to fire the injector due to low pressure.
The spec from Ford is 35-45 PSI and reccomends replacement of the fuel pump if pressure is below 35PSI.
Now understand friends that I have friends and aquaintences that are professional mechanics at dealerships and I generally value their opinions. All of them to a fault said it was the fuel pump. And as I was unable to effect a replacement in my driveway of the pump I caved in and had the car picked up on a roll back wrecker and delivered to a quality repair shop.
Once there the owner check and verfied that it was a bad fuel pump and would be done the following morning.
The next day I arrived early and paid $319 including the towing charge to retrieve my wheels. Not bad when I considered that most places wanted $389 plus towing and could not get the car in for 4 days to a week!
I paid and drove off to my office. Along the way I stopped at McDonalds for a large coffee walkin style. I returned to the car and guess what...the same no crank won't go problem...hummmmm. I cranked and I cranked and I cranked etc and no go. Damn!! I opened the glove box to get the phone number of the shop I had just left and slammed the glove box (in a childish frustrated anger). Tried onc emore before I called the hook. The car started right up! I drove it to the office where I had meetings all morning. That afternoon I was supposed to be in conference with a client 15mi south. One of my associates was going down there too and agreed to follow me down just in case. I got to my cleint with the 98TC ok. But once again it was doing the crank no start routine. Several tries and no go. I open the glove box once again and then again slammed the door shut on the glove box and guesss what...starts right up!
See where I am going with this??
To abridge this story I can tell you that I was able to get the car started by slamming the glove box door almost every time now.
This was conveyed to the shop owner and he had the car for another 26 hours. Cleared all of the codes drove and cycled the car and turned it over tp me indicating that everything was ok now that he cleared the codes...
I asked him what codes did he show?
There were three of them of which two of the numbers I don't recall.
One was for the fuel pump failure.
another was eveporative code (due to me putting fuel in the car while I had the engine running as I was afraid the car ould not retart).
The third was a P1260. That is a PATS failure or code indicating the Passive Anti Theft Systen has been activated or the pats has failed!
This is the one I was really conccerned with and asked the mechanic what had caused the code and what would it do. He said he had reset the code and there should not be anymore problem. I really wasn't convinced but said adios to him and drove the car away. (Remember I am not a professional mechanic that has been trained to work on Lincolns as I am just a marketing specialist and am supposed to pay the "professionals"). Being a skeptic I drove the car around the block, came back to the shop and turned it off. It started right up. I tried the same thing several more times and again always started...maybe this guy really did know what the hell he was talking about?
From there I went 12miles west to join my wife for lunch at a nice place out on the interstate. She drove off in her reliable GM vehicle(just poking fun dudes!) and there I sat with the same BS I have had previously. Not to worry...slam the &*^% glove box again and away we go. Yes I did tell the mechanic and shop owner about the violent dash routine and it's effect on the starting of the car. Once is coincidence, twice might even be but more than that I was pretty well convinced that there was a direct cause and effect .
Now it is my turn to fix what everybody said was definately a fuel pump! I had asked a lot of specific technical questions from many people that are supposed to be in the know and got a lot of wrong answers.
First off the P1260 code didn't show up for me because the car had cleared the code after many successful starts.
The mechanic should have recognized this as a PATS problem that needed remidy as it was an intermitant problem. He had been told of the slamming door effect too. That is two items that he dismissed and should not have.
Will the car run with 20PSI on the rail? Absolutely! It ran just fine too by the way. Everyone that I talked to said no. They are wrong --period.
Will an injector pass fuel to the intake with less than 5 psi on the injector?..all said no. It will pass fuel but will not atomize properly or with enough fuel to run right etc. It would stumble, pop, stutter etc .The point being is that the pros are suggesting that a crank but no start condition like I had would be present.
Actually the crank no start condition that was specifically described to them would more likely be characteristic of secondary primary ignition loss (compter etc).
What could I expect for total current draw on 8 fuel injectors while in the crank / start position...they had no clue and did not understand why I would even ask.
As this was clearly now a PATS problem or a computer problem and not a bad fuel pump problem it was time to figure out what was going on.
I was thinking that I might have a lose connector, barely broken wire, bad computer circuit trace broken in the pats module, bad key or keys, to name some of the things that ran through my head. I did trade off keys early on to eliminate that possible problem.
I removed the radio, dash panel, igniton key, instument cluster steering column supports etc to get at the first piece of the PATS that I was going to check.
There is a "tranciever" mounted under the keyswitch bore and around the bore that "reads" the key transponder. This was removed carefully and when I went to unplug it from it's harness connecter I immediately had a wire snap off. There are four wires that go into a connector of about 28 gauge. I looked w/ a magniying glass and and it looked like there had only been one strand for quite a time. The other three wires were secure and could not be pulled off etc.
I replaced the entire tranciever at a cost of $47 from the Lincoln dealer. Reassembled all of the componets and have been driving it for a week no with no problem.
It makes sense too in retrospect. The door slamming was just enough vibration on the column to effect a start path for the wire to the tranciever. The wires on that plug are all work hardened and very brittle.
The constant up and down of the tilt wheel combined with 10 years or so of age and extreme summer temps in the car all contributed to the failure of this line and connector. There is movement on that harness (slight but present just the same) at the connector causing fatiuge.
I wanted to everyone to know that when you all know for sure it is the fuel pump to make sure that there is not a PATS code set. Also the on dash LED that comes on steady with key then goes out is normal. If it blinks rapidly , about 3 or pulses per second then the PATS has been activated and your injectors will not fire preventing start.
I hope that this is useful to some or all of you.
By the way I don't regret the pump instalation either as it was only 22LBS and would completely fail in the near term anyway.
WILINCOLN
Ron in WI