New owner (94 ATX) - Fixed the smoke, now smog failure!

[apanthropy]

Search on "nostril" and you will see a pageful of helpful threads. Make sure they are CLEAN. A good one is here:

http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=7907


Maybe pulling the SPOUT connector will help you pass your emissions test? Do you have any readouts handy?

So how the heck do you drive it to a testing center, if all those 3 are tied together in a merry-go-round? Flatbed it? Crazy they won't let you title & register independent of emissions. In Maryland, you get that, and a notice to test emissions shortly thereafter. Does AZ have a "classic vehicle" law under which your car might be exempt?

Today we're yanking the intake manifold to clean the EGR passages, I was not able to find a step-by-step on removing the manifold so I'll just go at it methodically.

A check-engine-light means automatic fail (pre or post OBD2) and they verify that the light illuminates before starting, so pulling a bulb isn't going to work.

Hopefully clearing the intake will do the trick..

The "official" way to get legal is to buy a 3-day pass, to take the car to the emissions testing station. That by itself is not a big deal, but here's the part I think is bull#$%$^ - when you buy a car you have 15 days to transfer the title before you're penalized. You cannot title it without registering it and you cannot register it without a passing emissions grade.

So, for example, if you buy a non-running vehicle (which isn't a crime as far as I know) and it takes you more than 15 days to get it running (also not a crime as far as I know), you're in violation of the rules and get penalized. Which means it IS, in fact, a crime to be too poor to buy a new car. - Additionally, while my automobile insurance company (Hartford) will automatically cover a newly purchased car for 3 days, after those 3 days I cannot insure a car I don't own. Since I can't title the car without emissions, I can't own the car when I drive it to emissions and therefore must drive it uninsured to the emissions testing station. I don't expect to get into a collision on the way there, but who ever expects to get in a collision? Anyway I digress, that has nothing to do with fixing my SHO, just an explanation of why I'm frustrated at the persistent 332 code. Hopefully I'll have it killed tonight.

 

[SHOdded]

The shophoenix site is a wealth of info.

The HowTo on removing the Intake is on this page:
http://www.shophoenixproject.com/upper60k/upper60k.htm

If you do a throttle body bypass, it will become easier to remove the intake next time.

Cars are cash cows, this country's built around people having them available. If car ownership drops, they will simply raise the price of public transportation. Gonna get ya somewhere somehow!

EDIT: Going back through the search on a 332 code, replacing the DPFE with a Motorcraft DPFE solved the problem here:
http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=81516. HTH.

 

[Off Road SHO]

I have a few spare Motorcraft DFPE sensors in my supply. Yell if you need one.

Once you take the intake off, you will see two Allen Socket plugs. When those are removed you can clamp a slightly bent wire in a cordless drill and spray, drill, spray, drill until the entire passageway is clean. Berryman's B-12 in a spray can really does the trick.

Where are you located?

Tom

 

[apanthropy]

Thanks again gents!!

I've just finished... removed the intake manifold, bypassed the TB/IAC coolant hoses (the old hoses were soggy, swollen time bombs anyway) - pulled the hex plug thingers, went crazy on the EGR passages with B12, simple green, air hose, garden hose, a stranded steel wire stuck in a drill, a coat hanger, and purple power... yeah all those things in varying combinations to decrustify all that is within it. I started running out of daylight and stopped short of giving the intake the proper polish it really deserves so it's ugly.. but a LOT cleaner inside. some of the run-off from inside ended up outside, so the exterior is not very presentable - I'll get to that when I start on my 60k services... no idea when if ever those were previously performed so they're going to happen fairly soon.

So - on with the results. There was a lot of crud in the 'nostrils' and that passage. One of the nostrils was brutally clogged, I couldn't even poke coat hanger through it and managed to bend a small hex wrench I was trying to jam through - that was serious varnish! After it started to crumble, the rest went pretty quickly and I was able to jam a .22 bore brush through - woohoo! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxxNvfVfDB0

Re-assembled everything & refilled coolant, etc, turned it over a few times with the ignition DIS box disconnected to pull through whatever vapors might be in the manifold, hooked the DIS back up and fired it up. It stumbled a bit, the check engine light came on, I shut it off and re-checked everything - no problem found, so I restarted and took it for a drive. Check engine light turned off within 1 mile and the engine has been running very well since - yay!

Next step, I'll get the 3-day pass & I found out I can buy non-owners' liability insurance for it, and go for my first official real drive outside the neighborhood - out on the highway and get maybe 100 proper miles in, giving it the business up a couple hills.. then time for emissions testing and getting all legal.

So - thank you folks, I truly appreciate the help you've offered & hope to pay it forward as I gain more knowledge about these cars. Assuming the emissions testing goes well, I'll be digging into the 60k service fun and replacing the worn struts (bouncy!), repairing the A/C and installing a new stereo (this one has an aftermarket tape deck, a completely disconnected factory CD unit, factory amplifier, factory speakers all around & no factory subwoofer. )

Off Road SHO - I'm in South Phoenix, near SMCC .

 

[SHOdded]

You got it done! Passed the first test of SHO ownership :woo-hoo: Need to be a persistent bugger. TB bypass FTW!

Now you need to put a catch can on the PCV hose to prevent this @#$# from happening again

 

[Airborne]

I have a vacumm pump, guages and freon to help you out when you are ready to put some freon in your ac system. I am in glendale.

 

[apanthropy]

I have a vacumm pump, guages and freon to help you out when you are ready to put some freon in your ac system. I am in glendale.

Thank you for the offer Sir! I may take you up on that some time - though as much as it's rough driving with no A/C, at least it's a light colored car & there are plenty of other repairs I'll be doing this summer to bring it up to date on maintenance.


Since the last update on this thread, the car's been sitting in my garage going nowhere. It still had the same fill of oil (which looked fair, on the dipstick) as when I bought the vehicle so I gave it a change with 10w30 Valvoline High Mileage and bottle of Motor Honey Stop Leak, because the engine's leaky and I don't have the luxury of time to address those leaks the right way yet. (The goal is to get to those in July)

After the oil change, I drove the vehicle 2 miles in my neighborhood, but it didn't exactly get up to full operating temperature.

So - tomorrow's payday which means I'll be able to smog, title, register, insure.. all that good stuff.

This morning I printed a 3-day pass to make the vehicle legal to drive, and ensured that my insurance will cover me. I drove to work (6 miles) and noticed that there's still a lot of smoke coming from the engine bay - MORE even than I had experienced the most recent time I had run the vehicle before its oil change...

I had spilled a drop, and I do mean A DROP on the front exhaust manifold while changing the oil and I expected that to smoulder/burn off as I drove, but what's smoking is still a lot more than that. Even if my exhaust smells clean to the emissions robot, I doubt they'll give me a passing grade on a smoking engine bay

The smoke coming off the engine compartment is definitely burning engine oil, but the engine doesn't seem to drip onto the ground overnight at all... so it can't be dripping a TON of oil.

Since getting the engine running correctly, I haven't driven the vehicle any distance at speed, the most it's seen is 45mph on a surface street this cool morning, with stoplights to coast & cool off - the smoke didn't even seem to start coming off the vehicle at all until I was almost at work (because it took that long to properly warm up). So, I'm really hoping that a little highway drive tonight will burn the last of the major oil off that I couldn't get with the pressure washer - not much else I can think to do at this time. :hpoop:

 

[rubydist]

could be that the pressure washer took off some of the crud that was limiting the leak - in which case it is likely valve cover gaskets that are leaking that way - and they tend to leak onto the exhaust manifold which limits how much actually makes it to the ground.

 

[apanthropy]

could be that the pressure washer took off some of the crud that was limiting the leak - in which case it is likely valve cover gaskets that are leaking that way - and they tend to leak onto the exhaust manifold which limits how much actually makes it to the ground.

I re-washed where I could reach, and then took the vehicle for its first highway drive - runs nice and smooth out on the highway! Half an hour of that and by the time I got back, there was no more engine bay smoke and no smell of burning oil, woo!

The exhaust doesn't have an oily smell either, it pretty much has the same exhaust odor as my well-cared-for 2002 grand cherokee.

So the bad news: this morning I went to the emissions testing station. In Arizona, pre-1996 cars are placed on a dyno and the emissions operator drives the car on a "course" where he has to use the accelerator to follow a line on his computer screen while a gas analyzer sniffs the exhaust. So - here's what we have:

two-screen-wide screenshot

high NOX and high HC ..

So, now to tackle these things I know that lean combustion can cause both high NOX and HC, but so can a ruined catalytic converter.

Obviously the ignition problem this car used to exhibit was sending a lot of unburned fuel downstream into both exhaust manifolds - could've done a number on the o2 sensors and on the cats. Neither is cheap...

That's that, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend guys!

 

[apanthropy]

OK, been reading about the SPOUT connector thing. There are supposedly 2 of them, and they're a jumper to "enable" and "disable" ignition advance based on... stuff?

Continuing to read in between rendering cycles (at work) - makes for slow reading. I'm trying to render the biggest plots first so they give me the most reading time

 

[SHOdded]

Time to pull codes again. Can't ask about mpg since you haven't really put miles on it. O2 sensors may be bad, or like you said, the cats may have run past the 9 lives. If the cats are clogged, they will glow redhot. Much easier & cheaper to swap out the O2s though.

It is also possible that now that you have corrected some issues, there is a finite buildup in the engine somewhere that is getting burnt off. No exhaust smoke though, you said?

Keep an eye on the coolant too: level & quality, to see if a head gasket might be leaking. Rare on these engines, but possible. Keep an eye on the temperature gauge. If the engine is running TOO cool, would increase your emissions also. In this case, a thermostat changeout would be needed.

HTH.

 

[apanthropy]

Time to pull codes again. Can't ask about mpg since you haven't really put miles on it. O2 sensors may be bad, or like you said, the cats may have run past the 9 lives. If the cats are clogged, they will glow redhot. Much easier & cheaper to swap out the O2s though.

It is also possible that now that you have corrected some issues, there is a finite buildup in the engine somewhere that is getting burnt off. No exhaust smoke though, you said?

Keep an eye on the coolant too: level & quality, to see if a head gasket might be leaking. Rare on these engines, but possible. Keep an eye on the temperature gauge. If the engine is running TOO cool, would increase your emissions also. In this case, a thermostat changeout would be needed.

HTH.

Thank you for continuing to offer help :wave:

I just went out to the parking lot & asked the engine for codes, it's only outputting 111 and 10 with KOEO, I did not start it up and do a KOER.

The coolant level probably bears some watching, I can't establish a pattern yet since it had a (non-OEM) connector fail the other day during a short drive, prompting a significant amount of coolant spill. i stopped the vehicle immediately and had a friend bring me some bulk hose & distilled water to bypass the failure to get home, then replaced the hose with a correct hose and refilled again, then more recently had the intake off which meant the TB heater circuit lost more coolant..

The vehicle does run quite cool (near the bottom of the NORMAL gauge) and doesn't seem to keep a steady temperature - NEVER gets above 40% of the gauge but goes up and down wildly depending on driving conditions, so I'm wondering if the PO removed the thermostat entirely or if there's a "fail open" stat in there, which has failed... I'll put a new one in this evening in any case.

I really don't want to do O2 sensors or cats for the obvious "costs a lot" reason.. so the O2 sensors are coming out tonight for a bath in the ultrasonic jewelry cleaner and maybe some hot sexy blowtorch love. I don't have a reason to suspect mechanically failed cats, their lack of burning-off-the-leaked-oil-on-their-exterior before I fixed the ignition problem tells me they probably were too cool, not too hot so they won't have likely been burned out, if anything they're coated in a layer of unburned fuel goo. How much is involved in dropping the Y-pipe from an ATX car?

 

[SHOdded]

Seems removing the bolts is the hardest thing about the y pipe. Search on "remove y pipe" and you will see a few useful threads on the challenges therein. Overall not hard, just possibly labor intensive!

 

[rubydist]

#1 - recheck the codes - there is never a mixture of 3-digit and 2-digit codes.

#2 - check your cam timing. I had a car that failed emissions when I got it in the same manner as yours, and the timing belt was not on correctly - the rear cam was a tooth or two teeth ********, and this would cause the nox readings to be way high because of high combustion temperatures (which could also lead to the wide swings in temp gauge, although that is more likely due to a sticky thermostat from sitting so much recently) In my case, I pulled the Spout connector (the one on the passenger side) and passed emissions before I found the cam timing error.

#3 in my experience, pulling the Spout will reduce emissions by at least 50%, so you will be right on the ragged edge with just that as a fix to pass emissions.

#4 if the oxygen sensors are bad, and if they are running the engine lean (which is not their typical failure mode) then that will raise nox levels as well. oxy sensors are not expensive, so I would just change them.

 

[apanthropy]

#1 - recheck the codes - there is never a mixture of 3-digit and 2-digit codes.

If I plug in my Equus 3145 Ford code reader to the diagnostic port, then turn the key to "run", then switch on the code reader and press the test button, it runs the test and then reports 111 and then reports 10.

After replacing my O2 sensors and re-checking everything, and pulling the SPOUT connector by the firewall (but NOT the other one by the coil pack) - I went down for a retest. Results were much better, but I still failed on HC.

 

[apanthropy]

I'm updating this thread once more to hopefully provide conclusion, for posterity & perhaps for anyone who has similar challenges in the future and finds this thread in a search:

Last weekend I worked a couple odd jobs and gathered enough cash to afford to take this car in for new catalytic converters. I loathe doing exhaust work and there's a great muffler shop near me (Charly's Mofles II on Southern between 7th and 16th st.. nice honorable guys!) who did the job for $290 out the door with 2 new cats. I had a look at the old cats he had cut out of there and they were gutted, literally empty!

The previous owner was a 50something woman, not into performance (or maintenance) so I doubt they were gutted deliberately in a misguided attempt at reducing backpressure - they must have broken and blown out - hopefully they made their way all the way out and didn't back up into the engine like I've read about or get lodged in the exhaust system downstream

So - that should be the end of the story on emissions - will find out Friday. Woo!

 

[rubydist]

well since hollow cats are not real effective I expect you will be golden now.

 

[apanthropy]

That's what I'm thinking... crossing my fingers!

I just wanna drive!!

 

[apanthropy]

Final update on this thread, emissions test passed with SPOUT plugged in, registered, insured, now i get to DRIVE! woo!


Thank you for all your help guys!

 

[SHOdded]

:woo-hoo: Nice job! Glad you didn't give up, and that the SHO was salvageable :sun: