96 Sable

[tommyturbo]

Asking here since it's close to a sho. This is my aunts car. They are very bad about maintenance and care of cars. The do not ever do maintenance and then get grumpy when stuff doesn't work. It's hard for me to hold my tongue with them sometimes.

This sable is a 96, with the pushrod 3.0, and ax4s. Car has 198K. I drove it recently to get tires put on it for them, and the car felt tired and sluggish compared to my SHO's. The trans does seem like it could be slipping it has 100k on a ford rebuilt unit.

They called me and said, car is running badly, and we barely made it home. I ran codes with my basic code reader, codes for "Cyl 4 misfire" and a code "random, heavy misfires" Looked at wires and noticed it said motorcraft 1996 on the plug wires, so my guess was they never did plugs or wires. Seemed obvious. Also they said there was no heat.

Did research and found it's common to for the heater to get plugged on those, so got plugs, wires, a pigtail to fix the wiring for the mass air (some of the wires looked like they had been chewed off at the plug) a new thermostat and a fuel filter.

Did the plugs and wires, backflushed out the heater core and radiator, the heater core puked out brown sludge. Car seems to take along time cranking before starting when cold, but once warm starts ok. Idles ok, but took it out for a drive and it acts up.

It will seem to loose power, so you give it more gas until your flooring it and the rpms climb slowly, but it hits about 4000 rpm and seems to misfire and won't go higher or shift. I thought fuel pump, but every fuel pump failure I have had is, no fuel at all. But am considering it. Drove back home and checked codes, no codes. I consider the trans slipping, but I would think it would still climb past 4000 and not be misfiring.

I did notice that the wiring harness at the crank sensor has some exposed wiring right by the plug onto the sensor, but it's a different design than our sho's only has two wires and no radio frequency insulator stuff like our cars. It looked like there may have been some repairs on the wiring there but not sure.

Also plugs from the front bank were covered in oil, and back bank looked like they had been hot, very white and ashy.


Any how there are no codes, and am open to ideas. At least the heat works great now, lol.

 

[sperold]

It might be too soon to get the full value out of your plugs and wires change. Check the front plugs from time to time to see if anything changes.
Consider changing all the fluids including the automatic tranny fluid in the next little while. If you can check, look at all your connectors between the automatic and the rest of the car, since it has been out in the past.
Also consider a new fuel filter. Maybe give it a Seafoam treatment directly in the intake through the vacuum system.

 

[rubydist]

low power and not wanting to rev all the way up are typical symptoms of a sick tps - one that does not go out of range, but will not tell the pcm that the throttle goes wide open. Since you have no codes, I would start with a new tps.

 

[tommyturbo]

I forgot to mention I did change the fuel filter as well. I replaced the tps and vss early in the summer, as it was shifting really bad, and had no speedo, and had a vss code. I replaced the tps then too as I know the trans uses that heavily in its shifting logic. Trans fluid doesn't look too bad, which truly surprised me, but I would like to see them do a good service on the trans. I also dumped a bottle of techron into the tank.

I will take a look at the rest of the wiring, and check the connector on the trans. I have to say compared to my SHO's doing plugs was a breeze. SO much more room in there.

For what it's worth, the trans was replaced over 7 years ago if I recall correctly.

 

[Dirk37]

the car felt tired and sluggish compared to my SHO's

Every Sable feels tired and sluggish compared to a Sho lol

It will seem to loose power, so you give it more gas until your flooring it and the rpms climb slowly, but it hits about 4000 rpm and seems to misfire and won't go higher or shift.

This sounds to me like clogged cats. Above 4k the restriction is enough where no more exhaust can flow through and the engine can't rev higher. To test it you can pull out the upstream O2 sensors so the exhaust can exit there and see if it will rev higher.

 

[93markVIII]

bad misfire for an extended time can clog a catalytic converter.
so that does make sense.

 

[tommyturbo]

ok, thanks for the advice, I will check into it. If that's what it is, will shosource sell the y-pipes for 49 state cars in cali, what a difference on price....and I bet other than a number and carb sticker it's the same part.

 

[SHOdded]

Check the compression, & if you can, scope the cylinders. Check for signs of oil sludging or contamination when you change it out. Check spark energy.

 

[sperold]

You test the cats by using a heat sensor gun. They have come down in price to the point you can buy one for times like this. The temp at the out end should almost match the temp at the entrance, and I believe it is the the 600 degree F range.
Any place should ship the regular cat system to NY and California, as they do not know the install location. Lots of people work in these states but live one state over, and the addresss could be their work address.

 

[tommyturbo]

Just an update, got new y-pipe with cats, $355 from rock auto, and car seems to be good now.