long crank and gauge wonkiness

[avatar28]

95 Taurus SHO I just picked up (automatic, 3.2L). Car has about 150k miles and there are a bunch of receipts so it seems the previous owner took pretty good care of it. I only paid $850 and the car seems to run pretty well (mostly) so I feel like I did well.

The car cranks fine but you have to crank and crank for a quite a number of seconds. Sometimes it catches and fires up after just a second or two, other times I've had to crank for 10 or 15 seconds. Many times when I have to do a long crank, the engine will stutter and miss out and stall again when it does catch. Every now and then I will get a shudder (from a misfire?), most commonly when I let off the gas to stop accelerating and maintain speed. I'm sure at least part of that is that the battery needs replacing (it's 5 1/2 years old) and I will be doing that today but I don't think that explains all the symptoms.

So far the issues sound like possibly the camshaft position sensor. However I've also had a bit of wonkiness with the gauges. A couple of times the fuel gauge dropped drastically right after starting (by about half a tank) and then would slowly creep back up to showing a full tank. A few times the tach has just gone dead only to come back to life a few minutes later. Today the tach dropped to 0 while driving and the CEL came on a couple of seconds later. Car seemed to run just fine.

Other possibly relevant info.

• Thermostat seems to need replacement. Car takes a long time to warm up and if I start driving the temp drops. It's still warm enough to provide cabin heat though. If I'm driving slow (city driving) it will reach almost to the middle of normal but once I'm moving good it drops down to around the top of the N.
• Check engine light comes on generally after a period of time (due to the thermostat keeping it from reaching proper operating temperature I'm assuming). This is in addition to the one I described earlier with the tach. No I haven't pulled codes yet. I don't have a scanner that will work with OBD 1 and Auto Zone et al don't have one they're willing to use to pull the code (nor do I have the $80 they're asking for an OBD 1 reader right now).
• There is a slight chirping from the engine compartment. I'm assuming it's a pulley but maybe it could be something else?
• There is a leak in the exhaust manifold somewhere. You can clearly hear it. I assume I can just have someone weld the hole closed if they can access it?
• AC compressor doesn't appear to kick in at all. I never hear it cycle and don't experience the parasitic load on the engine.
• When I got the car the Power locks/power seats fuse was blown. I swapped it with the rear defrost fuse. Maybe others are blown too?

Thoughts?

Oh, other things I've got planned are to Seafoam the engine good. Pep Boys had it on sale but I had to buy two cans to get the deal. I figure half a can into the oil, half through the intake manifold (best place to put it?), second can would go into the fuel tank, either all at once or 1/2 can in two successive full tanks. Money is stupid tight right now. I know it needs an oil change. Any other maintenance I need to look into? I need to get this fixed soon I can pass the sniff test to get my tags.

Edit: just replaced the battery. Almost couldn't start the car. Cranked and cranked. Finally got it running. Tach is still dead and CEL is still on. Tach hasn't worked in the last several trips. Also the car cranked well for several seconds and then bogged down a second or two then back to cranking well. Starter on the fritz too? Oh and I couldn't get the car to shift out of park after I replaced the battery. After idling for a few minutes it finally worked.

Temps even with it being colder today are going up to around the AL in normal. If someone had installed a cooler thermostat, is that where you would expect to see it staying?

 

[NoSlo]

If the car will not start half the time, and the tach is dropping to zero or dead, classic cam sensor, there's only a very small chance of it being something else like faulty wiring or computer.

The A/C won't turn on if outside temperatures are below 50F. It also won't turn on if the system has a leak and the pressure has dropped too low.

Don't snake oil your car with seafoam. Fix what is actually bad.

 

[rubydist]

you don't need a scanner to read codes on obd1, all you need is a paperclip and the ability to count to 9.

check the codes.

you do not get a check engine light for the coolant temp being too low - there is some other issue too.

 

[avatar28]

I tried to pull the codes from the EEC but I don't think I did something right.

KOEO gave me four codes but only two of them were valid, an all clear and something about the SPOUT circuit. Codes were 111, 212, 433 and 221

KOER gave me several. I ran through the test twice but it's sort of hard to see what it's doing without a tach. 111 (all good), 538 (says it didn't receive the goose test, see below), 412 (Idle too low), 411 (idle too high), and 543 (fuel pump secondary circuit failure). When I tried to do the goose test and hit the gas, RPMs went up a bit and then it kept cutting out like I was bouncing off the rev limiter. Without a tach I have no way of knowing how hard it ever got to.

Oh and the connectors for the test had a bunch of oil over them. The rubber plug covers on the front bank of cylinders seemed to have oil on them when I first got the car last weekend too.

 

[rubydist]

well, none of those codes would result in an intermittent check engine light being on, so I'm thinking you need more practice at reading them.

when you put the jumper on the connector, and turn the key to on, the cel will flash rapidly for a second or 2 - that is the pcm outputting the codes to a reader - ignore that. then you will get the current codes displayed from low numbers to high numbers, and repeated. then you will get a single pulse, which is a separator. then you will get the stored codes, again displayed from low to high and repeated.

since you don't know how old any of those codes are, I would reset them, drive the car a couple of days, and then read them again. if you need to, make a video and post it so we can help you decipher the flashes.

 

[avatar28]

well, none of those codes would result in an intermittent check engine light being on, so I'm thinking you need more practice at reading them.

when you put the jumper on the connector, and turn the key to on, the cel will flash rapidly for a second or 2 - that is the pcm outputting the codes to a reader - ignore that. then you will get the current codes displayed from low numbers to high numbers, and repeated. then you will get a single pulse, which is a separator. then you will get the stored codes, again displayed from low to high and repeated.

since you don't know how old any of those codes are, I would reset them, drive the car a couple of days, and then read them again. if you need to, make a video and post it so we can help you decipher the flashes.

Well it was night and freaking cold. I will try the video after clearing the codes. The CEL is pretty continuous now and the tach never works. I'm going to replace the camshaft sensor and thermostat and will pull the battery then to let it clear codes.