Hello,

First of all I am new to this site but am very impressed with the answers that I see and the politeness of the site. I am not a novice to car repair, but very very low on the totem pole. Anyhow, I have a 1997 Mazda B2300 that i just replaced the spark plugs. I have 36,000 thousand miles on my truck, and I know that the plugs lifespan should be 60,000 but I was losing power during acceleration so I thought this would be my first place to start. Anyhow, after taking the intake manifold off , putting it back together, and starting it back up I had the enjoyment of some pleasant misfiring. So I had bought some new wires just in case I had to replace them, so I took it off the second time (its always faster when you learn how to do it the first time) and replaced all the wires. I had problems initially with two of them, so I pretty much assumed that the problem was the wires. I tried to reseat the old wires but I did not have any luck. So now I start up and my car is at normal idle. This is the only work I have done on my truck since I got it except for general tune up.

Now I dont know if this is related to what I have done ( I dont think it is) but when I turn my A/C on, when I am at a normal idle the idle is fine, but then I hear the clutch on the A/C click, and then I lose like a 1/2 horse of power. This happens about once ever 10 seconds or so. I have asked a couple friends what they think may be the problem. Now I am assuming that maybe the clutch on the compressor is going, but I only started having this problem since I changed my plugs. Now I know it could be coincidence also. Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone has maybe had this problem, knows if I am looking in the right direction, or is there was some error that this idiot made while changing his plugs. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

My present plans are to go pay the $20 and have the diagnostics done on the A/C if the problem cannot be solved here.
The idle however is just hunky dory without the A/C on. Thanks in advance for any information you can give me. By the way, I LOVE MY TRUCK!! If I get time I will post some pictures.

Travis
(hockeyfan_5000)

 

Welcome to FTE!!!

I don't think the plugs were the original cause of your power lose, you should put dielectric grease on all the wire boots.

The AC cycling seems a little fast to me but I'm not an AC guy and I can't recall how fast it is on my 2000 3.0.

Now back to your main problem. I'm not 100% clear what happens with the AC on, do you lose power or idle speed? For a power lose I would make sure the air cleaner is new and try replacing the fuel filter. Are you sure you don't have an intake vacuum leak? Do you ever get a CEL?

 

Hello,

Thank you for the speedy reply. As for the dielectric grease for the boots that was taken care of.

I guess I was not complete in my first posting. Before I changed my plugs, the idle was fine. However, when releasing the clutch in first gear I would feel power loss momentarily, and then would accelerate. As far as the CEL being on, it has been on since I got it. The result code indicated that there is a problem with the ECS valve. However, I took it to my mechanic and he said that he checked it and he could not find a problem. However the light is still on.

But the problem of it losing power seems to have been fixed since the change of my plugs. This may be temporary fix. I also failed to mention that one of my bolts on the intake broke off and has not been replaced yet. I thought I could get away with that temporarily until I could get the right bolt. Could this be causing the vaccuum leak you were referring too?

As I stated before its only been two days since I did my plugs and this issue occured directly after that. Other than this the A/C was running perfect.

The problem is when the truck is idle and the A/C is on. I will hear a loud click (clutch on the compressor) every 6 seconds or so. When I physically look at the clutch I see it start, stop a coulple times, then it appears sometimes to keep going.

Also, when the truck is idle now it is not blowing cold air until the truck is accelerated past 2 rpms. At this time I do not here the clicking anymore.

Once again thanks for your help and if you need any more information please let me know.

Travis
(hockeyfan_5000)

 

I also failed to mention that I also replaced the air filter... ;-)

 

If you have a CEL on it could cause the power issue if it comes back. What is a ECS valve?

The fact that you don't get cold air until2k rpms leads me to believe there is a problem but like I said AC is not my area, I would think it would just be a charging thing. Did this start after you did the plugs or before?

 

Hello Ken,

This only started happening after I replaced the plugs. Do you think in any way missing the one mounting bolt to the intake manifold could cause this issue, or just a part gone bad?

Thanks,

Travis
(hockeyfan_5000)

 

Ok I was just on break at work, and I also did this test...I turned the ignition and let it set without giving any power to the engine....and had A/C on. The clutch was fine...and it seemed to be blowing cool air.. However, the second that I give it power, the clutch start to click again about every six seconds. Do you think this may be a vacuum problem?? Any input will be helpful. I will most likely take it to a proffesional tomorrow and have them do diagnostics on it.

Travis
(hockeyfan_5000)

 

I can't think of any reason a broken intake bolt would affect the AC operation. Is it possible that you bumped an electrical connection for the AC when you did the plugs. You may want to try asking the AC question on our AC forum, I'm sure they would know more about the cycle times than I do, I'm thinking the total cycle time should be 20-30 seconds in the warm weather.