My 87 I-6 is giving me a headache. The motor has 170,000 miles and was hesitating badly when it was cold. Once it warmed up it would run normal. The hesitation was so bad that I took it to a shop to have a diagnostic ran on it. The mechanic said it seemed to be a combustion/ignition problem. He recommended new Autolite platinum plugs. I have recently replaced my wires, cap and rotor so those were fine. The mechanic said the plugs were bad so the computer was adding more fuel and more timing to help compensate for the poor combustion. The diagnostic also said my emissions were a little high which is probably from the added fuel and timing. So I replaced my plugs and disconnected my battery to clean any codes that were on my computer. Now my truck barely runs and is ticking. If I floor the gas the truck will rev up and sometimes makes good power and seems to run normal. The ticking is not the normal sound for my truck. What do arching spark plug wires sound like if there is a sound? Anyone have any ideas? Is there a certain way to break in the computer after disconnecting it? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Brian.

 

If you have a multi-meter chech to see if your wires exceed 5k ohms per foot; if they do replace them and if they don't pull your truck in somewhere it is fairly dark and see if you have a light show under the hood with the truck idling. If you see arching around the wires replace them. Don't worry about disconnecting the battery - the worst thing that will happen from disconncting the batt. on an '87 is losing your radio presets.

 

If you have any arcing around a plug wire, not only will you be able to see the arc during the "dark test", but there will be a faint but discernible electrical "tapping" sound associated with it. If you find an electrical leak, you can fix it with some electrical tape (I've done this several times with 100% success). Naturally, if the wire is rubbing against some part of the engine, you'll want to re-route the wire so it doesn't happen again. Also, electrical tape doesn't repress RF signals, so if your radio ticks when you're listening to your favorite station, don't blame me! =)

As far as reconnecting the battery goes, Ford recommends that you let the vehicle idle for at least two minutes after initial startup, so the computer can "re-learn" how to idle. In other words, don't hook the battery up, start the truck, and drive off...give it a few minutes before you go anywhere.

Pat

 

thanks guys. I will try that tonight. Brian.