Hey Everyone, I'm coming for help again. Hehe. I've got what I feel will probably be a dumb question but hopefully with everyones help I'll know what it is.

See...tonight I wired in some new driving lights...well they didn't work cause I accidently wired a wire in the wrong spot but I'll take care of that tomorrow. Anyways...it said to disconnect the battery while doing the wiring so I did. After completing everything tonight I reconnected the battery and fired it up.

My '96 Ranger, 2.3L was idling just like normal for about 2 minutes and then it almost killed itself. I turned off the ignition and started it back up. Immediately it started trying to kill itself again and was not smooth running as I started to bring the RPMs from about 800 to 1800 and after that it ran smooth again. But once I brought the RPMs down again it tried killing itself again. Since I needed to clean up the shop really quick shut off the engine again. After returning to the truck and starting it up again...it tried to kill itself once and then ran smooth again. I tried doing smooth acceleration and take off and it seemed alright. Then tried fast accelleration and the engine seemed to perform as it normally does.

I've been told that every time you disconnect the battery for 20 minutes or more it basically clears the computer so it has to reprogram itself when being hooked back up. The three times that this problem has occured was after I had the battery disconnected for some time so my question is...is it just acting this way cause the computer is reprogramming itself...or is it another problem?

Thank you all for your help on this.

James

 

Actually, disconnecting the battery doesn't reprogram the computer. It just resets it to factory defaults. Its sounds to me like you fried something or created a short.

 

Ahh...you're right about it resetting. I knew that...just not really thinking right tonight. Kind of upset with all the problems I had tonight...just that was the first one I new how to describe. Hopefully tomorrow will have a new posting about some wires I found that seem to be a problem. But at least my truck runs for now. If I have fried something...do you have any idea what it could be Ken? Some how I got a feeling that this isn't going to be a cheap thing to fix. Thanks again.

James

 

 

i have a f 250 with the v ten and the computer is obviuosly holding that big boy back i can tell that when driving in town the power loss but when towing it comes alive ,and theres been times the computer gets confused and its like adding atleast 100 horses . i would like to know if anyone out there can re programm the computer so there are no factory power restriants .

 

"The vehicle needs to be driven to re-learn it's adaptive strategy."

That's what my Ford shop manual says about re-connecting the battery. If your truck is acting up only just after the battery disconnect, and it becomes normal after a period of driving, then I'd judge that your truck's behavior is normal. By the way, sitting in the driveway and revving the engine doesn't qualify as driving.

 

Welcome to the site but you do know this thread is over ten years old now. Information basically still good.
Dave

 

You're one of those people who is always looking at dates?? What a spoilsport!
More to the point, this isn't the F250 forum..

 

Boy, that's not my nature. Somehow caught it but have been sucked in so many times and replied on the wrong forum. They warn me that thats part of getting old!
Dave