I have a 1996 explorer which sometimes missing a beat while driving, and likes to stall occasionally at idle. It is not consistently behaving this way, but the most repeatable symptom I can find is that about half the time when I start it up, when I press the gas it will stall. After this happens, it will usually start up again ok. I have cleaned the MAF, and when that didn't fix the problem I replaced the MAF. Still the same symptoms. Anyone have any ideas?

Thank you

 

Have you changed the plugs and wires recently? I'm thinking that there could be a short in one of the wires or a semi-fouled plug

 

The spark plugs were supposed to have been replaced reasonably recently, I think in the last 6 months.

At this point I have swapped the MAF and cleaned out the IAC throttle body. It seems to be getting worse instead of better.

The error codes were 102 (MAF circuit low input) and 1100 (MAF sensor intermittent). Does this maybe mean I have an electrical problem rather than a hardware problem?

 

Sorry Yossarian but I got a chuckle when you said you fixed the MAF sensor twice and it still didn't fix the problem. Like the carpenter who cut the board twice and it was still too short. Then Isaw you next thread that you got the MAF error code. Now I see said the blind man who could not speak.

Plug wires - definitely plug wires. I had an intermittent miss, really wierd one, and plug wires fixed it. Smooth as a whistle now. I was getting a firing sequence error code.

But since you have a MAF code low input and interemittent ...seems like an electrical connector problem. Make sure the contacts are clean and nothing was inadvertantly grounded. The MAF takes a voltage, I think 5 volts, from the PCM as input. If the code says this is low it's not getting juice for some reason. The intermittent also points to a loos/bad connection. Make sure the female side of the connector is not too spread out - should be tight round circles.

Last thing is that you can do a wiggle test and literally wiggle the connection while watching your testor to see if you can reproduce the error code. Not sure if your OBD-2 supports wiggle tests though.

 

Just thought I'd post the solution to the problem, for anyone who may read this thread in future. In the end it was a damaged wire somewhere between the MAF and the computer. Once the offending wire was located and replaced, everything worked fine.

 

Ah ha! So I was on the right track of a bad connection. Question is, how does a wire get smashed like that?