I have a Windstar '98, 168.000 miles, 3.8. It has started to idle very
roughly, but the problem is very intermittant. It seems to only occur
when sitting in traffic, idling, in gear for over 5 minutes. The check
engine light does not come on, even when it is obviously misfiring.

I had the computer scanned and no codes were stored. I'm a little
confused, as I thought the computer would pick up any type of misfire, so it
could be diagnosed. I was hoping it would at least tell me which cylinder
had the problem! Any ideas as to why the computer does not give me any
informaiton?

I talked to the dealership mechanic and and he suggested I start by
replacing all the fuel injectors. He said as the FI ages, the resistance
goes up when the FI gets warm/hot and are a very common cause of
intermittant misfire, especially in the conditions I describe where the
under hood temperature goes up from stop and go traffic.

He also told me 150K is beyond the service expectation of a ford fuel
injector. He also recommended buy the full set of FIs, as they are usually
within 3% of each other for fuel flow. As if you buy them one by one the
fuel flow could vey by as much as 15%.

This sound like an expensive fix for guessing what the issue is. Any
suggestions?

Did a little more diagnosing and here is what I found.

After warmed up, if I turn on the headlights and blower, one of the fuel
injector just stops working. With my voltmeter, it showed 12.0 volts and
it stopped working, 12.5 volts and it was fine. Never would have guessed
that the voltage dropping half a volt would be the difference between a FI
working and not working!

Lucky it was one front middle, so two bolts and 10 minutes had the new one
in. Time for a test drive!!

Still debating if I should replace all the FIs, or just wait for them to die
one by one.

It it normal to have a FI die a slow death like this?



"Jack" <jpatxx (AT) yahoo (DOT) net> wrote

I had a fuel injector problem that turned out to be a bad contact in the
connector. Over time, corrosion created a resistance that affected
operation of the injector.

Of course, this means that the problem was intermittent. That only adds
to the fun.

Ken

Jack wrote:

Jack wrote:



All guessing is expensive ... and a gamble ... just look at that last
piece of shit for a President we got killing our troops for WMDs,
mushroom clouds and imminent threats.

So ya wanna slam dunk this ... it is more likely to be a fuel problem
then electrical or air pressure (smog control) as that would tend to be
more persistent ... it runs rough all the time sort of thing.

I am guessing you have a fuel delivery problem before it get distributed
to the injectors ... seems it is all the injectors that are suffering or
starving when it runs rough and then gets better.

If your fuel filter is good, and dunno if this is an electrical fuel
pump, if so then that might be going out if it is original equipment and
that is what I would think about fixing up a bit.

If you have a mechanical fuel pump that works off the engine torq, then
same thing might be going on in a different way.

Short of this .. have to wait until it is smoking or on fire or does it
all the time, run rough .. then you will know what is broken.

sumbuddie hopes this helps

:?