Starting an N/A 3.8

Johnny_Squirrel

Registered User
Ok, one of my roommates has a '92 N/A bird. He had to do some running around today and he let me drive the car (felt good to drive a bird again), but the wierd thing I noticed about the car is that you had to push on the brake in order to start it. Are all N/A T-Birds like that?

Besides the wierd starting thing, that car did have some decent power. Didn't take much to squawk the tires. And the transmission acted very close to the same way the one in my Grand Marquis, so I'm wondering if they used the same one?

-Chris
 
I get to work on your old supercoupe soon, 93SC blew the headgaskets in it and I'm giving him a hand fixing it. I'm also going to port the blower and heads while they are off the car.
 
Awesome! So you're the one helping him out! If possible, I wouldn't mind trying to help you guys out a bit if the travel isn't too tough. It would be cool to see that car again someday.

-Chris
 
yea!!

aha, yea man. I had the same thign with my old 1990 t bird N/A, I had to step on the brake to start the car, i don tknow the exact years they had that but ill tell you i loved it. when taking my car to be serviced, they had to sometimes come back to me and say, "any special way to start it?" I liked it, like a built in security device. then when i got my 95 SC it didnt have that, but i didnt mind... was a cool feature though.. does anyone know if this is for SC's also? or just the N/A's?
-Damon
 
The brake pedal does not need to be pushed in my automatic 94 SC to start it but it's got to be pushed to shift it out of park.
 
i have to press the brake to start my 35th auto. that's the first car i've ever seen with that kind of feature. one of my friends asked me why i press the brake to start it one time, he never saw that either. when i got the car, i though tsomething was wrong with it, but then the guy told me to press the brake.
 
Hmm, perhaps the feature was added to prevent people from accidentally hitting the starter again when the engine is already running.

-Chris
 
I owned a 92 and a 91 bird before I got my super cat. The birds didn't have the brake switch but when I got my cat, I it didn't have a motor in it and after I got it in I thought the ignition was screwed. I started it for like a week with a screw driver until I took it to a friends house and we accidently found that you had to press the brake peddle down. I felt like a moron...BIll
 
same ting mang!

My superkitty has the same thing. I'm gonna crawl under there and jump it out. It's a pain in the *** as far as I'm concerned.
 
Please don't quote me, but I'm 99% sure that this feature was only installed in 1990 in all MN12's (SC & N/A, Bird and Cat). I don't remember why Ford did it though. The only time that I really mind it is when working on the car, you have to get in the car to start it rather than reaching through the window and turning the key.
 
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