89 Starts, runs 4 min, sputters and dies

notsofine89

Registered User
Had the balancer (put in a BHJ) and crank sensor replaced by a Ford dealer after a 3-time crank bolt failure. 250 miles later, the car starts sputtering and dying again, acting the same way it did when the crank bolt broke. Crank bolt is still there this time...<I>a different</I> FORD dealer said balancer/sensor is fine, Crank bolt still intact, and said ECC-IV brain was the problem. Unfortunately, the part was "obsolete". At the advice of another poster here, I got the car the hell away from the dealer (good advice) and had it towed to my folks place.

If the car has been sitting overnight, it will start and run smooth for about 3 minutes. Then the tack starts jumping around wildly, after which it will sputter and die. It will refuse to start thereafter until it cools off.

Since then, I've swapped out the DIS module. Same thing. Sent the EEC-IV to SIA electronics in Illinois. Just got off the phone with their people...they can't find anything wrong with the unit.

The car is a 90 minute drive from me at my dads place. I'll be going home to reinstall the ECC-IV, then try to "pull codes" from it.

Has anyone seen this situation before? Any thoughts? When I head home to where the car is, I'll have a limited time to fix it. The folks want this thing out of their driveway....

Thanks!

Mike
 
Usualy when the tach goes nuts like that its the cam sensor.
The sensor is about $28.00 and only takes about 10-15 minutes to change, its an easy job.
 
I replied with that same exact response on another post and found I was wrong. Now I'm really confused as which one the signal comes from.

Cam Sensor - tells ECM when to squirt the injectors/sequence..
Crank sensor - tells ECM when #1 piston is at TDC or something like that...right?? So wouldn't it be the crank sensor sending the signal to the tach? :confused:
 
Actualy the tach sig comes from the DIS module, but it uses info from from cam sensor to get RPM info.
 
Bobgpz is this really this is the second confusing thread . What is up

Cam sensor = cylinder identification signal. Tells EEC where the 1 cylinder is.

Crank = pip signal / pulse width. spark and fuel injectors. this tells the EEC how many revolutions per minute the crank is turning.
 
Follow up after problem was solved

Problem was the crank sensor all right....code reader gave 11-10-14, and a look at the sensor revealed it was clearanced wrong...so wrong that the balancer was eating away at it. Replaced and properly clearanced crank sensor, and the problem went away. Amazing...One Ford dealer installed it wrong, the other looked straight at the broken car and told me there was nothing wrong with the sensor, and blamed the EEC-IV.

Moral of the story:

<DIV ALIGN='CENTER'><H2>AVIOD FORD DEALERS LIKE THE PLAUGE<BR>WHEN YOU HIRE A MECHANIC<BR>TO WORK ON YOUR SC</DIV></H2>
 
Crank sensor gives crank position information every 60 degrees of rotation. From this info RPM and the rate of RPM change is derived.

94-95 SC's with EDIS vs. the DIS system of the earlier cars gets crank position every 10 degrees of crank rotation so amonst other things dwell can be determined. In the DIS system dwell is "calculated". Just another advantage of the late models in case you were interested.
 
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