Have a big problem and need some guidance..
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:21 pm
Okay first thing is first, I have a 88 bronco 2 with the 2.9L fuel injected engine and roughly 345000 km's. This unit has been excellent to me, its been ran rough and put away wet on the farm for years and the only work we have done to it since we have owned it (about 206000 km's ago) was a new water pump. Now i have a check engine light on and it won't start unless i have the gas pedal down and once it does start it runs very ruff like its missing.. which i'm sure it is because its sputtering and bouncing around. Even when i rev it up it still kinda misses and sputters. I can't seem to find a relationship between when it sputters/misses and rpms. Also when i had something on the gas pedal to keep it at a constant idle, the engine would kinda rev up for a about 40 seconds and then rev down for another 40 seconds.. almost like it was cycling. Well I changed the spark plugs, wires, rotor, cap, MAV i think its called.. (Unit that is bolted onto the firewall and has a vacuum line running to it), the module bolted onto the distributor, i have also tried a coil and tps from a friends bronco 2 (which is a 89) just to make sure it wasn't them. I also replaced the fuel filter and checked the fuel pressure which was around 40 pounds. Tried to listen to the injectors.. which was almost impossible with all the engine noise, even with a stethascope and I did hear clicking on all of them.. Now is the part where i'm getting very worried because i bought a obd reader from canadian tire to try and retrieve the engine code and it won't work. I used it on my buddies bronco and it worked perfectly, it even had a blinking indicator telling me that it was communicating with the vehicle, and mine it did nothing. I'm starting to think now that this is a seriouse problem, almost a ecm or a shorted/grounded wire which is going to be very pricy and time consuming. This vehicle is not worth much at all and it would be very foolish to spend greats amount of money on something that has 345 000 km's. But I will price out an ecm tomorrow just for curiousity. But now is my dilemma.. Depending on the price of the ecm, I don't wanna buy one and put it in and end up frying the new one as well if there is a short/ground issue. What do you guys think my next step should be? I'm thinking of finding a wiring schematic and using my multimeter and just find continuity between wires to make sure they arn't shorting or grounding. Does this sound like a logical step? I would definately like some feedback on what you guys would think or have had issues with before. Thanks alot and I hope to hear from you. I also think i'm going to try and trace the ecm wires to make sure no mice had chewed through them. Thanks.
