my contour TKO

[95customtourSE]

Hi folks, I think that my v6 has finally had it. I was on RTE 84 friday night with the cruise on, happily floatin' down the highway when there was a sudden surge and then a loss of power. I slowly went from 65 mph, down to 45 and at some points unable to break 35. I thought at one point I might need a tow just to get up a small hill. It felt like I had lost a spark plug. I had this happen to me last year and the year before, due to a fouled plug ( this is the cylinder that has a bad piston ring and passes oil ) , the plug gets oil saturated, builds up carbon deposits, and eventually fuses the plug. No gap=no spark. So i proceeded to replace the full set of plugs this morning hoping that i could resolve this little problem for another year. SQUAT!!!
So the engine will run but its skipping alot, just as if there's a misfire. Checked the coil pack and through the wires, plenty of spark. I didn't find any cracked, missing, or unplugged wires. The oil was about 3/4 of a quart low, but that shouldn't do it, and all the other critical fluids were fine too.
In any case I believe that it's time to get a replacement engine ( this one's at 242,000 ) Do any of you folks know of a good deal within say a hundred miles? I found one with 72,000 miles on it in Roe Dylin' ... ha ha. $1900 installed with warranty. I'm off to investigate Ebay right now. I really don't like the idea of letting the bone yard come and get her just yet. I just spent $2500 on the tranny rebuild with a new clutch, lower control arms etc...last year. so I think that the replacement engine will be worth it. Any ideas or recomendations????

 

[redneckboarder]

3l!!!!


10 characters

 

[95customtourSE]

oh heck yeah!! I thought about it, but I just don't have the time or finances to support that idea yet. I just need a quick fix so I can get back n' forth to work etc...anyone have a used engine to sell???

 

[JSmith]

Before you jump to the conclusion that the engine needs to be replaced you should do a little diagnostic work. For all you know something simple happened. Something where if you just replace the engine and leave all the electronics you could end up starting the new engine only to find it having the same problem.

One thing to try is to start the engine and see what color smoke its making. Black smoke, too much fuel; blue smoke, oil burning; white smoke, lots of oil burning; no smoke, ignition or vacuum leak.

Something similar happened to a friend of mine. The car had barely enough power to get itself moving and it was running real bad. All the while that it was doing that it was puffing out black smoke from the exhaust. What happened was the intake pipe from the mass air flow sensor fell off the throttle body. He put the tube back on and it was fine.

My friend's wife has a Contour. One day she went to start it up to go to work and it started but was running very poorly, again puffing alot of black smoke and then would stall after 10 or 15 seconds. What happened was the circuit in the computer responsible for fuel management failed. She had the computer replaced and it's fine now.

 

[95customtourSE]

Tko

Tko

I agree with you. I did a general daignostic on it. Simply put, i rebuilt the top end about 90k miles ago and never touched the bottom end. It's been burning blue smoke through first and second gear now for about 3 years. What made me decide to do this was when it finally puked blue, black, and white smoke, alot of white smoke, constantly. And it smells pretty funky when you're driving behind it ( according to my bro ) even when it stops smoking.
Tired of playing around, pouring in a half quart of oil a day and hoping that it would be good enough to get by, I just decided to find a good used engine. I found one today from a late model cougar with 72,000 miles for $700. Once all of the new parts from the original engine are transferred over to the used one i should have some good accessies to sell, like an alternator, water pump or something. Does anyone need something? I could try to grab it before the block is scrapped.