Category:"Now they tell me..."

[rustyyb]

O.K., this isn't a current problem but somebody might have seen or have the same "defect". My sister and her husband gave me their babied '92 XLT/4.0 4X4 in '04 with 64K and I drove it from Las Vegas to Atlanta. My brother-in-law was very clear that it wasn't a very powerful vehicle and to make sure I got a running start on hills, etc. And it really was kind of slow all around. Still, something seemed "off", like it really should accelerate and pull harder. It was like it wouldn't open all the way up. When I got home, I felt around under the gas pedal and SOB! The factory molded carpet hadn't been glued all the way forward. The throttle couldn't fully depress. 60,000 miles and it had never been truly floored! Ten seconds to make a slit in the carpet behind the pedal and man! She jumped and chirped like a scalded dog. Even last week while, um, testing the brakes in the driveway, it started turning the tires over standing still. Wonder how many owners went from showroom to scrapyard just assuming their EX was just kinda slow?

 

[obie]

That's pretty funny

Id suggest running some seafoam through it to clean all the deposits that'll form from not running the engine hard, but with 64k on it already, I wonder if that's going to hurt it.

 

[wood1]

Hilarious!

Mind you, I don't think that the transmission will last too long if you are cranking on it from a dead stop like that. They aren't known to be a strong tranny to begin with... you are lucky to have a low mile first gen. Enjoy!

 

[freezerlunik]

I had a similar experience. Turned out I had a loose/stretched out throttle cable. Put on some zip-ties on it to take out the slack, and that was the most power gain for the least investment thus far Now I will check the carpet for more "room for improvement", too!!!

 

[awood]

Now that's funny...

You may also want to check the brake fluid for moisture contamination. I inherited a 92 from my dad who lived about 120 miles from Las Vegas. It too had about 65k original miles on it when I got it a few years ago. I guess from all that sitting around, water contaminated the brake fluid, causing the RABS module to rust shut. It took me a couple of months to figure out I had no rear brakes. I replaced all the calipers, bypassed the RABS module with a short piece of brake line (leaving the electrical plug in so the light remained off), and flushed all the fluid out, and all was good.

Sadly it was lost in a wreck a couple of months ago.