Bambi41
Member
- Joined
- March 24, 2006
- Messages
- 25
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1999 North Face LPG
Greetings fellow Explorers
I have just had a week scratching my head with a high idle problem.
Recently I changed my plugs and HT leads (wires) and then a couple of days later she started to over rev when warmed up. Also intermittently I saw the temp gauge head towards the red!!
There is not a lot of room when routing the HT leads around the back of the engine so I assumed my problem was related to a vacuum leak.
Time to strip: Cleaned everything I could think of with carb cleaner including: the MAF, IAC, throttle body and still she settled at 1100 rpm which is approximately cold idle. Obviously this makes my Ex quite a handful and affects driveability because of the clonks etc when putting her into drive not to mention increased fuel consumption.
Back to the drawing board
Fortunately our explorer forum is amazing and although I did not find anyone with exactly the same symptoms, one of our American cousins had similar problem and it was cured by replacing the thermostat.
I got a Motor Craft part (Finis code: 4356545) from my local stealership for £12 inc which I didnt think was bad considering my local trade parts centre had quoted £19 for a spurious part!!
This is how I did the change:
Take pipe/Maf/airbox top to get to the throttle body and after disconnecting the accelerator cable and cruise remove this also.
You now have quite a good view of the thermostat housing and the 3 X 10mm bolts holding it in place. The IAC pipe gets in the way a little as do the other various sensor wires, but you can jiggle them about to get the 10mm bolts out.
The back one is a little tricky but no too bad with an angled wrench. NB be careful not to drop the back bolt when putting the housing back on as I did!! I spent 30 minutes cursing trying to find it and get it back and then I gave in and a visit to Halfords for a magnetic picker upper (£5) 5 seconds later with a sigh of relief I had retrieved the offending bolt!!
The thermostat needed a little tap to get it loose and voila!!
I put it all back together (Don't forget to fit the new 'O' ring over the stat which is supplied in the box) making sure everything was clean and started her up to check for water leaks (there were none). She idled from cold at 1100 as normal and then settled back to 600rpm and has been idling as normal. The temp gauge reads a touch lower and she runs well.
Problem solved and all for £12 what a bargain!!!!
As usual my mate Howard was only a call away and always lends another brain to the mix (although his thought that I had a blown head gasket was not a welcome one!! lol)
Hope this helps someone coz the Forum sure helped me.
Dave
I have just had a week scratching my head with a high idle problem.
Recently I changed my plugs and HT leads (wires) and then a couple of days later she started to over rev when warmed up. Also intermittently I saw the temp gauge head towards the red!!
There is not a lot of room when routing the HT leads around the back of the engine so I assumed my problem was related to a vacuum leak.
Time to strip: Cleaned everything I could think of with carb cleaner including: the MAF, IAC, throttle body and still she settled at 1100 rpm which is approximately cold idle. Obviously this makes my Ex quite a handful and affects driveability because of the clonks etc when putting her into drive not to mention increased fuel consumption.
Back to the drawing board
Fortunately our explorer forum is amazing and although I did not find anyone with exactly the same symptoms, one of our American cousins had similar problem and it was cured by replacing the thermostat.
I got a Motor Craft part (Finis code: 4356545) from my local stealership for £12 inc which I didnt think was bad considering my local trade parts centre had quoted £19 for a spurious part!!
This is how I did the change:
Take pipe/Maf/airbox top to get to the throttle body and after disconnecting the accelerator cable and cruise remove this also.
You now have quite a good view of the thermostat housing and the 3 X 10mm bolts holding it in place. The IAC pipe gets in the way a little as do the other various sensor wires, but you can jiggle them about to get the 10mm bolts out.
The back one is a little tricky but no too bad with an angled wrench. NB be careful not to drop the back bolt when putting the housing back on as I did!! I spent 30 minutes cursing trying to find it and get it back and then I gave in and a visit to Halfords for a magnetic picker upper (£5) 5 seconds later with a sigh of relief I had retrieved the offending bolt!!
The thermostat needed a little tap to get it loose and voila!!
I put it all back together (Don't forget to fit the new 'O' ring over the stat which is supplied in the box) making sure everything was clean and started her up to check for water leaks (there were none). She idled from cold at 1100 as normal and then settled back to 600rpm and has been idling as normal. The temp gauge reads a touch lower and she runs well.
Problem solved and all for £12 what a bargain!!!!
As usual my mate Howard was only a call away and always lends another brain to the mix (although his thought that I had a blown head gasket was not a welcome one!! lol)
Hope this helps someone coz the Forum sure helped me.
Dave
