SPOUT Connector

[84turbojoe]

For some reason, I can't find the spout connection in my harness. Its a 1984 by the way. Should it it be in the harness that runs to the distributor? A quick edit to original post. I found a connector abour 12" up from the distributor in that harness. Wires is yellow and the connector is a generic flat male/female type. Is this the correct own for timing? Thanks.

[SVOeric]

that sounds right...

one of the wires is yellow, I do remember that...

it should be just a little T looking plug that you can easily un-plug...

[GT350R]

On the early cars it wa a connector similar to the one used for the TPS. Big round plug that snaps both ends together. On the later cars , they used the removable "pill".

It is on the yellow wire and on my car is about the same 12 inches away. Sounds like you have it. If you are still not sure, watch your timing light as you unplug it. It shoud go from 25-30 , down to 10-12 when you unplug it.

Also , always check the advance to make sure t is making a good connection after you plug it back together. If the conection is bad it will stay at 10-12 (where ever you set the base timing) instead of jumping back up after you re-connect it.

[84turbojoe]

no power(long)

Thanks for the replies.
I did as was mentioned by gt350, unplugged, set to 10* and plug back in. Car sounds good at idle, revs fine. Once I go for a drive, no power at all. The gas peddle feels like its getting no response. Feels like the tps is not getting a good read on the opening and closing of the butterfly. So I checked the tps, it was off, and readjusted to .97 vdc w koeo. Try another drive, still no power. Felt like the car was in the "limp home" mode. It struggled to reach 2500 rpms. Turbo was whining(open 3'dp right now until exhaust is finished) and boost bumped maybe up to 4 maybe 6 psi.
I'm still fighting...so get back home, recheck timing, still good. I've read that the TFI can cause some crazy occurances so for the couple bucks, I threw one on tonight (not FMP). I loosed the dist. to get to the screws, put it on, and tightened the dist back up. OK, recheck timing since we messed with it. Disconnect SPOUT, turn the key, and crank it over. Runs for a second, dies. Try again, crank and no start, but with the key on, the tach zips all the way to 8k and a clicking sound starts coming from the engine. Turn off key. Try one more time, same thing. I took a look while it was doing this funky thing in the engine for a short. Thats what it sounded like, and found nothing that I could see. Sounded like it was coming from the fuel rail and injectors but not for sure.
New tune up, new turbo. Had the head off for head gasket but ran great afterward. When I checked timing 2 days ago, thinking the no power thing was that, I lined up the crank and cam, but the distributor was not . Loosened the belt, and lined up the dist. The book says rotate engine twice and check that it all lines back up. I did that but after 1 rotation, it all lined up as well than continued around and it was good also. I was thinking I might be 180* out, but would the car run at all if it were?Any ideas?? Where to start again? Thanks for the help!

[SVOeric]

oh yea......


sounds like you have some of the common SVO wiring harnes gremlins.

that clicking sound, with the tack jumping while the car was off is pretty much a dead give-a-way that you have at least one, if not a couple of loose, or grounding wires.

the injector harness is also bad about doing that same thing, so maybe some of your wiring issues are there as well.

When I hooked all the wiring back up to my 86, I pretty much went over EVERY wire and checked it as i put it back on. I found several that were bare in places, or the sheathing was starting to come off. I used black electrical tape on all that,.
One of the wires I ran across that had problems was the spout wire. That is how I knew off the top of my head that it was yellow. that will make your pop for sure!!

Also make sure you check all the wires coming out ot the TFI, that is a common place for them to get bare.

You are using a timing light when setting the timing, right ??

GT350R mentioned hooking the spout back up after you set the timing, to see if it did advance. Make sure you try that. that lets you know 1 if the spout is working, and 2 if youi have the right connector.

[84turbojoe]

Thanks Eric.
In the mean time, I went to GT350r's site and printed out the pin out voltage listing he has. Through check them all I found a common circuit that was not giving any readings with any other corresponding circuit. It was 359, which is pin 46. This is funny b/c pin 46 is the signal return wire that goes to the self test connector. I posted here about a month ago looking for that plug for my eec-iv code scanner and have never found it yet. Guess there's going to be some more long hot summer nights.Thanks again.
God I love to hate these cars...
God I hate to love these cars...

[GT350R]

That sure would explain the problem!

The hard part will be narrowing it down to what is causing it. It could be a bad computer or it could be wiring. Pretty hard to say which.

I would check pin 26 to a good ground first and see if it is at 5.0 volts. That is the wire that feeds the volategto the sensors and 46 is the ground. How it works is that pin 26 feeds all the sensors 5 volts, then most all the sensors on that curcuit are kinda like potentimeters (variable switches). They split the 5 volts to reflet whatever they are doing and that voltage goes to the sensor specific pin. The overflow (kinda) from all the sensors (whatever is left from the 5 volts) goes back through pin 46.

Get it? So with pin 46 dead, it can mean that it is either pin 26 or 46.

For it to be a wiring problem (in the sensor portion of the harness), it would mean that pin 26 is broken BEFORE the first sensor, or pin 46 is broken AFTER the last sensor. Any other pplace and it would still be able to make a complete curcuit through the other sensors. Stare at the diagram for a bit and you will see what I mean.

That is other than fuse links and bad ground or even the ignition switch of course. This is where I am going to say Eric is right on the money and to suspect a ground of fuse link first. Its just unlikely that it is anything else, since a wire will rot and ground out wayyy before it will break into two pieces causing a dead curcuit.

So look around for a connector you forgot to plug in or a bad ground.

Is everyone starting to get a good understanding of just how easy this computer is to work on?

[84turbojoe]

I appreciate the help GT350R and Eric. Unfortunately, but a good thing as well, I left for vacation the following morning and couldn't start the wiring troubleshooting. So here I am on the beach with wiring diagrams, Haines manual, etc, having the water get the pages wet...I'll have to check this town for a junk yard. I'll update after I get back and knee deep in wires!

[SVOeric]

oh yea.. sucks to be you ... hu

[gbeaird]

Joe,

'84s were notorious for having wiring insulation that would get brittle with age and just break off. I had that on my old 84. The car would run great for a while, then die when I was making a turn. Twice I had to tow the car home. I fixed this problem with a new (replacement Ford unit) distributor wiring harness. Check with Ford, they may still list them.

A way to test this is to start the car, and get under the hood (looking out for any rotating parts and spark plug wires) and _gently_ move the primary wiring around a bit as it might when you are driving the car. Most of the affected wiring should be on the driver's side of the car. If the car starts running bad, or clicking, you can chase the problem down to the offending wiring bundle.

If the car starts and runs okay, the problem probably won't show up with the car standing still. You have to move things around a little.

You may also want to start the car and run it at night, watching for any arcing from the plug/coil wires. Since the wires lay over the valve cover, it is possible that they could have worn and are arcing against something (hence the popping noise). If you are really brave, you may even try gently running your fingers down each wire to see if it is arcing (OUCH!). I suspect the problem is in the primary wiring system, though, given that it is an '84.

Hope this helps.

Gene Beaird
86 2R SVO
Pearland, Texas

[84turbojoe]

elect prob

Thanks for the infor Gene, I'll look into that today (just got back from vacation). I'll check w/Ford on the distributor wiring harness b/c I know mine has many bare wires and questionable as to my problem right now.
It was funny how I was able to slip out while on vacation to some junk yards in unknown territory. Went to one and they pulled the parts and only the whole system, like an injector harness, they sold you the manifold, rail, injectors and harness for an outrageous price. I asked them for as pull your own parts junk yard , and they said," oh, you really want to do that??" I said thanks and left. I guess it was a ritzy town where people don't do that in South Jersey...Anyway, I'll let you know what I find.
Joe

[84turbojoe]

Found some problems

Well, I went through most of the engine comp. and repaired most of the wiring insulation breaks I could find. Since alot of the sensors and elect comp. are inexpensive, I went ahead and replace them (ie. O2,ECT,Coolant temp switch, volt reg, coil etc).
One problem found, a wire from the volt reg harness was not fully seated to the reg.
Next one, and a good one. Inside the SPOUT connector wiring harness is a braided/shielding that runs from the spout connector (within an inch) all the way down inside the passenger side kick panel next to the computer and is grounded there. This shielding was contacting the spout connector and shorting it out. Now this is in my car, don't know if its correct or not about the shielded cable?
So now the car idles like a champ, holds time and some of the power is back, but...low end torque is real bad(worse than normal), and boost is limited to 6psi.
Going to new thread to keep short.
Thanks for the help so far!!
Joe