fender1983

Well, I have been washing engines ones a year on all mine cars since mid 90's. Never had a problem even on carburetor cars. This is first time..

I drove my Mustang about 4 miles yesterday and 15 miles today. I am pretty sure the engine was hot enough to evaporate all water.

1) I checked cops and rubber boots and blow them with pressurized air. Rubber boots has no cracks so I don't expect any problems with them. The coil has some transparent greas (looks like vacuum grease to me) on high voltage terminal. Could it cause any problems? I though some dielectric grease suppose to be there.

2) I blow spark plugs wells with air. There were no water inside.

3) I checked 12V connectors on coils to make sure they are not wet.

4) I disassembled coils again and ohm them. The resistance between 12V terminals are about 200-240 Ohms on all of them. The resistance between high voltage terminal and any low voltage terminal is about 5.6-5.7k. I did not found any strange readings on coils. I also inspect coil housings for cracks - no damage found.


5) I did not check spark plugs because I didn't have special socket. This is my next step, but I don't expect to find anything since the last owner told me he replaced them about a year ago. However I will going to check them and probably will replace them with new set since they are cheap to swap.

6) I am afraid I have shortage inside wire harness due to water inside of wire harness housing.

7) I opened 42 pin connector which connects engine wire harness to ECU and applied air there as well. No difference.


P.S. 2 months ago my car refused to start when it was about 25F outside. I had to crank it 4 times. I suspect I may have to replace fuel filter and fuel pump. However I am not sure it is connected with misfire in any way since the car has problems only after I washed engine bay. Now the car runs, but I can hear annoying pops when it idles and it loosing power under heavy load if I have to accelerate.


I spent about 5 hours today... I still prefer to fix it myself before bringing it to the repair shop. I am so tired The good thing is that it is drivable now and I should be able to get to work tomorrow.

fender1983

For reference: vehicle is 10 years old and has 83000 miles on it.

chronos

The more you tell us, the more I start to think this has nothing to do with the motor wash. I am thinking it may all be a coincidence. That does happen at times and it sends you searching in the wrong direction. It seems like there may have been a lurking problem that had nothing to do with water, but maybe the pressure washer exasperated it. I would start looking for disconnected items (hoses, electrical, etc), maybe broken hose or wire some place. I had the same problem many years ago with a car after I did an engine wash. Difference was that motor was so filthy I used a degreaser. The degreaser opened a hole in one of the vacuum hoses and the car ran like crap. It took me forever (a few days) to track it down. Reason was the pin hole was facing down so I didn't see it till I took the hose off. Ever since then I stopped using degreasers. It ate up all the old hoses on that car and I had to buy all new vacuum lines. Follow the KISS rule and it may show up as something really simple.

fender1983

I will be swapping intake manifold anyway since I have new Dorman manifold seating in the box. It will give me a chance to eliminate blown intake gasket problems. I will also try to plug brake boost line, cruise control vacuum line and etc until I eliminate hoses leaks.

I also heard that you can fine spray some water over running engine to find areas where this water mist will be sucked in the engine.

chronos

You can spray a fine mist of water or carb cleaner. Whatever will make your engine sputter and die will alert you to where a broken hose or vacuum leak resides.

fender1983

It is big mystery for me. The car was running acceptable in the morning, however tonight it seemed to be returned almost back to normal...

cano86

That really sounds as if your COP's are going, that happened to me before and when it was cold outside it would refuse to turn on, you might want to change those before going on more expensive,

phuongtim29

Great post! It's very nice and userful. Thank you so much for your post.

fender1983

Problem resolved itself. The car runs totally normal. I believe I had moisture inside coils as it looked like I had a problem on high voltage side. I may swap them in the feature just in case.

Good thing I waited before I started buying expensive stuff.

Thanks to everyone for support. I really appreciate it!

torchred02

awesome thats good to hear.