Help with blow by in 1991 ford festiva

25

Asked by jdblackbelt Mar 31, 2012 at 10:05 PM about the 1991 Ford Festiva

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I got the car a few years ago and now i fell in love with it. it started off where it will run for a while and then stop. when it stops it spits and sputters and then sometimes it catches and runs more usually it dies. its a manual and usually when its moving and you throw it in gear it will not start again. it did this for a while and then i wanted to fix it because it was so annoying. and it has since progressivly gotten worse. so far i have put new fusable links on. replaced the fuel pump, ignition coil pack, plugs wires, distributor cap and rotor, pcv valve, batery, wiring harness (to fuel injectors), ignition control module, fuel filter, air filter, oil change and filter. I have also checked the entire fuel line system for any visible defects (none found) because when it spits and sputters it seems like its running out of fuel. checked the evap canister as well. but now its started to get a little bit of oil in the air system. its just into the first air intake piece and has not yet reached the air filter or the engine itself.
So i did a compression test and all cylinders were good. I have also done a lot of research but cannot find to much good stuff. I am getting very annoyed that such a reliable car is finally going bad.
Any ideas what to do next?

9 Answers

24,745

Sounds like you did a lot to your car. What was the compression? I'm asking cuz I was going to say valves might be part of your problem. What did the spark plugs look like....black and deposits or nice tan color??? Another item to check is injector spray patterns. Also could be timing if its sputtering and backfiring into air cleaner.

1 people found this helpful.
25

the pressure for all four cylinders was approximately 175. and It has only been about three years since the sparks were changed. but they looked great. a good grey and the electrodes (or whatever that little thing is) was still there in good condition. I have a new timing belt gasket that i have yet to put on because its starting to age (I havnt changed it since i had the car so...) and could you explain to me how to check the injector spray patterns? i have no idea how to do that

24,745

Compression is good. Starting to sound like a timing issue. Its a possibility that the timing belt jumped one cog. Does it blow back out of the intake? If so thats a strong possibility. After what you said about the plugs I would leave the injectors alone. If that is the original timing belt I would really suspect that with all the information given.

18,785

check out www.fordfestiva.com, there are plenty of festiva guru's that should be able to help you out. sorry to hear you still have an issue after fixing so much.

1 people found this helpful.
18,785

it's actually a vane air flow but is possible. It has a fuel switch inside of it so I doubt it's the VAF if it works sometimes. I'd say it may be a bad ground or inside the fusible link box may be corrosion not allowing for good connections.

Check resistance values on throttle position sensor. The next thing I'd check is the O2 sensor...mtcw

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