My girlfriend and I just recently bought a 1990 Ford SHO taurus. Everything was working great on it up till acouple weeks ago when she was driving home from work and the car just completly shut on her while she was driving. There was no notice no nothing, just shut off like she turned the key. it stopped for awhile and then started doing it more and more. After about 30-40 min the car will start right back up, but there is no telling how long it will be before it shuts off again. It doesnt matter weather she is driving it or if its at a standstill it will just shut off to the point where there is no power at all. We hooked up to an OBD1 reader and it threw no codes at all. We were told that it was the electronic control module, but we replaced it and it still does the same thing. So right now we are pretty much in a guessing game right now. If anyone has ANY info that they can share please let me know. Cause once its fixed this thing is FOR SALE!!

 

overheating?

 

domestic?
but + 1 for overheating, which would be why it starts back up after a little while. check coolant levels

 

alternator?maybe?

 

possibly the crankshaft position sensor. directly controls fuel/ignition and their sensors can heat up and have an internal open in the sensor. once the car cuts off and the sensor cools down, the contacts will close again and the vehicle will start.


easy way to rule it out is to remove the sensor. connect an ohmmeter to each of the pins on the sensor. take a lighter and heat the sensor up, be sure not to hold the lighter or heat gun too close as you dont want to damage the sensor. but watch the resistance reading on the crank sensor, if it goes open during this test, you found the gremlin.

 

the temp gauge did go up and down when we drove it but nothing extrmeme and it never overheated. I have been told that to get to the crank sensor, half the motor has to be take out to get to it. anyone know exactly where it is?

 

yeah, like everything else on the yamaha's, a pain in the fucking ass to get too.


what brand ignition module did you replace it with? until you actually run some diagnostic tests on it, its a guessing game.


and btw....the ignition module for that car that is the right one that works will be in the area of 3-500 bucks. a GP unit is a piece of shit, and rarely work for a while on them.

 

+1 for a crank position sensor (or cam position sensor)

Just checked autozone and they have them for under $30.

After that, check for a faulty coil.

 

how bout actually check things before replacing parts? especially with the crap that AZ sells.



ignition control module? engine control module? which one

 

Its the modual that sits on the side of the intake manifold on the passenger side of the car. I do beleive its the engine control mod. As far as diagnostics, we took it to a local shop that ran an obd1 reader on it, and it came back with nothing. The check engine light never comes on when it shuts off or any other time. I was told that if the check engine light doesnt come on its might not show any codes when they diagnos it? The fuel pump is working properly so we can void out that its a fuel issue. Now we just have to find out what electrical issue we are having? Thanks for all the help so far, if anyone else has any suggestions please let me know. thanks again.