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Need some help please. Just sold an 89 Tracker to a guy who lives 150 miles from me. He called to ask about an intermittent stumble/electrical problem while cruising on the freeway in 5th. Said it did it a handful of times on his way home but it would go away and run fine in between. He described it as a loss of electrical which would reset the radio and then the engine would stumble and run really rough at idle after pulling over. Car will restart normally and idle fine after glitching. I don't have much history with this rig as I bought it as a project with a blown head gasket and have driven it little after redoing the head,timing belt etc. He initially told me he thought it was a vacuum leak but why the intermittent ? The 2 VSV ? valves are not hooked up as the PO seemingly bypassed what little emissions are on the 89. I told the guy I sold it to I would throw out these symptoms to this site and see if I could direct him where to look. I feel bad as I represented the rig as accurately as I could but never had it glitch as he is describing. Any help is appreciated.
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Never mind on the electrical. He said the radio cutting out was not connected to the engine problem. Leaning towards vacuum.
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89 is a very very old car.
and most , have lots of issues, including intermittent. and missing VSV , bingo.
it's not a vacuum leak, all 89s race with a leak, opposite of a stall.
well the vsv on a 89 :
1: the EGR, ok , if the EGR main dont leak, no foul
but
2: the Dash pot, now that is not a part that is optional. at all . this device not hooked up (depends on how done)
the dash pot has many roles, functions. one is fast idle at start,
and then the dash pot action it , cause an air leak as you cut the throttle preventing neck snap, and stalls.
defeating is not good.
2b: not only that , it fools the ECU, big time.
2c: Causes hard starts do to lack of air, if defeated , closed, if defeated open the idle screams like made all the time and hot worse, so the PO would unscrew the
throttle stop screw to hid the bad DP device. this too, makes hard starts.
if electric , he sees electric power drop out, that is a whole other ball of wax.
not knowing the truth here, make , diagnosis hard.
so far all we know is.:
intermittent stumble
if lamps go out and radio dies, fix THAT first. use a VOLT METER to find it.
http://www.fixkick.com
