Hey all, I have a 1977 Maverick 250 6-cylinder and am experiencing a problem that has been occurring since I bought the car in early January. I have done a lot of work and troubleshooting on this problem and have forgot to ask the pros here for their opinion all along... The problem: The car feels to be "slipping" when accelerating in motion. This happens at all speeds, but more often at higher speeds. All of a sudden, the gas pedal will have no effect on acceleration. The motor is still running and the car still has power, but I cannot give the car any gas. This will usually happen for around 10 seconds or it will "slip" in and out of this mode for the same amount of time. After this is over, the car will either 1) run normal again or 2) stall out, at which point I pull over and the car starts up right away with no problem. The car will also occasionally just stall out at very low speeds. A little background: The car has been sitting for a long time. It has 32k original miles and has been sitting for the past 2-3 years or so. What I have done so far: I am not a gearhead, but my uncle is, and we have been going through a lot of troubleshooting. The first thing we did was to plug the EGR valve. He said it is not needed, was possibly bad, and we plugged one hose up. We then completely rebuilt the carburetor. We then hooked up a pressure gauge on the fuel line to watch the fuel pressure when this problem happens. The result: the fuel pressure stays constant, so this eliminates that the problem has anything to do with fuel. We are now thinking that it has something to do with an ignition/electrical problem. I was wondering if this is a common problem that people run into with Mavericks. Does anyone see anything wrong with our troubleshooting/repair strategy so far? Can anyone give me any advice (or solutions)? Thanks for reading this whole thing (I wanted to make sure that I explained the problem well enough for anyone willing to help me out). Thanks!
I'm going to guess that the car is a automatic. Have you checked to see if it's full of transmission fluid? My truck did the same thing when we first got it going, topped off the tranny fluid and it went away. Also, my mom's 02' Taurus did the same thing a while back and they thought it might be the Torque Converter. Just a few things to check into. Edit: beat ya to it Mike!
OK your on the right track. If it as been sitting that long replace the spark plug wires, distribor cap and rotor odds are they're corrided. Than change out the transmission fuild. The slipping problem that you mention sounds like low transmission fluid. If you still have problems when you drive and it slips it could be the transmission seals or torque converter. Good luck
Thanks for the replies! I am pretty damn sure that I checked the transmission fluid after I bought the car, but I will check that tomorrow. I forgot to mention the things that I replaced when I bought the car: rotor, distributor cap, fuel filter, spark plugs. The spark plug wires looked OK to us, so we did not replace them, but I will check them again. So that is two things that I can check now: spark plug wires and transmission fluid. Keep it coming. edit: Yes, it is an automatic, and I will check the transmission seals and torque converter also. Didn't see that the first time I read the replies.
Does the motor speed up when you press on the gas? Hook a cheap tac up and see whats happening. If the motor speeds up but the car dont, its a transmission problem. If the motor dont speed up when you push on the gas, its a motor problem. I would bet if its in the motor, its the carb.
I agree with the above. you need to figure out if it's a tranny problem or engine. If you isolate it too the engine I would make sure the fuel filter is staying free. Could be getting rust in the filter and depending on where the feul gauge is it might not be seeing it. Another thing I've found to cause hard to find problems is the engine ground. Also the battery cabels. If they are corrded they can cause alot of trouble in the ignition system. I've seen cables that looked clean have a thin film buildup under the battery clamps cause alot of hard to pin point problems. even if the cables look good, pull them off and clean them good with a wire brush. clint
check the coil......i had a similar problem....not as dramatic as yours....but i would be driving down the road and then the engine would shut off.....pressing on the gas doesnt do anything becuase there isnt spark when the eingine dies.....when this happens i would put the car in nuetral....turn the key and it would fire up and run fine until it decided to do it again..... i got a msd blaster coil and the problem went away... hope that helps
cd...another thing that can cause the engine problems is the duraspark ignition box. If it goes bad, intermittently, it will shut down the engine, or cause a number of different ills to give you a fit. Just something else to check out.
I know you rebuilt the carb and I'm not trying to slam you but just because its rebuilt, dont mean its working correctly. These carbs with their metering rod circuitry are a royal pain to set up correctly. I've had a bunch of them work better at 3/4 throttle than they did at full throttle.
while your looking at the carb me sure it is tighten down and no leak around it been a few years but mine done that and that what it was. if it's the same thing it sounds like
By the way... it was the ignition module. I finally gave the car to my uncle and he figured it out after one drive. Sometimes explaining the problem doesn't do the same justice as experiencing the problem for yourself.
