Yesterday morning, I get up.
The Escape decides it’s time to eject a spark plug coil.
This is a pain in the ass; losing a cylinder on a 6 cylinder engine causes some serious driveability issues. Also, the odds are good it’s going to be cylinder 1,3, or 5, which are on the firewall side of the engine, requiring the removal of the intake manifold to replace.
No biggie, the scape has 200,000 miles on it, so this is not unexpected. I run the ragged little bugger to the store and pick up the coils and plugs and some coolant, and pull into the garage.
Despite the goatroping it requires to fix this, I have it all apart, back together, and running again by 0945, having pulled into the driveway at 0830. Like the indy fucking 500 of tuneups, and that with one sticky plug (Lots and lots of PBlaster, rock the plug back and forth. Engine smokes burning off that Blaster, but it beats having to yank a head)
Anyway, the jap (Mazda) parts are out and I have installed nice lifetime warranty chink parts. Save me the grief of dropping $420 on it next time, it will just be my labor. Assuming there is a next time.
I have retired my Escape to just beating around and a backup for the wife’s Mustang, she loves the Escape for the grocery trips. So far I’ve replaced the back three coils and two on the front. 301k miles on the clock and it still runs fine. leaks oil like a sieve but I can deal with that. It has this annoying popping noise in the steering column when its hot and dry outside, like a rubber grommet that’s too tight and dry. Can’t find anything wrong under the car and sprayed the inside firewall rubber with silicone with no luck.
Wonder if its the ujoint in the tilt steer. Try it at different angles to see if it changes?
I am impressed. 75 minutes to do a job like that, you must have some of the special tools. My tool set is not so vast so I usually have to work up some jury rigged solution. Or go to auto zone and rent the tool.
That’s a memorable way to start the day … and you still had lots of day left too.
I am impressed. Again.
Jenny
“Eject”? That’s just figurative speaking for “burn out” or “blow” or otherwise crap out, right? Not literally?
Just crap out. In the most annoying possible way.
Just curious. Were you involved at all in the machine center at Roush?
No. I am acquainted with some of those folks though.
Now I remembwr why I loved my ’72 F250 with the inline 300 cid engine. Of course, at that time (“then” to the English disabled, I was thin enough to stand alongside it in the engine bay to do most work on it.
Watching Da Missus go back and forth for tools was nice too. Probably the lead-up to our first kid.
The second one arrived six months after the F250 left. We loved “working on the car” in those days.
Gerry N.