94 Taurus overheated - I think it's dead Jim!

[romitora]

A friend - yes, it really is a friend - has a Taurus that was driven down the freeway for a while *after* the radiator hose blew. Not surprisingly, it started loosing power, then eventually quit running altogether.

It's been towed home and he can crank it but it will not fire. Frankly, I think it's all over for the engine, but he asked me if the onboard computer has the ability to save the engine when it sees the temp going up wildly like this. Hmmm, seems like it ought to be able to do that assuming that it can track the engine temp, but I really don't know. It thought I'd ask the group about this and see what you think.

Otherwise, I'm going to suggest he check for spark, fuel and do a compression test to see what he's got. What's the ballpark pressure one should see to be considered adequate for combustion to take place?

Thanks,
Ray

[Psychopete]

It's up to the operator to keep track of the engine's temperature. On the ECC-IV systems (I believe 94 was IV, could be V) it only monitors the temperature to adjust certain values the computer needs to calculate the a/f mixture (ECT). The voltage that the computer gets from this sensor regulates various ignition, fuel and emission controls. Not neccessarily watching to make sure it's not over heating. When these go bad, sometimes they create a rich fuel mixture.

Check for fuel, spark, and compression. I imagine the head gaskets are toast, as well as the heads, but this could be better found with a leak down tester. My guess that it's going to take some big money to fix. He might start looking into a different car. You'll have to look it up for the compression. My 2.9L Ranger is 100 psi minimum with 10%? variance between cylinders. I got 175 (+/- 1) psi on each cylinder on my 2.9L Ranger. It has only 6,000 miles since rebuild though with .030" off the heads.

Pete