I'm a member of a countless forums and groups on Facebook. Most of which are centered around Mustangs. One of those groups is Lehigh Valley Mustangs and Domestics - Venom Outlaws. The Venom Outlaws are a great group of people, and they put on some fantastic events. The Lehigh group is somewhat new, but very close to where I live in PA.
One of the members of the group just picked up a 95 GT and it was running pretty rough. He's had a few mustangs in the past (foxbodies) but never an SN95. He reached out to the group for some help and direction. I offered to help him out if he could get it to my house and he agreed.
His main concern was the rolling idle or 'hunting'. This is typically a vacuum leak. Once the car was in the garage, we popped the hood. The smog pump was still in place, but the hoses and solenoids going from the pump to the hard lines were gone. The hard line going to the mid pipe was also gone. Then I noticed was the vacuum T on the neck of the upper intake. There are 2 ports there. There was a hose going from one port to the other, and in that hose there was a T that went to a vac gauge inside the car. Next the EGR vac line was cut. It was attached, and about 4 inches down the line it was cut. The Fuel Pressure regulator had a line going to it that I traced back to the cluster of 4 vac lines coming from the passenger side fender area. It ended at the red hard line, which was cut before the junction. This cluster also had problems. There are 4 vac lines - 1 green, 1 red and two white. The red hard line was cut before the junction and a rubber line went from that to the fuel pressure regulator. One of the white lines wasn't connected to anything. The green and white lines did go to the junction, but there was nothing for the green line after the junction. The white line was melted shut after the junction. This needed to be fixed.
The stock setup is three of the 4 vac lines go to a junction while one of the white lines is supposed to go to the smog. The other white line goes to the smog after the junction. The green goes to the EGR
after the junction. And red goes to one of the two ports on that upper intake vac T after the junction.
The goal was to make it functional today, not pretty. I'll leave the dress up part to the owner! First I removed the rubber line from the fuel pressure regulator that goes to the red line in the firewall. Then I removed one end from the intake vac T port and moved it to the fuel pressure regulator. This is how it is stock (FPR to one of the ports on that T). I left the T in that line to the vac gauge. Then I ran the red line from the fender cluster to the other port on that T. I made a new line that went from the green line from the fender cluster to the EGR. Finally I jumped one of the white lines in the cluster to the other white line, since they are no longer used. This should resolve the vacuum leak.
Next step was to pull the codes. The Check Engine Light was on when he showed up. My guess at this point is that CEL is for the EGR, since it was missing a vac line. We did the Key On Engine Off test. It read: 563 563 1 211 332 211 332. So 563, 211 and 332. The 563 is the high speed fan electro drive failure. I'm guessing it's the fan, and the owner is going to check it by jumping the fan directly. The other possibility is that the relay in the Constant Control Relay Module (CCRM) for the high speed fan has failed. It also means that only the low speed fan is working. The 332 code is for the EGR, which should be fixed now. The 211 code is for profile ignition pickup (PIP Sensor) circuit failure. The PIP sensor is in the distributor. When I checked out the distributor I noticed that it was not the correct stock distributor. I'm not sure what vehicle it came from, but it had the accommodation for the TFI module to be mounted on the side of it. That was likely the cause - he will need the correct distributor for the 94/95 mustang. The TFI mounted to the heat sink on the passenger side fender well was the correct part number.
Feel free to read all about TFI and PIP here: http://www.myo-p.com/Ford-EEC/EEC%20Help%20files/Files/TFI_grey_or_black.html
Finally we moved to under the car. We jacked it up, put jack stands under it and chucked the wheels. We found that the anti-moan bracket on the 8.8 housing was connected on just one side, and the other side had the rubber bushing pulled out. We removed this bracket since it wasn't secure. The passenger side cat back exhaust was loose, so we tightened that. Both hangers for the exhaust were broken, so we removed those rubber hangers. The mid pipe had an accommodation for the smog. Since there was no smog pipe going to that port, we plugged the port. There was also an exhaust leak on the mid pipe - looked like the previous owner tried to patch it and the patch failed. The final concern was the emergency brake cable was rubbing on the driveshaft and it had eaten through the outside sheathing of the cable. This will also need to be repaired. The owner already knew he had an emergency brake issue, but didn't know why. This likely contributed to that issue. The last thing we addressed was a trim piece that was loose / broken. We secured it so it wouldn't flop around while driving.
He started it up and it immediately idled better. The hunting / rolling idle was gone. The computer will need to re-learn after the changes we made, and the CEL should go off.
The owner sent me a text message after he left saying thank you, and that the car was driving much better! It still needs some things corrected by the owner, but the main hunting concern was corrected!
