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Intermittent Stalling (alfred), hopefully resolved

Anak

Stranger
NAXJA Member
A couple of weeks ago Scope Creep decided to stall on me while driving. The first time was while coasting to a stop sign. I wondered if perhaps I had been too slow on the clutch or some such thing and wrote it off as being my own fault. But then, a couple hours later, it stalled again, and this time while accelerating up a hill. There was no question about how it happened that time. I had my foot solidly into the gas. And the second time it didn’t want to start back up. It was not until after I had gotten out and inspected things under the hood that it finally decided to start back up.

That led to a search here on NAXJA for intermittent stalling solutions. There are a number of threads on the topic, and it seems that none of the threads include the final resolution. The most common themes in these threads seem to revolve around the CPS, ground connections and fuel delivery.

A check with a fuel pressure gauge showed a solid 49 psi (this is a ’96, 49 psi is correct), so I ruled out fuel delivery for the time being and went to work on the CPS and ground connections.

I had a spare CPS that I pulled out of a junk yard. Provenance somewhat indefinite, but worth a try. I swapped that in.

Looking at ground connections I saw that I had several damaged wires going to the dipstick tube stud toward the rear of the block on the passenger side:

GroundWireRepair5OPT.jpg

The insulation on the larger wire was hard and brittle, indicating a bit of heat over the years.

I know some folks like to use whatever wire they happen to have on hand for these sort of repairs. I am not impressed with the use of extension cords and such. This is one of the best options for this application:

GroundWireRepair6OPT.jpg





A splice right at the end is a recipe for a broken wire later on down the road. I opened up the harness and worked my way back several inches. This got me to a point where the splices could be supported by other wires, and also got me to a point where the insulation was not so brittle. I joined the two smaller gauge wires together at the splice, and then joined both splices together in one 8 gauge ring terminal.

The splices were sealed with heat shrink, then an additional, longer piece of heat shrink added over that as a strain relief, then both splices were shrink wrapped together for additional support.


GroundWireRepair8OPT.jpg

Note also that the splices are staggered. Another detail to help keep them from breaking at some point down the line.

The 8ga ring terminal fits the two 10ga wires snugly. A bit of a crimp and solder should provide a reliable terminal.

GroundWireRepair12OPT.jpg



Here the wires are, showing they are terminated at the correct length to match the original configuration.


GroundWireRepair14OPT.jpg



Finally the bundle was again wrapped in tape and placed back in the factory convolute loom.


It has now been a week and a half and I have yet to have a recurrence of the stalling. This was not done in the most scientific manner. I changed two variables rather than just one. But stalling in SoCal traffic is potentially a matter of taking your life in your hands. Given that I usually have three Varmints with me, that is more risk than I care to take on for the sake of knowing exactly which factor was to blame. But hopefully this will give someone who is searching a better clue to work with for solving their own stalling problem.
 
Re: Intermittent Stalling, hopefully resolved

Varmint safety is of utmost priority, so trying two variables is understood. I'll bet on the poorly grounded wires being the problem though. Looks like a quality fix to me...
 
Re: Intermittent Stalling, hopefully resolved

I am pretty confident this issue is fixed. Today it got driven the same path and pattern as when the stalling occurred. Not a single hiccup.
 
Re: Intermittent Stalling, hopefully resolved

Thanks.

I think...
yellowuhoh.gif
 
It has now been several months and there have been no recurrences of the stalling issue.

Included in that time has been a long distance drive of 950 miles with the only stops being for fuel. No issues.
 
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