Check Engine light

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Oops , used the wrong account, don't want anybody to think I am masquerading as another poster. thats me above

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I've read all your posts in this thread and I'm going to jump in with my $0.02. I know it is going to sound cruel and heartless - but you need to turn your back and walk away from this one.

Your working on a vehicle that is a Frankenstein's monster. Just about everything made in '88 had a CEL. Does the vehicle have an O2 sensor, a catcon, and fuel injection or a computer-controlled carburetor? If it does, then it has an engine computer. And if it has an engine computer it has a CEL.

If the vehicle has passing emissions, then -all- the vehicle -mechanical- systems having to do with emissions are good, -and- the engine computer is connected to a few critical sensors, o2/maf-map/tps and it's still controlling the fuel injection. But beyond that ALL bets are off. The computer in the vehicle could have a dozen other sensors it's supposed to be looking at data from that are either disconnected or are not even there, on account of the engine swap.

If you ask me (and you didn't but I'm gonna tell you anyway) the day the CEL stopped working was the day that Clive finished the engine swap using implements he raided out of his wife's kitchen drawers. Who the hell knows how the vehicle survived this long after that - for all you know, the owner used to boff an aircare tech who let her through, and said tech finally made enough money to buy a pocket pussy. But how is irrelevant. This isn't your vehicle, and you are not helping the owner take responsibility for his or her life by letting them avoid responsibility for their vehicle that they own.

This vehicle should have been sold off to someone in the sticks where they don't require IM testing, after Clive's engine swap. It has no fricken business running around in the middle of a metropolitian area, and whoever arrainged that to happen was completely irresponsible.

These days the US is awash in used cars. Hell, I had the dickens of a time selling one of mine last week - and I'll tell you this. For a vehicle that everything other than the air conditioning worked in it, with good emissions, a set of rear tires with less than 2K miles on them, body straight and freshly washed and vacuumed, and 50K miles on a rebuilt engine which had been rebuilt by one of the best rebuilders in the area, do you want to know what I got for it? $550.00, that's what. It cost me more to insure the vehicle for a year than the vehicle is worth. Well at least I got the driveway space back.

If you really want to help the owner, then go out there and help her find a really good, solid, everything working, used car for under $1K, and after it's titled in her name, just have her sign the release on the title and hold the title, and she can pay you $25 a month or whatever until it's paid off. And take her POS car now and sell it off. The difference remaining will probably put her owing you less than $500 and she can probably have that paid in a year.

That's actually HELPING someone to get something better going in their life. What your doing now isn't helping, it's just bandaiding a rolling problem that she don't need to have f'ing up her life more right now.

Ted

Thats reasonable advice but in CA you cannot legally sell a car without passing a smog check first so if it fails, it's the junk yard or non-op. I already give this welfare ho a place to live in, a TV to watch, a phone to talk on, and a fridge to put her food in (and some food for her daughter) and countelss tips on how to find a job. and she's not even my ho. I don't really want to front her the money for a car even a POS since her tab is already hopeless. (this all came up because the car she was using got repo'd).

I'd cut her and her truck loose but I still care about keeping her from screwing up her daughters life.

vehicle -mechanical-

List it on craigslist in Oregon or Nevada. Oregon does not have statewide IM testing, it is only in the cities, and the DMV doesen't give a damn about CA laws. And Nevada is also very easy to sell and register a car in and I don't think they have IM testing in all areas either. Trucks are still saleable in the sticks where there's no IM testing, at least, cheap ones are. How the buyer fetches the car is their business, most people just buy a bus ticket and drive it home. If it's running and priced cheap enough, someone will buy it.

Ouch!

Well, right now she is teaching her daughter that it's OK to lie around and not get a job, and sponge off other people, if this keeps up her daughter's life is going to be screwed up anyway, just differently. So there are no easy choices either way. But it's easy to see what is going on here, I'm sure she is using the nonfunctional truck as an excuse not to look for a job.

You have my sympathy, I've encountered leeches before in my life and they have a way of just taking and taking and taking more and more of your time, energy, and money, until one day you just can't stand it anymore, daughter or no daughter, the leech then jumps to another host. They almost have a sixth sense about who will make a suitable host. If she is under your roof with no job, then your instincts are right, giving her money is the worst thing you can do.

Your best shot is applying a bit of parenting. Rent a storage locker, then go through your house and remove every last thing that smacks of "adult entertainment", that is, all TV sets, all radios, all fiction books, all magazines, in short, every last possible thing that could possibly serve as a diversion or provide amusement for an adult. Call your phone company and switch your landline phone over to "911 calls only" Stop working on her car. Tell her that when she gets a job on a bus line, you will bring back magazines into the house. When she holds the job for a month, you will turn the phone back on. When she holds it for 6 months you will bring back the TV set. And so on.

If she pulls the passive agressive "I'll sit and do nothing" then ignore her. Trust me, they all think they can pull that and win, but they can't manage it, they don't have the discipline.

Basically, you have a 25 year old child here, who wasn't raised properly by her own parents. Your going to have to do the raising. If she doesen't like it, tough, there's always the door. And don't allow her to continue to hold her daughter over your head as a kind of lever to keep the situation static. Her daughter isn't your responsibility, you can make it clear that daughter is welcome TO VISIT if she decides you have no right to tell her what to do and leaves.

As for the car, you need to make it clear that the car is at the end of it's life. If she won't sign the title over so that you can dispose of it at a wrecker and at least get some money out of it, then call the local city and ask what the procedure is for getting junk cars towed. Make it clear that if it's towed she will get nothing, otherwise you will hold whatever the wrecker gives for it.

And seriously, what YOU need is a parenting support group. There's bound to be at least one in the area. She may not be your kid, but it sounds like she is acting like a spoiled brat and it also sounds like you never had the pleasure of raising a spoiled brat (lucky you) and you don't have the tools to cope with it.

Just keep this in the back of your mind. welfare ho knows she is taking you for a chump. She may not be smart enough to verbalize that, but she unconsciously knows it. Well, the fact is that people don't respect people who they can take advantage of, and so it is no wonder she is ignoring your advice. You absolutely have to grow a spine and start applying some tough love - I don't mean threatening to boot her out the door, I mean basically taking charge of her life for her, and telling her what to do, just like you would tell a 12 year old to go clean his room. You don't have to give her ultimatims, you just have to tell her to do something, then when she ignores it, you go get in her personal space and stand over her until she does it, just like your own mom stood over you to make you eat your peas. Her own mom never did that to her, which is why she is like she is, and deep down, she really needs someone to do that.

Good luck!

Ted

You MUST use the diagram for the Year, Make, and Model of the vehicle you are working on. You can fudge this a little bit by selecting a vehicle that uses the same vintage chassis, ie: Make and Model, but different Year if the body style of the Year you select and the Year you are working on is the same. You can not fix this problem on a Ranger by using the schematic from an Expedition, ANY Expedition.

Since you are in California, the smog system MUST meeet the requirements for whichever is newer, the vehicle or the engine. If you have an 88, and drop in a motor from an 84, then you must bring the smog equipment of the motor UP to the 1988 spec. You have no choice in this. If you have an 88, and drop in a motor from a 94, then you have to bring the smog equipment of the vehicle UP to the 1994 spec. You have no choice in this. The smog equipment MUST be the newer of the motor or the vehicle. You can not reduce the newer motor to the old chassis, or the newer chassis to the old motor. When the engine transplant is complete, the smog system must be equal to the newest component.

Autozone.com has schematics that show the '88 Ranger and clearly indicates the Check light.

You are correct, one can not sell a car in CA unless it passes smog. This makes me wonder how you came to be in possession of this truck, it clearly is not able to pass smog -- it fails the visual test at the very least, and this means they won't even hook up the machine to sniff the exhaust. This car won't even get past the referee in a dispute.

There are no other lamps that act close enough to the MIL/CEL. I'm considering wiring a 555 timer to open a relay contact connected in series with the new wire I installed. The timer will be triggered by the Key-Start signal and run for 45 seconds before closing the relay and restoring normal operation.

You also said you could not find the light on the schematic, but it is clearly shown ...

I solved the problem by connecting the MIL wire to the CEL. Now after starting the engine, the CEL flashes steadily then turns off after 30 seconds. _________________________________________________

THE MIL IS THE CEL. There are not two separate indicators.

You have wired your (MIL/CEL) to your seat belt reminder.

Rodan.

Pipedown, On your 88 Check engine light post It seems you are getting allot of opinions but no answers. I have a 91 Ranger with the 2.3 4 and I have most of the factory manuals plus other info. I may be able to assist. First, make sure the bulb is good on your check engine light. It should come on when you turn on the ignition and then go out shortly after the engine starts. If it stays on you have problems. e-mail me at snipped-for-privacy@mchsi.com and I'll try to direct you as best I can. Fredzo

I gave him the answer over a week ago.

91 is not even close...

Until he actually looks at a wiring diagram for an 88 Ranger, he's spinning his wheels.

Good point, things change from year to year so any other material would be useless. I suggest he looks at

I got a subscription for my 91 with them and they have allot of very good info including the EEC IV management system. Fredzo

Followup: It passed inspection

He says it passed the smog check ...