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Escort 89 stalling when warm

Hi,

My 89 Escort 1.4 (uk) has recently been having some trouble. It came back from it's MOT where I got them to change the oil and air filter and it seems fine - I've checked the oil level several times and it's where it should be.

The problem is that the car seems to need the choke out even after running for hours. I noticed it first on a trip to Scotland where I was having to drive a very windy road and change down to 3rd or 4th round a corner, after pressing the clutch down for more than a second the car would just stall unless the choke was out, despite just having driven for 3 hours on the motorway. I'm noticing it again now that I am driving to work - I start with the choke out to warm up the engine and would expect that after 5 minutes I could put the choke in and the car would run idle just fine but I had to drive with it out all the 20 minutes today as it will just stall when I stop at lights!

The engine just doesn't seem to be ticking over correctly the sound is more like a "chug" than it used to be. Can anyone suggest what it might be and are there any "self-fix" things I can do (easy for someone with their first car). I've got a Haynes Owners Workshop manual and I'm confident that I could do the some of the jobs in there but I don't know where to start. What would be most handy is a priority list starting with most likely, cheap and easy, going down to least likely and most expensive and difficult (I'm pretty poor after Christmas).

Thanks for any advice you can give,

Caie

Reply to
Caie
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and one hasn't come lose? Sounds like you have a air leak which would stall the engine which would say to me check the hoses under and around air filter area. Hope this helps. Simon.

Reply to
simon

Check very carefully all the vacuum and breather hoses are connected- there is one that goes from the bottom of the airfilter / PCV system to a stub on the inlet manifold below the carb- its on the left side of the carb looking at the engine. With this left off the engine will stall.

Other than that you have a blocked idle jet- also fairly common with this engine. The jets sit in the valley between the two venturi's of the carb and are brass- there are 4. With a well fitting screwdriver and pair of needle nose pliers carefully remove one at a time (dont drop them down the venturi's- its easy to do so) and blow them out with airline or carb cleaner aerosol. Refit being careful not to cross thread.

If its still no better then check the idle cut off solonoid and wiring on the right side of the carb- it should click when ever the ignition is turned on.

Tim..

Reply to
Tim (Remove NOSPAM. Registry corupted, reformated HD and l

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