Let me get this straight, I got my X back, not my Ex

But she came with some baggage
(They all do)

Strangest thing... Even when I let this thing go to my ex I knew it had, what I thought was, a fuel pump issue. It always starts in the warmer months but as soon as it starts to get colder and colder the thing takes longer and longer to start. Until eventually it doesn't start at all. It was a warm 4 degrees yesterday when it decided not to start and today was a comfortable 15 or so

Well that's what brings me here. It quit hard starting for her and decided not to start at all, just crank and crank so I bought her a little focus wagon and she gave me back the x which o had towed to my house this evening.

As I'm sitting there with my multi meter on the posts reading voltage with the key out it was reading 12.2v. My dad turned the key to run and it dropped down to around 11V. He turned it over and it was down around 9.5V while cranking and then all of a sudden VROOM. The ******* started for no reason....

I had tried to start it several times over a 24 hour period leading up to tonight to no avail.

But when it did start, mannnnn, it was laboring with a decently loud squeal for about 5 seconds coming from what I think to be the alternator because the voltage was hovering around 9.5V during the squeal and then all of a sudden the squeal stopped, the motor plained out, and the volts jumped up to 15v.

To me it seems to be the alternator and/or battery. The battery is a duralast gold about 18 months old so should be fine but with the way it acted with the ohm meter I don't know. I suspect the alternator because I think the car was running off battery power during the squeal which is why is read so low and when the alternator stopped squealing and started working properly, the voltage went up. Could it also be the notoriously crappy factory battery cables?

Does this sound about right? I apologize for the long post, it seems I text and post in novel form.

 

Get the battery load tested, you may have a partially shorted cell. The cold exacerbates the problem. That WILL kill an alternator in short order

...alternators like to rub into a load close to their design output, instead of that is essentially an acid-cooled crowbar across the terminals.

 

Did you check the belt? It's the first place to start.

Of course the erratic voltages seem to dismiss it, we should never miss the opportunity to check the obvious.

BTW, Whats your ex's phone number?

Just kidding!

Enjoy having the cat that screeches and purrs but does not talk back in the garage again!

 

Thanks it's nice to have it back. I had already came to terms with the fact I had lost it but when I had the opportunity to get it back I jumped on it!

It never stopped starting after that, in fact it fired right up with no effort but the 2nd day I had it back I was throwing p0171 code saying lean on bank one so I assumed a vacuum leak somewhere, I figured the upper and or lower intake gaskets, the imt o-rings (only about 6 months old but they're cheap and easy to replace), pcv valve malfunctioning or possibly other things so I went ahead and ripped it apart and replaced all of that haha the shotgun method.

Oh, and the battery tested out fine so I replaced the cables as well.

I've had the manifold off on that car 3 times without replacing the gaskets haha so I could only assume they had finally decided to fail. CEL has been of since and she starts up no problem. I wouldn't doubt if it happens again soon, which will lead me down the fuel pressure path, but as for now I have seemed to fix it.

I'm getting the wheels powdercoated a bright red/orange in like 2 weeks. It's so much cheaper than I ever thought it would be! I would have done it a while back if I would have know! I'm just waiting on a replacement wheel from tire rack, the ex mangled the driver front on a curb! I'm also going to finish wrapping it matte black. I tried selling the vinyl I had leftover but no one bought it so I'm just going to finish the job! ***** hard to do though!