FEOA Forums banner

Or Starter, or dead battery or all of these.

Electrical 
4K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  FordMan59 
#1 ·
Bought a 97 Ford Escort LX/Sport a few weeks ago. In short I ended up having to park it at my niece's apartment complex because it died on the freeway. We thought it'd probably ran out of gas but then a plum pudding more gas into it it still would not start. It was converted to a keyless ignition due to the previous owner getting his key stuck in the ignition so I think that plays part into it not starting as well as the gas issue I mentioned above. There are a couple other things id like to touch on and I'm not sure if I can freely post my cell number on this forum but if not I apologize in advance. Please help me get this p.o.s running. Call me anytime @385-299-0152
 
#2 · (Edited)
If it died just going down the highway the first two things I'd check are the timing belt and fuel pump. When you try to start it does the engine sound normal or does it seem to turn over faster than normal? If so it's probably the timing belt, but not to worry these are non interference engines and there will be no engine damage from the pistons and valves colliding. These are easy cars to change the timing belt on. If you change the timing belt it's also a good time to replace the water pump since it is driven by the timing belt and would be better changed now than to have remove the timing belt again maybe 6 months or year down the road to change it. This is now a 22 year old car and lots of people never change the timing belt until they absolutely have to so if the previous owner(s) never changed it there's a good chance this is what the problem is. When you turn the key to the on position to you hear the fuel pump come on and run for about 2 seconds? If not I'd suspect the fuel pump being bad. There is an access panel underneath the rear seat for removing and replacing the fuel pump.
 
#5 ·
If the timing belt turns out to be okay - and still lined up, my next trick would be to squirt some starting fluid into the intake and see if it fires up that way. It will only run briefly, but would tell you the camshaft is still turning and the spark is okay.

Im curious what kind of an ignition lash-up it has. The electrical part of the ignition can be operated with a long screwdriver, after the electric part is unscrewed from the key-lock part. Escort ignition switches (the electrical part) are known to cause goody problems. With one of mine, I bought a new electrical part, hooked it to the wire connectors coming up into the top of the steering column, and drove it that way till my wife insisted I fix it really.
But like fordman59 says, when you turn the ignition on, you should see the small indicator lights on the bottom of the cluster, and should hear the fuel pump hum for about a second.
Let us now if you cant hear the hum. There is a relay for the fuel pump located inside the console, but its not the job of a moment to get to it.

My Escorts are all 2nd gen, which are slightly different from your 3rd gen. With mine there is a fuse/relay box under the hood, next to the drivers side strut tower. It has 3 or 4 fuses in it, of a type where its a little hard to see if they are blown; i.e. they dont turn black inside. One of them is for the ignition electricals.

If that car ever had one of the aftermarket anti-theft systems installed, it could be that needs to be wired around or defeated. With one of mine, the (nonworking) relay was spliced into the ignition switch wiring right above the steering shaft. Hard to reach, until I took the driver's seat out, and lay down on a chunk of plywood, to solder it back together.

And does this car have an automatic transmissions, or the 5-speed transmission? I ask this because the 'non-starting' interlocks are different for the two transmissions.

And when you turn the key to the start position, does it crank merrily over? A normal cranking sound should have up-down-up-down-up-down pulses, as the starter fight the compression stroke of each cylinder. With a broken or slipped timing belt the should would be more like a steady hum.

There are at least half a dozen other things that might being preventing it from running, but those are much less likely to happen.

Since a prior owner solved his key-removal problem in such a fashion, heaven knows what else he found it expedient to mess with.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top