Hi all,
I bought a 94 FWD LS (Pearl White) a month ago. It's at the garage while I'm working 3,000 miles from home.
The previous owner was getting a code 23 (MAF) and it wouldn't run properly at times. Then he got a code 11 and couldn't afford a repair, so he sold it. I got a nice deal on the car, but now I need to get it running and the garage has been troubled as to where to begin.
The radiator was cracked in a minor collision before previous owner decided to sell it (the final straw), so it has a non-functioning radiator right now.
The symptoms:
- MAF connector was replaced by someone (previous owner had it about 6 months, unaware of this "mod").
- Connector has 4 wires running into it, first conductor out of the 5 on the MAF is not attached. Is this a problem?
- 4 MAF wires were stripped and twisted to the matching one, but then ALL wires were shorted together and electrical taped (previous owner unaware of this).
- Above corrected, still throwing code 23 after each reset.
- Car will start right up but won't idle and stalls out. I had it running *once* for about 8 minutes at 35 degrees Fahrenheit or so without applying throttle manually. It ran nicely until the engine warmed up and then the idle began to drop and the lower it dropped, the more the engine began to surge and tried to keep running. As the idle speed got lower though, it struggled more and more until eventually I shut it off.
- If throttle is applied, it will happily run at 3k RPM, anything lower than that and it will surge trying to keep itself happy.
So.. The garage suspects a vacuum leak possibly, or broken wiring between MAF and ECU. But it should function in limp mode and it's not. I suggested they check solder joints on MAF and I have a replacement MAF pulled from a junkyard late 90's 2.5L Outback they can try as well. My other car is a 99 Outback, so I have the MAF as a spare. Will the Outback MAF work in the car? They look the same, but the numbers on them are different.
I pulled the alternator and used electrical contact cleaner on the 2 sensors beneath it and the garage hasn't mentioned anything about Code 11. The sensors were clean when I saw them, so it may have been a fluke?
Does any of this make sense?
For replacement radiators, I found
these on eBay. I see the Silla 7420A is $153 and $296, for the same unit. Is this the best one? A local mechanic guy where I'm working (in Las Vegas) said if I get a plastic top/bottom radiator, it'll only last a few years. I'll normally have this car in western Massachusetts so I don't think it'll be so short-lived?
Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong here? Where should the garage check first? They were going to have a guy come in to check continuity on the MAF wiring to the ECU over the weekend, but I'd like to have more ideas for them if possible. Is this common at all?
Thanks!
Eric