1989 Town Car runs but has no power, can't get it out of back yard. HELP!

[gadget73]

weak ignition will do this. Check for strong blue spark.

[lincolnlarry]

If you had a timing light on it, please disregard.

Sounds like the timing might be very delayed. The reason I think this is because of the thick white smoke/steam. Exhaust gets much hotter with a late spark. Combustion hasn't finished before the exhaust valve opens. Couple that with the weather and you can make a nice steam cloud!

[DerekTheGreat]

weak ignition will do this. Check for strong blue spark.

Ahh! Stupid me forgot to do this! I'll check that tomorrow.

No timing light but I'm confident that isn't the issue, ran too good in the beginning. If its off its not off by more than a degree, in which case it should still be able to go faster than 3mph right?

Car frustrates me to no end.. Also, is it possible for the fuel pump to drop pressure after awhile? I didn't check it at the end of my fiddling session. Say tomorrow I end up with a weak spark, should I try swapping coils and then the TFI module? I'm not taking my distributor out so guess I'll have to buy a new one.

Thanks for the help and suggestions!

[gadget73]

If its got weak spark, I'd probably go straight for the TFI. The coils fail rarely. You can swap the coil over to your car if you want to test it.


A couple degrees won't really be noticeable. A tooth certainly would be. Checking the timing still would not be a bad idea. It would rule out the possibility of any issues.


Pumps *usually* work or they do not. It is possible for it to be weak but if you have 33 psi, it should move better than it does. Where you notice a weak pump is trying to accelerate hard or pass people. It will just sort of wheeze out. The amount of fuel needed for idle speed or low speed operation is fairly small.

[GM_Guy]

Sounds like classic plugged catalytic converter symptoms (can't rev, over time can't rev as high anymore). Got a way to drop the pipes from the exhaust manifolds and give it a test run?

Alex.

[DerekTheGreat]

I thought of that too. My brother had a 92 CV some 8 years ago and it wouldn't go over 20 or 30 mph and ran like CaCa. I drove it and it felt like bad cats. Once they were cut out and straight piped that car ran great again. I'm just not feeling it today so what I'm going to do next weekend is swap out the aftermarket TFI module we put in with her old one to see if the problem goes away or gets better. If not, off to the shop it goes, needs a thermostat anyway (I think). Should've bought a 90-92 Brougham d'Elegance with a 350 I think the body lines are the TC are cooler though, love looking out over the hood and at the hood ornament.

[DerekTheGreat]

Forgot to ad that I love the look of side markers on all four corners, you know, ones that aren't integrated with the headlight assembly. TC's got the cool fender mounted square orange side markers that look great lit up coupled with the ditch lights. The Cadillac's got all of that integrated with the headlight assy & flaccid hood lines. I do like how both cars had "vintage" interiors. The Lincoln's was virtually the same since 1980 minus the door trim & seats whereas the Cadillac was virtually unchanged since the late 70's, I dig the chrome accents on the pedals, huge square door lights (on all four doors too!) and IRCC the cruise control stuff was on the dash... DIdn't those also have air suspension on all four corners & ABS too?

[gadget73]

converters don't plug that suddenly though. If it was running normally and then it sat for a bit and started running like poo after a thermostat swap, I don't expect thats the issue. Water in the distributor, that I'd buy, but not a converter shitting itself while parked.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, that's why I don't think that's the reason. I'll swap out that TFI module with her old one and if it runs better then we'll order a new FoMoCo one, swap it again and go back to cruising.

[TecNickal]

Pickup in the distributor possibly having issues or TFI issues? tortoises of the 85-95 era that used the distributor with tfi module mounted on it like a v8 suffered really bad ignition issues as they aged. due to the heat under the hood with no air flow (at least a 5.0 gets airflow to the tfi).

Pop the cap off...any moisture in there?

[slack]

Forgot to ad that I love the look of side markers on all four corners, you know, ones that aren't integrated with the headlight assembly. TC's got the cool fender mounted square orange side markers that look great lit up coupled with the ditch lights. The Cadillac's got all of that integrated with the headlight assy & flaccid hood lines. I do like how both cars had "vintage" interiors. The Lincoln's was virtually the same since 1980 minus the door trim & seats whereas the Cadillac was virtually unchanged since the late 70's, I dig the chrome accents on the pedals, huge square door lights (on all four doors too!) and IRCC the cruise control stuff was on the dash... DIdn't those also have air suspension on all four corners & ABS too?

I've owned an '82 DeVille and a '87 Fleetwood Brougham.

The '82 showed me how terrible the HT4100 engine was. Mine blew up on the way to work so I swapped an Olds 307 and trans from an 87 Regal in there. Much better. The car moved night but rust was killing it. I ended up selling it for way too little.

The '87 was a very nice looking car. Came with the Olds 307 from the factory.(Many don't like the engine as there's not a lot of upgrades and it's not the quickest, but it's solid as a tank and that matters more to me. I could never get it to run right. Car never had any power. In the end, I think it was probably just clogged cats. Ended up selling that car too cheap as well.

I really dig the style of that era full size Cadillacs but I don't think I'd buy another one.

Oh, and neither of mine had ABS or air suspension. Later ones came with a digital dash that looks cheesy compared to the Lincolns. (Didn't have that in mine either).

Cruise control "On/Off" is on the dash to the left of the steering column like a light switch. The set speed/resume IIRC was on the blinker stalk. Very strange set up.

Last thing before I end my "threadjacking" Both of my Caddy's "ran away" on me while driving. The 82's carb linkage got bound up and caused it to go WOT. I had to put the car in neutral and turn the car off while standing on the brakes to stop. (Happened on a side road. Scared the shit out of me). The 87s cruise control decided to floor it for some unknown reason while I was on the highway and didn't disengage with the switch. I had to hit the brakes to turn it off. Never used the cruise control on that car again. Maybe it's a good thing I don't want another one as the ones I've owned have tried to kill me.

[DerekTheGreat]

Slack,
Thread jack away, I do it all the time haha. Cool post. I did the procrastinators homework on those and found 1990-1992 to be the years you want as those are essentially the same as the previous years minus the euro headlights, digital dash and engines. I prefer the digital dash on Lincolns 90+. The GM's in 90-92 got rid of the carb'd 307 turd and in it's place was either the 305 LO3 or 350 L05 IIRC. I'd want one with the 350 as I've never known an LO3 that doesn't burn oil. I've replaced the heads on my Firebird and that still burns oil.. Anyway, the later years had ABS as an option, I think air suspension was optional too. I waste a lot of time oldcarbrochures.com lol.

[DerekTheGreat]

Oh, also, wasn't that 4100 the engine with cylinder deactivation "technology?" I heard those things were notorious for locking in 4 cylinder mode. Scary. Can't imagine 4.1L of displacement moved a big turd like that all to well, no wonder the 307 felt like an upgrade haha

[DerekTheGreat]

Pickup in the distributor possibly having issues or TFI issues? tortoises of the 85-95 era that used the distributor with tfi module mounted on it like a v8 suffered really bad ignition issues as they aged. due to the heat under the hood with no air flow (at least a 5.0 gets airflow to the tfi).

Pop the cap off...any moisture in there?

I think it is actually the TFI unit based on what has been said and done thus far. Not really sure I understand why that would cause the car to not have any throttle response. I'm of the opinion it either has spark or not and so what does that have to do with throttle response? Cap, wires, rotor & plugs are all new, within the last 6k miles anyway. We replaced all that stuff because it was hard to start, also had the injectors cleaned too to chase that problem and no change, fuel filter was replaced at the same time. I THINK it is the TFI unit because when I swapped out her old FoMoCo unit for an aftermarket we found in a yard it seemed to start up a bit faster, well, for a few days and then it was back to like it used to be and now it's about as useful as 10 minutes alone with Anne Hatheway & a flaccid penis....

[gadget73]

Oh, also, wasn't that 4100 the engine with cylinder deactivation "technology?" I heard those things were notorious for locking in 4 cylinder mode. Scary. Can't imagine 4.1L of displacement moved a big turd like that all to well, no wonder the 307 felt like an upgrade haha

no, it was just it's own hunk of shit entirely. The 4-6-8 was the variable displacement one. That actually worked. The cylinder switching thing was sketchy but you could lock it into V8 mode and it was just a big block Caddy at that point. A little one though, 368 cid I think. Still though, it was devolved from the 472 and 500 family and of a far more robust basic design than the 4100 was.