airspeed

~14-17psi

Could one of the new shocks gone bad?

EGR valve? You can do a quick check by pushing up on the diaphragm from the bottom side of the valve while the engine is running. Don't burn yourself!

Will the engine idle properly? Has the fuel filter been changed recently? I had two spark plug wires short together and the truck would idle with a little bit of a miss but you couldn't get the truck to do over 30 mph. This happened out of the blue, it was fine until I parked it for 30 minutes, came out to go and it wouldn't. Once those wires burn through they will continue to arch. When you get two cylinders out of four cross firing, you have a severe loss of power. Separate them with some insulators and see if it goes away. It could be carbon tracks inside the cap? I'm just throwing some ideas out here...

:agree:

I curious about the heavy smoke out of the exhaust? That usually means a water leak into the combustion chamber.

Your front hose looks really bad, it has had a aneurysm... My 88 has a water hose coming out the back of the manifold, it wraps around the back of the engine and goes to the heater valve.

It is hard to get a good photo with it all back together. I had to move the (2) top holes that hold the rubber mounting grommets about 3/4" forward. You can see the small sheet metal plates that I riveted in. As I remember I had to cut a sheet metal flange on the right side, vertical cut about 14". Edit: You can also see where the shroud is mounted to the radiator flange on the right side with sheet metal screws. The left side had that 1/2" setback gap in the shroud so I used some standoffs and longer sheet metal screws. I used foam along the left side to make a seal.

I'm not sure how to use the factory temp sensor. I bought mine from dccontrol.com, p/n 2sp. It was expensive at ~$70 but it works well.

My fan is wired with some heavy duty, HIGH-AMP, quick disconnect terminals. Those connectors should be rated 50A-12V. BROWN-ORANGE - LOW BROWN - YELLOW - HIGH BLACK - GROUND What will you use for the temp sensor and fan control?

The fan that I pulled was a BIG SINGLE FAN, most of the Taurus that I looked at had the double fan setup. I'm pretty sure it was a ~96-97 with 3.8l, I might of been wrong, I know it was a Taurus. I have about 1" of clearance to the pulley. Note: I had to cut sheet metal and rivet new top locations for the rubber mounts. I moved the radiator forward about 3/4". You can see the temp sensor wire going into the top center of the radiator fins and the fan relays over on the fender.

Ford Taurus ~96-97 3.8l The shroud width matched the sheet metal flanges on the radiator! I used two 1/4 in standoffs on the left side. The whole fan assembly from the pull & pay was $24.99. Two speed electronic control and temp sensor from DC Controls. You can see the two speed relay controls in the upper right corner of the photo. I did have to move the radiator mounts forward 3/4", that was a bit of a sheet metal challenge.

I can't say about the bounce over bumps. It looks as though all the geometry in the suspension has been changed with the lift, that could be the nature of the beast. With the drift from side to side, my Comanche had that problem. It would start to drift right and stay that direction until you pull it to the left and then it would stay left until you pull it right. I would be zig zaggin down the road fighting right and left. Alignment technicians call that "memory steer", it was due to my ball joints not installed properly, too tight!

Is there any way to repair severe hail damage on the roof of a Comanche? I haven’t done much body work but could I cover the whole roof top with bondo, or would that fall off eventually? Any other repair material? With a sawzall I could cut the roof off a Comanche in the salvage yard in about 10 minutes. With about 20 hours of fab and fit I could weld it on my Comanche, has anybody ever done this? There are some nice seams around the roof to hide the weld lines...

This gave me an excuse to clean up my workbench a little bit. How much can you tell about a person from looking at his workbench?

My 88 2.5l had a slow rough idle and would stall at times, it turned out to be the EGR valve...

The leak down test is more difficult to do, but is a more precise diagnostic tool. You can skip the compression test and just do the leak down, it will tell you clearly where the problem is.

You should do a leak down test before you pull the head... Note: Pulling the head on a 2.5 is not a difficult task, you can R&R a head in four hours.

Check for a burnt and or sticking exhaust valve. A leak-down or compression check is needed. Something else to look at would be a REAL loose or skipped timing chain...

That my friend is a good call. :bowdown: I would not have seen that opportunity with the rear bumper in place. :doh: I have a set of deep offset wrenches that will do the trick.

Found a nice receiver hitch at the pull & pay but don’t know how to get it off. I put a wrench on the bolts and they just spin the nuts inside the box frame member. There is no access to the back side to hold the nuts? Not sure how to cut the bolt heads, any ideas… I can't afford to buy any new battery powered tools.

The only other thing I can think of you have a burnt and or sticking exhaust valve? You will need to do a leak down or compression check.

If your distributor is in properly #1 will be at ~5 o'clock. The distributor turns clockwise as viewed, and you can see the firing order from this photo.

I was in the pull & pay the other day and there was a 86 Comanche with chrome door handles. These seemed a lot bigger than the plastic ones, they were heavy metal with good chrome plating. Would these go on my 88? I assume the lock tumblers can be changed? I wonder what it would cost to have them redone in Black Chrome?