Paul Grainger

The pin is in the metering head where all the fuel pipes come from. Undo the clip and remove the air intake hose. Under that you will see a plate which lifts up as the air goes into the intake. The more you open the throttle the more air goes in and the more the plate lifts. The pin is on the end of the plate and adjusts how much fuel is injected. Sometimes they stick and under fuel. You can lift the plate by hand but treat it with care as it is very sensitive and easy to damage.

Ahh sorry about the reposts. Couldn't see them and didn't realise there was a second page!! Glad you got it sorted.

Rear adjusters are ok are they? When they are worn they slip when you put the handbrake on giving you a load of travel on the foot brake.

Are the rear adjusters ok? They can slip when you put the hand brake on giving you loads of travel.

I have heard they used to get problems with the fuel metering head. The metering pin sticks.

Spark plugs?

Anything draining the battery? Boot light on etc?

There is no relay?!? The ignition needs to be on to make the fan run when shorting the wires. If this does not work you could have a faulty motor. Wire the motor straight to the battery to see if it works.

Just check the spray patterns as you suggest. An ultra sonic cleaning bath is good at sorting them out. If that doesnt work then I would replace them. Cheers

Hi, have you replaced the adjusters in the rear drums? These are prone to wear and slip as soon as you apply he hand brake. This will then give you loads of travel on the foot brake. Cheers

Sounds good. Stick to decent ones or you will be replacing them every year!

No probes. If the co won't adjust then its probably the pot. Have fun.

Yup. Just the covers.

Easy as that. Must check the tracking after though.

Just in and out I am afraid. If its still loose when locked in place then you can tighten the nut on the other end of the locking lever.

That will be the inner wishbone bush. The arms move when you accelerate.

Sounds to me that the rears need adjusting? The adjusters wear too and may need replacing.

Quite common to leak through the door if the membrane behind the door panel is damaged. In can drip between the membrane and the door card and drip over the door seal. Do the hose pipe thing and then open the door and see.

The CVH efi engine was renowned for drivability concerns even when they were new. Don't think Ford ever truly got the bottom of it. You have to remember that, although an excellent engine in its day, it is still an old design. It was dressed up with efi to meet emmission regs etc before the launch of the Zetec. In the early days the idle speed control valve was a Hitachi unit on top of the air cleaner box. These were dreadfull and was soon modified to have it fitted on the baulkhead so it was closer to the throttle butterfly. Then modified again to have the idle valve bolted to the intake manifold. These were the best ones but still not great. There were modified ECUs as well but were still not perfect. Think the honest truth is that it is an old design engine which is not designed to run on the lean mixtures required to get through the emission regs and if you run an engine on fresh air it is just not going to run very well. Leaving the intake air temp sensor disconnected seemed to make them run a bit better but was not considered by most to be acceptable as 'Ford fitted it for a reason'. Some went for a super chip ECU which I have heard is much better but have no experiance of this. I remember fannying around with resistors in line with the wiring to fool the ecu and to make them run richer; with some success I might add. (Much cheaper than a super chip anyway) The only other tip I can offer which is probably the best is make sure it is tuned properly. To do this do the following. 1. Disconnect the battery for 10 mins. This will clear the ecu of any idle values. 2. Run the engine and disconect the idle speed control valve. 3. Adjust idle speed via the air bypass screw until you get an idle speed of 750rpm. 4. Reconnect the valve. 5. Adjust the fuel mixture with an exhaust gas analyser. CO should be on 1%. 6. Put the roof down and drive your car with a big smile on your face, and remember. You are in an Escort cabriolet and not many other people have got one!

Another thing to check is that the cable from The temperature control knob is actually moving The flap on The heater box. I seem to remember these becoming uncliped. From memory it is on The lower part of The heater box near The clutch pedal and people with big feet knock them off! The gauge fault could just be a faulty sensor.

Pull it and find out...... Go on....... You know you what to!!!!

Disconnecting the sensor will just flag a fault in the ECU. The sensor has a 5 volt feed from The ECU and The voltage it receives back is what is used to determ nine the engine temperature. It does this by changing resistance with temperature as is is a negative coefficient thermistor. If the sensor is disconnected then the ECU will see zero volts instead of somewhere in between 0.5v and 4.5v. This will tell the ecu there is a fault and a value will be substituted with the same reading as the air intake temperature sensor which is electrically identical. The system is a bit more clever than you think! Have you scanned for any fault codes?

Think it should have an air bag. Perhaps they removed the instruments to take the warning light bulb out and haven't reconected the plug properly? (The light would stay on if the air bag isn't fitted). The Speedo is driven by a cable which can be fiddly to get in. Remove the cluster and have a look. Cheers

Just a thought. Is there any hissing noise when ticking over? Could have an air leak in a vacuum pipe. The t piece at the front of the engine on the right as you look at it is quite a common failure. Also worth replacing the pcv valve where the breather pipe goes into the block. Sometimes these play up too. Good luck.

Hi Nick, Don't try and adjust the idle speed. The ecu records the lowest voltage as a base value. Have you scanned for any fault codes?