Taxi Driver Online

Hi All,

New to the forum. I've got a LHD TX2 here in California that I have a lot of trouble with starting. It takes about 15 turns of the engine to get it to jump to life and if there battery isn't 100% it's not happening. I had the battery replaced under warranty a year ago and still got the issue. On the rare really cold day we get, might as well get the charger out as the battery will drain before I get it to start.

Any ideas on what it could be? When I do get it to start, I sometimes get a bit of a white-ish cloud as the first burst of exhaust but then normal right after.

The car only 20k miles on it and when it runs, it seems fine although the gearbox seems really inefficient (i.e. lot of revs for poor acceleration, gear changes lose a lot of power, feels like the old mini gearboxes that had the bands that were really sloppy etc). I also get random beeps from the BCM while driving sometimes, usually about 10 mins in to driving, some lasting 6/7 seconds long.

Oh and Duratorq parts are non existent here in the USA (they were never used or imported) but there is a really good guy over here that has all the LTI parts

Any pointers really appreciated......

Heater plugs...

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Cheers Mr T.

Before I get to fixing the heater plugs, could it possibly be the starter? Even with a full charged battery, it takes 15 odd "chuggs" of the engine to run. I was wondering if my starter is on the way out and is not turning the engine over faster enough to get compression for ignition?

How difficult are the heater plugs to change myself? I'm pretty handy but don't have specialized tools.

fit new glow plugs to start with, then run an earth strap from the earth on the battery, to a bolt on the engine, could also try changing the fuel filter, making sure the rubber O rings are seated corectly

https://www.ngk.de/en/technology-in-det ... rinciples/

check that you have power to them when you first star up

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Thanks Mr T ans Skippy!

I've just seen what might be worth a crack before buying the glow plugs; the power cables on the terminals aren't in great shape - the red main/large one looks ok but the insulation on the smaller conductors are a little melted an exposed.

The same on the black/negative side - exposed and a little melted. I'm thinking I should just get both pos and neg reterminated on to new terminal clamps. Could that be causing the starter and plugs to not get enough juice?

Any ideas on the power issue guys?

If it is auto...check you oil.....in your autobox..

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Thanks, it is an Auto.

I'll have a look but it's only got 23k miles on it and I do less than 3,000 a year on it. About 2k miles ago I had a full service including all fluids. We did the fuel filter, air filter and oil filter. Could it be that I already need a new fuel filter?

I'm thinking it has to be either a faulty starter or bad power to it; When I use the charger on 200amp start or jump it from another car, it turns fast enough to start pretty quickly, but again if I haven;t tun it for 3 days it takes about 15 chuggs of the engine to get running. I'm thinking the starter isn't rolling it over fast enough or it could be a combination of poor power to the starter and bad plugs?

I'm going to replace the battery terminals and go from there, and maybe next replace the starter.....

Try a new heavy duty battery along with new cables, did they change the thin filter inside the gearbox?? when you had it serviced
this gives you an idea of what to do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBXXxQnmBOk

Can you get the PCM updated to the latest (last) BIOS software first? my duratorq was a pig to start till i had this done

then buy "F Super" diagnostics, the best £15 you will ever spend

with diesels a compression test proves the bores and then get the timing chain/timing checked

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Thanks Skippy - I cut off the old terminals and replaced them with some gold "Raptor" Brand once and it's made a massive difference! Power gets to the starter much better now! I can nearly start it with the Air Conditioning on (but not quite unless it's already warmed up)

.....but it's still got issues: I didn't run the car for 3 days and when I went to start it, there was so little power left it couldn't turn the engine over once. I have a serious power drain somewhere.

The only two obvious things are that I had to rewire the connections to the radio as the original owner hadn't connected the constant power (so it would lose memory every time the car was switched off). I didn't do a thorough check on all those connections when I re did it.

The only other thing is that my left indicator is doing double time which normally means a bulb has gone.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what the drain could be? Any usual suspects?

At wannabeahack - Pig is the exact way to describe the doratorq! How do you upgrade the bios in the PCM? Do you mean the Body Control Module? I don't have one top hand, but can borrow a MASI cable and software if you're meant to do it with that? Otherwise I've got the proper TX Scan Tool 2000 here so can it be done with that?

*bump*

ANyone got any ideas as to what could cause a power drain? One other thing, sometimes when I'm driving the BCM will make a long (5-7 seconds?) beep.

Firstly I would like to make it clear I absolutely hate the Ford engine in the TX2. Nothing but trouble, and I try not to work on them if possible.
One of the things that has been a constant fault with them over the years is having the wrong battery in them. It does not give out enough power to start them and constantly goes flat, unless you buy one of the really expensive ones which is a gel pack battery. The way we got round the problem of having to replace batteries every 12 months was to simply throw away the TX2 battery and replace it with the TX1 battery which gives out 110AH 68CCA which is much more powerful than the stupid little thing that they had in, and is cheaper than the expensive gel pack.

What you have to do is take out the battery shelf, which is only 4 bolts, and with a slight bit of ingenuity, the battery will fit. Just make sure the live battery terminal does not touch the bonnet when closed. You can buy the same battery with the live on the other side.

If you type in TX1 or TX2 batteries you will find whatever information you need.

You have my deepest commiserations for having a Ford engine.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LUCAS-12V-663 ... 1063627915

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!