HELP! '84 3.2 Carrera DEAD!

[Typical Fish]

Here is the scenario; any help would be much appreciated as my car is currently locked in the back of a warehouse...

I have been having a problem with the engine "stuttering" at low speeds, it feels almost like the fuel and/or spark are completely interrupted for a second or two... It will happen once or twice, then the car will run fine... Sometimes it goes a day or two without it happening... It has gotten slowly worse (despite my best efforts; filter, plugs, etc) and on Friday the car stalled on me in traffic and would not start... The weird thing about it is that it then fired up and ran fine for about a block before it did it again, then repeated... As I said, now it's in it's "wont start" mood... Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Matt

[midlife]

Check the DME relay under the drivers seat.
I had a similar problem that turned out to be a loose connection where the fuel pump wire went into the fuse box.
Good Luck.

[ricwon]

I had the same type of problems on my 86 a couple of years ago. I replaced the dme relay, fuel filter, and had my dme circuit board reflowed. It turned out to be the head temp sensor. No more problems. Ric

[JTL]

Does the fuel pump run when you try to start? Does the engine crank? Could also be a bad flywheel reference sensor.

jt

[Wil Ferch]

If not DME relay....maybe one or both of the speed reference and crank sensors ( both near the flywheel)...

Wil

[IROC]

DME relay is a quick place to look first. After that, the Bentley manual has a pretty good diagnostic section on the DME system and most things (with the exception of the speed and reference sensors) can be checked with a multimeter. Sure beats replacing good parts.

I wouldn't suspect the reference sensor as I *think* the reference sensor is only used to allow the DME to find TDC during starting. Once the engine starts, I don't think that the reference input is used. I might be wrong on this, though.

Mike