99' stalling???

Hey guys,

I have a 99' windstar 3.8L. Van was running great, no problems. I went out today started it and it stalled right away. Started right back up, but will only stay running if the keep foot on pedal. It will not idle at all.

When you keep foot on the pedal, it will run smooth with no misses.

Any ideas at what would cause this?

Thanks for the help.

Does anyone have any ideas????

Perhaps a loose or broken hose resulting in vacuum leak? IAC valve? Loose battery cables? ...??

You may soon have an engine light that will help resolve the question.

Simple steps first:

I would clean the IAC with a good hose down of carb cleaner (spray). If the Fuel Filter is more than 12 months old I would replace it with a Motorcraft part. And also run a can of SeaFoam or Berryman's B12 (fuel Injector cleaner) with a full tank of gas. If none of this helps, you have a bigger problem, but no worries, there a boatload of helpful people here to help.

Thanks for the help. Took it out for a drive and after 20 minutes it cleared itself up and ran perfect. I am still gonna clean out the IAC and hopefully it won't happen again!!!

Glad to hear... don't forget the fuel filter (every year) and check the condition of the Air Filter, the manual suggests you change it at 15K miles intervals, but depending or your driving area (dusty and dirty air) I recommend a visual inspection every six months and replacing it when is too degraded.

So what did you do to it ? Besides taking it out for 20 minutes.

The airfilter was changed two weeks ago and the fuel filter a couple months ago. Plugs only have 3k miles on them.

I didn't do anything to it yet. I drove it to work. I had to keep my foot on the gas and shift to N, when I came to a stop. By the time I got to work, it was idleing on it's own. This am it started fine and ran perfect the whole time.

I may change the fuel filter again, clean the IAC and dump some B12 in the tank. Van has 167k on it, without much trouble. It set the 171/174 codes now and then. I still need to do the fix for that.

Hmmm, those codes suggest vacuum leaks perhaps.

Maybe suggests injectors with bit of leak-thru also. You can test for this (somewhat) by removing the injectors (and first cleaning the inlets with aerosol carb cleaner) lean the injectors against something on your workbench, upright and in a row. Fill the inlet side of the injectors with drops of clean motor oil. Top-off. Let a bit of time pass and observe. The oil will pass thru the leakers. You may want to replace the worst of the lot.

The codes are caused by the valve cover problem. I just have to get it fixed.

OK, yeah, you did say "'99".