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start with checking your Idle air control when the car runs with out the ac
does the cars idle surge or steady. also check your battery terminals
are clean and tight. also check the charging system output. you can
have the battery and alternator checked at any auto store.Can you be a little more specific with the details? When you say “kills”, do you mean your car just stalls out? When did this start happening? Did you have any work done on the car?
I would make sure the compressor isn’t siezed, causing the belt to lock up and the car to stall with the huge drain. See if you can spin the center portion (the clutch) of the compressor pulley freely. It’s a bit of a long shot because more likely the belt would just spin on the pulley and cause crazy noise and smoke, but it’s a really quick check.
Good luck.
Another possible problem area with a ’92 Ford 3.8 liter V6 is the need to burp the air out of the cooling system. The 3.8 has the thermostat housing on the front of the engine block. When the cooling system is filled, there will be an air pocket above the T-stat housing up to the top of the intake manifold. The temperature sensor reads the temp of the air pocket which is cooler than the coolant. This results in a temperature gauge that reads cool and a rich mixture as if the car has just been started from dead cold. The rich mixture fouls the spark plugs and the additional load of the air cond can stall the engine at a stop light or perhaps up to 20 mph. If you have the car at 40, 60, mph or more, the engine will not stall, but the temp gauge will probably still read too cool.
The owner’s manual will include a special procedure for burping the air out. I haven’t done it in years and do not remember it well enough to include it here. The standard procedure for “bleeding a cooling system” will not work on the 3.8 Ford.Let us know how you’re progressing and I’ll see if I can find a description of the procedure.
Quoted From yarddog1950:
Another possible problem area with a ’92 Ford 3.8 liter V6 is the need to burp the air out of the cooling system. The 3.8 has the thermostat housing on the front of the engine block. When the cooling system is filled, there will be an air pocket above the T-stat housing up to the top of the intake manifold. The temperature sensor reads the temp of the air pocket which is cooler than the coolant. This results in a temperature gauge that reads cool and a rich mixture as if the car has just been started from dead cold. The rich mixture fouls the spark plugs and the additional load of the air cond can stall the engine at a stop light or perhaps up to 20 mph. If you have the car at 40, 60, mph or more, the engine will not stall, but the temp gauge will probably still read too cool.
The owner’s manual will include a special procedure for burping the air out. I haven’t done it in years and do not remember it well enough to include it here. The standard procedure for “bleeding a cooling system” will not work on the 3.8 Ford.Let us know how you’re progressing and I’ll see if I can find a description of the procedure.
I love when Yarddog kicks in his opinion. It always makes me think. I have done a couple water pumps on small block Chevys where I ran into a similar problem. The engine would overheat because of a bubble under the t-stat. I had to pull the t-stat and fill the block the rest of the way, then re-install the t-stat and then bleed the system. Good call as usual Yardy.
Thanks Beefy,
There’s quite a lot of stuff I don’t know, and more I have forgotten. My X wife had a 1992 T-bird with the 3.8 V6 and we ran into this problem around 1996. I spoke to several mechanics before I found one who knew about the 3.8 V6.
It will be interesting to hear from this fellow about what caused the problem.The old Fiat PininFarina spider had a radiator lower than the water neck and so it was hard to fill. A Fiat mechanic told me he would raise the front end of the car with a lift to fill the cooling system.
I read that Ford mechanics will remove the bolt from the vent on top of the intake manifold on the 3.8 and fill it with a funnel and a straw somehow. It might save some time over the procedure described in the owner’s manual which involves opening the vent while the engine is running. I think that the 3.8 Ford should be checked again the next day to see if you still get air out of the vent with the engine running.
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