97 Ford Contour Multiple problems

[quote=”Monkey wrench” post=137429]So I got this car for free but there is a lot going on with it. For starters there is a coolant leak but its hitting the pulleys and spraying coolant/water every which way. My first instinct, pressure test the coolant system and see where fluid starts leaking but there is no access to the radiator from the top, only the reservoir.[/quote]
That is the expansion tank. It is the correct place to do the pressure test, which is why it has a pressure cap on it. If you’re going to do a coolant pressure test, you might as well do a fuel pressure test and cylinder leakdown test (or at least a compression test) also.

It sounds …..eh kinda rough, but when i took the intake casing off; all of the hoses were in primo shape and it didn’t stall or anything when I spray starter fluid on them. When i hooked my scan tool up to it last night it threw up a p0141 with a p0171.

P0141 means there is something going on with the post-cat O2 sensor heater circuit. Unplug the connector. There should be two wires the same color on the O2 sensor connector, those are the heater wires. Make sure that when the key is on there is 12v across them. If so, the heater on the O2 has probably opened or shorted. If not, look for a melted or damaged wire or a blown fuse. You can measure the resistance across the O2 sensor terminals where the same color wires go. The reading should be somewhere between 3 and 10 ohms usually. The running rough is most likely due to the lean condition being reported by the P0171 code, or it could just be an induced code due to the post-cat sensor issue. Correct the O2 sensor heater malfunction first before looking for performance issues.