1997 Ford Escort Fuel Injectors?

TKKOTIAH

MEMBER
1997 FORD ESCORT
4 CYL
FWD
AUTOMATIC
96,000 MILES

My boyfriend recently tried his hand at installing a cd player in my car. He accidentally broke off the temperature control knob and I had to order the housing to get that fixed. Once it was fixed and since it was warmer outside we ran the air conditioner, everything seemed fine, except for a little puttering (little tremors). Well later that night the service engine soon light that has been on for a long time, started flashing, the car started vibrating like crazy and it smelled like something was burning, possibly plastic, or unburnt gasoline. We were able to get the car back home, but we are not sure what could be wrong. The smell is not as bad, but basically we are having the same problems even after the car has been sitting for a little over a week. We recently started using a super concentrated cleaner for our fuel injectors and I am not sure it that is what is causing the damage. Last summer when we used the AC everything was fine. It was mentioned to me that the issue could be the AC compressor or the fuel injectors need to be cleaned. Any help I can get on this issue would be welcome.

3 Replies

BLACKOP555

MECHANIC
10,371 POSTS

Does car run fine when ac is off?

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Monday, April 28th, 2008 AT 8:08 PM

TKKOTIAH

MEMBER
2 POSTS

Even when the AC is shut off (and we haven't used it really since), I am still having the same problems. I have been able to officially rule out the air conditioner compressor as a problem.
For what I can understand so far, part of my problem is that the car is sometimes only running on 3 cylinders instead of 4. I had 2 spark plugs changed (one was definitely bad) and the spark plug wires changed as well (there was a small tear/burn) on the one wire - which are less than 1 year old and still under warranty), which leads me to believe that was causing the burn smell, because the smell is gone. After changing the spark plugs, it was fine for a little while like a few hours, but then the puttering started getting a little worse. It is still better than before. And I was told that it's definitely not the cylinder going bad because it is running on all 4 at certain time, it's just accelerating slow and flashing check engine soon light while accelerating and turning, and / or going over 40 mph.
What I am trying to figure out is whether the puttering could possibly be from mis-firing due to clogged the fuel injectors? I am still using bottled fuel injector cleaners, which aren't really working. I read on this site about the Motorvac carbon cleaning system which I am going to try and have done next week. Is there anything that I can try in the meantime, to narrow down the source of the problem?