Learn Me: Ford 1.6L EcoBoost Issues

Well berkeley. 

As I was afraid would happen, there is something wrong with either the torque converter or transaxle after the swap. Thinking about it I'm leaning toward the TC- but since there's no good way I know of to test and figure it out (and it could be both), I need to get another TC and transaxle. 

Unfortunately it seems AWD transaxles are less easy to come by as there aren't any already pulled nearby that don't cost more than the car is likely worth. 

So, I need to figure out: if I have the passenger side axle as well (since I know the AWD axle is slightly different then the FWD since the AWD one goes through the transfer case), can I just swap in a FWD transaxle? It already doesn't have the driveshaft so in function it wouldn't be any different besides not having the weight and efficiency loss of the useless transfer case- I mainly need to know if the computer will pitch a fit about it or if (as I suspect) they're essentially identical and the computer won't care.  

Ok... so I hooked the laptop back up to the car and ran through everything relevant I could find in ForScan- and nothing in the info that it has shows anything about being AWD (or FWD), which reinforces my suspicion that the computer won't know/care if I were to put a FWD transaxle in instead of an AWD one. 

So today I learned that it takes me about 5 hours to take the Escape from driveable to ready to pull the engine & transaxle. Granted- I hadn't put the front end back on completely, and I'd already pulled the passenger side axle out once and put it back on, so it was fairly easy to pull that one again. Thankfully the drivers side was even easier since I'd done the other side. 

For now I've not pulled the engine & trans since I've not yet gotten a replacement transaxle and torque converter. I'm still trying to work out whether a FWD transaxle will work since an AWD one has been a bit harder to come by. There are several AWD Escapes up in junkyards in Cinci with the 1.6, but of course they will take a good while to pull (at least 6 hours working alone, probably 4 or so with help assuming everything goes well). 

Since it is supposed to rain at least on and off for the next week or so starting tomorrow (originally was supposed to start today, but that looks like it's not going to happen) I decided that I'd take yesterday off to go up to the junkyards in Cincinnati to try and pull a replacement transaxle & torque converter for the Escape. The closest of the yards initially looked like it had the perfect candidate: an AWD 1.6 that someone had wanted the exhaust manifold & turbo off of and had as a result already pulled the entire front end and unbolted the engine & transaxle from the frame and pulled the axles already, which would have meant just unbolting the engine from the transaxle and loading the transaxle up and calling it a day. Unfortunately, after working on unbolting the last few things I realized that it would not work- at some point, a hole had been knocked through the case of the transaxle (highlighted in the picture below- it's hard to see and I only initially noticed it when I tipped everything forward and oil started coming out of the hole). Had it been smaller I might have been willing to try and patch it, but as large as it was and the concern that the parts of the case that had been knocked in when the hole was made would get into the moving parts meant having to abandon it.

After heading to another yard with a good supply of Escapes we found an AWD model that someone had already pulled the front end from and unbolted much of the connections. EastsideTim & wae had come out to help, and we were able to get the transaxle pulled without terribly too much difficulty. The only potential issue is that whoever had started pulling thing hadn't apparently known how to ulock the wiring harness connection to the tranaxle and damaged the connector on the transaxle, but I'm far more confident in being able to to handle repairing that compared to a hole in the housing. 

Unfortunately, since the Escape's owner is currently borrowing the QX4, the only way I had to get there and back and transport the transaxle was... my E46 convertible with the bottom pad from the back seat pulled out. I'm pretty sure that the guy at the yard who handled the checkout and overseeing people loading things up using the gantry they have thought I was the craziest person he'd encountered, telling me that he's never seen anyone use either a convertible or a BMW to haul and engine or transaxle. 

It did however work just fine, though due to both the concern of the wind whipping the plastic sheeting under the transaxle around and the fact it was close to 90 degrees out means that I made the drive home with the top up and the air on pretty high (after about 7 hours out in the sun I was glad to have the air conditioning). Unloading the transaxle at home proved to be a bit more challenging- I (unsurprisingly) don't have an overhead gantry like the junkyard, and the E46 is just too low to be able to get the engine hoist underneath- at least not without employing jacks to lift it up enough for the front legs of the hoist to fit under it. 

The transaxle is now safely up with the rest of the Escape, and tomorrow I'll get to work fixing the harness connector and hopefully at least pulling the old engine and transaxle if not getting them swapped and the new one into the car.

Engine and replacement transaxle & TC are now back into the car and bolted in. Still have to put everything back onto it before I can start it and see if everything behaves- and need to figure out how to secure the transaxle harness connector to the transaxle since the plastic on the mating connection on the transaxle side is all broken off- but I really need a replacement lower radiator support first. The one that was on the car is in really bad shape- both from the accident damage and rust- and I don't think it will be long before it snaps and the makes a mess of things. I almost grabbed one last week when at the junkyards, and am regretting having not done so. I'm waiting to hear back from the place I got the replacement engine from to see if they still have the one from the Escape that engine came out of and if they do what condition it's in. 

Largely reposted from the Minor Rants thread, but...

Finally got the accursed Escape back together to the point that it should have been able to be started on Saturday morning and all the fluids refilled... and it absolutely refused to do anything throwing a red-dot Engine Fault on the dash display and not letting either ForScan or an OBD reader connect to anything. Spent some time literally just messing with things under the hood because I couldn't find anything that would explain the problem- and somehow it decided that it was now going to behave. Got it started up... and it's still making the a grinding noise when running, despite having replaced the transaxle & torque converter... meaning either a) there's also something wrong with the new transaxle/TC or b).... the problem is with the replacement engine.

It is not as loud as it was before and it will go into gear without the engine stalling out- so it's an improvement over where it was the last time I had it running with the original transaxle and TC.... but I seriously doubt that it can be driven safely for any distance and it if is the engine, it's only a matter of time before it dies. I'm also not 100% certain that the ECTS is reading properly- I need to try and figure out whether there's a difference between the sensors on the original engine and the new one. 

Also interestingly, I am 90% certain that I never saw anything on the dash about the 4WD system before- and now it's showing up (usually because it's telling me that it's offline- which makes sense given it doesn't have the driveshaft between the transfer case and rear diff, though I don't really know how it knows that the 4wd system won't work when it's sitting still (and up on jacks). Kind of wonder if somehow they'd changed something in the transaxle software to make it think it was a FWD and not AWD one but that new one doesn't have that and is properly reporting that it's an AWD. Yet another thing that is just bizarre and frustrating.

I'm beyond done with dealing with this POS. I'm going to put the front wheels back on and see if it's capable of driving at all (which it should be... before swapping the trans I was able to move it from next door into our driveway, albeit only a few feet at a time before it would die and have to be restarted) because I need to get it out of the driveway so I can put the iD.4 there. 

I honestly want to just confirm that it can be driven for short-ish distances and hand it back over to the owner- it is in better shape than when I got it (the engine was seized up from the timing belt failing and crashing the pistons & valves), but it's also far from fixed- and telling them that spending more time and money on it is just throwing good money after bad and their best bet would be to try and trade it in on something better. I feel horrible for not being able to really fix it... and am going to have a really hard time asking the owner to pay for the parts that went into trying to fix it. I wish I'd looked it over initially and given it back with the recommendation that they trade it in/sell it and get something better instead of trying to fix it- I think everyone would have ended up better off for it. But I really wanted to help the owner out and didn't expect that it would turn into this big of a berkfest of a disaster (even if I worried that it had the potential to). I really need to listen more to my gut in situations like this... 

Wow, what a saga.  You are a good dude.

My neighbor asked for some advice (she left a letter in my mailbox!) about having work done on her son's MINI before he drove it to California.  She knew it needed an engine mount which, coincidentally, I had just paid to have replaced so I was able to tell her what it cost.  The car is now gone and he never called my friend's shop so I assume it went unfixed.  I wondered for a moment if I should have offered to help him do it - then I immediately thought of this thread.  :)

I thought it odd that her adult (mid-20s?) son didn't just walk 200 feet to my house and ask me directly but I guess that's "kids" today!

I'm sorry to hear this was such a frustrating situation, doubly so because you were trying to help someone out.  I think you've done an awesome job of trying to help our your friend!

I've done some charity automotive work over the years, and it's been some of the most fulfilling car-related activities I've ever done.  Unfortunately, it's tough to know just how crazy things are going to get.

- I met a guy who had a flat tire on the side of the road one day on the way into work.  He delivered papers for a living after being laid off by a city IT department.  He had a green card, college degree, and good skills, but just couldn't find a job.  He was really upset because if he missed another day of his paper route, he'd be fired (and homeless within a short time).  While we were throwing the spare on, I could see the front LCA was badly bent.  He carefully drove to a shop, and I paid to have the LCA replaced, along with two front tires and an alignment.  That literally kept his job, and later that week we used some redneck engineering (sawsall, zip-ties, etc.) to replace his cracked radiator with a JY unit.  A few months down the road, he we did some late night (and early morning) emergency brake repairs after a rear wheel cylinder exploded.  After the initial expense of the LCA and tires, he paid for all the parts. I helped him update his resume and apply for some jobs, and he got a really good one.  That job enabled him to bring his wife and son over from Ghana, and he's still gainfully employed and doing awesome.  So in that case, the help I gave was probably life-changing.  I believe God put me in the right place at the right time to help someone out.

- A co-worker on a work visa from India was horrifically underpaid and got a crazy high quote to replace the brakes on his Geo Prizm (Toyota Corolla clone).  I bought the parts off of Rock Auto, he paid me for them, and we went to work.  3 of the 4 lugs on the first wheel we took off snapped immediately, and we spent a big chunk of the day raiding our local parts store for replacement wheel studs   In the end, we got it all buttoned up and it worked out just fine.  But there was a pucker factor of, I've just disabled his only form of transportation and I don't know if I can get it fixed by Monday.

I've had a few jobs I knew I could take on, but the risk of the jobs caused me not to offer help:

- Timing belt on a V6 Highlander for my son's HS friend

- Timing belt on my brother's Subaru Legacy

I've done timing belt work on my own vehicles several times, but I get more nervous working on someone else's vehicle.  So I give you kuddos for taking on this project in the first place, and then doubling down with the latest work!  I was really hoping for a better outcome for you, as your heart was definitely in the right place!

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I've generally been happy to help my friends out with simpler/basic stuff in the past- and some more difficult things, like the CV axles, bearings, and hubs on the Sienna that The Dancer's nonprofit had donated to it and we gave to our music director to replace his barely-running 30-year-old Civic. There have also been some unexpected opportunities to help people out- back in my old house there were large apartment buildings across the street from it, and one of the residents had seen me working on my cars in the driveway (I had a much smaller garage there, not that I don't do a lot of work in my driveway- or my neighbors in the Escape's case). He came over one day when I was out working on one and asked if there was any way I could show him how to change the brakes on his car. I ended up helping him get the parts and helping change them with him since he didn't have some of the necessary tools to do it safely.

I'm rather frustrated that this hasn't worked out well for anyone it seems... but I've done a lot of thinking about it and may have come up with a way that it at least doesn't end quite as painfully at least for the Escape's owner as it could. It will require both the owner and The Dancer being OK with it (since it will cost us a modest bit- though not without benefit), but it may be a way to salvage the situation into something of a win for everyone. 

I've shown several friends how to basic things like oil changes, cabin filters, air filters, serpentine belts, and brakes.  In some cases things were tight financially and they couldn't afford to have things done at a shop, so I was glad to be able to help out.  It can be really tough once you've started because you don't know if something's going to go smoothly, or if it's going to fight you the whole way.

Fingers crossed that your idea works well for all involved parties!

Ok, I'm now convinced that this car is  just berking with me. 

So yesterday evening I set out to figure out whether the Escape would at least move under its own power to be able to move it out of the driveway at least. I  went out and checked that all of the fluids were at the proper levels and that it started up- and it ran the way it had been, with a shrill metallic grinding noise (albeit thankfully far less loud of one than before swapping trans/TC's). I put the wheels back on, lowered it back onto the wheels, and tightened the axle nuts & lug nuts. I then got in and started it back up, crossed my fingers, and put it into reverse- and the engine promptly died, which was not what I had been hoping for at all... I at least was hoping for it to be able to move around under its own power. But, I’d encountered a similar problem before replacing the transaxle and I'd been able to get it to at least move short distances- so I tried again a few more times while giving it increasing amounts of gas to try and overcome the drag of the TC/trans on the engine.

Finally, I revved it up pretty far and dropped it into reverse- and heard a loud ‘thunk’ and then near silence… I assumed that the engine had died or worse, seized up. But then I realized that the tach was still showing the engine at idle speed- so it was still running AND no longer making the scraping noise (and was still in reverse, but not going anywhere because of the parking brake and my having my foot on the brake pedal). So I release the parking brake and eased off on the brake- and it moved back. I put it into drive, and it moved forward. I got out, opened the gate, backed it out of the driveway, and drove it up the street a bit so that I could confirm that the transaxle was shifting properly- and it continued to work perfectly before pulling it back into the driveway where it had started. I then shut it off, waited a minute or so, and started it back up- and it continued to run smoothly and quietly. 

I couldn’t do much more safely with the front end off of it- the radiator assembly is pretty much just held in by the hoses without the rest of the front end on it… but somehow it seems to be working just fine now. As near as I can figure, the torque converter hadn’t seated properly into the transaxle, but when I revved the engine up enough it lock properly into place.  I’m still kind of in a state of disbelief- I did NOT expect that to happen when I went out to work on it yesterday and the first time I think I've ever had something go from 'this thing is completely hosed' to 'it seems to be working perfectly' in a split second... usually it's the other way around. 

I would have been a lot more excited about it were it not for one detail- the owner had asked me how things were going earlier in the day and I'd been completely up-front with them. I said that it was not looking good and that I worried that it was getting to the point where it wasn't worth throwing more parts and money at it, and they were resigned to probably having to just sell it for really cheap and not have a vehicle for a while (I'd offered to sell them my Infiniti that they've been driving while I've been working on the Escape, but they said even at the pretty low price I offered it at that they were worried their finances couldn't handle it). But then several hours later I text them and essentially say, "Guess what! Forget everything I said earlier, it now looks like it might work just fine (at least for a while- this is still a 1.6 Ecoboost engine we're talking about)." I'm sure they probably think I'm either incompetent or was somehow messing with them or something. I wish I'd have waited to tell them how things were going until after I had tried getting it to move under its own power so this all would have happened and it would have been (likely- I'm not foolish enough to assume that things are just going to go great just yet...) good news vs. 'It's dead Jim! It...it's ALIVE!"

One thing that hasn't changed: I will be very, very happy when this thing is finally out of my driveway and back with its owner. And honestly (and somewhat ironically) my recommendation to them likely hasn't changed... I think they're probably best off trying to sell it and not have to worry about it failing on them down the line. The only difference is that now they'll hopefully be able to sell it for a modest bit more since it will run and drive (hopefully with no issues) vs. having to sell it with saying it needs either an engine or transaxle.

This also reiterates that I hate dealing with automatic transmissions/transaxles. Give me a clutch and flywheel any day over a torque converter.  

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

What a Berking Roller Coaster!

Get it off your property as fast as possible ! ! ! 😉 

Well, the Escape is back together and passed its highway test drive last night. When the owner can make it over to get it/return my QX4 on Friday I will hopefully be done with it for good. I need to re-check the torques on a few things after driving it for a bit, and will probably use Forscan to reset the adaptive shift tables because it seemed to be wanting to shift up to higher gears more quickly than I'd have expected, but otherwise I plan to do as little with it as possible. 

May it never darken your doorstep again.  What an ordeal.  

I was thinking of this thread when my brothers suggested I offer to use my key programming tablet to add keys for people to help justify the expense... I said, no thanks! I'm happy to do it for friends and family but if I think about doing it for the general public I'll just reread this thread.

It's awesome that it's ready to go, hope you never need to touch it mechanically ever again.

In reply to dculberson :

Yeah. Between the like 4-month disaster this has been and one of the front wheels falling off of the Sienna I helped another friend change the cv axles, bearings, outer tie rods,  and hubs on (I know we torqued the lug nuts down and he even said he had re-tightened them), I am convinced that when I work in someone else's car for them either I or the parts that I buy for it are cursed (since it seems like the timing belt on the Escape failed and possibly the wheel bearing or hub failed on the Sienna). 

Though in the Sienna's case it likely wasn't  helped by the guy ignoring my telling him that after we did the work that he needed to take it to be aligned after we'd had the hubs off.