Code RED A.K.A. Total systems failure A.K.A MAF Sensor reground nightmare (looong).

[Peter Serwe]

Okay,

So I'm having a merry old time with my '92 SE-R and just for grins, I
decide to check my MAF ground (middle white wire) voltage.  Sure enough
- it reads 9mv - not 1 or 2, seems like it needs to be regrounded.

So, I whip out the weller station, a small coil of 10 gauge stranded
copper, and my trusty roll of solder.  Wet the sponge, burn some shield
off the that middle white wire, and wrap/solder the 10 gauge onto it.

Then, I wrap everything with 3m black, go ahead and cut some split-loom,
wrap it all up and finally terminate the other end with a nice crimped,
then soldered ring terminal, wrap up the that end in another layer of 3m
black, plug everything back in..

So I hop behind the wheel, turn the key, listen to the engine choke and
die a half second after starting, and sink into depression.

First off, I don't have an FSM, the only respone I got from a query out
here was check ebay, I haven't found one (yet).

I read the recall about it, and the se-r.net directions, the recall said
your supposed to ground to engine ground F9 - allegedly located on the
intake manifold, I look down under the egr/bpt valves, and find what
looks like a ground bolt with 10mm hex head, maybe 5-6mm shaft, around
1" long.

It has another added bonus of having another pair of wires on a ring
terminal under the head, I went ahead and grounded to that.

Before that, I tried grounding to bolt on the shock tower, that also had
a suspicious looking ring terminal with a wire hanging off it, that
didn't work either, so I tried the intake manifold bolt.

I noticed that the 2 out of three of the small female connectors in the
maf harness connector seemed to have about 1/16" play, using a tiny awl,
I shoved some dielectric grease into them plugged it back in, no change.

So ... what is wrong?  Did I kill the other wires, or is my harness
connector pooched?
How do you get those terminals out to put new ones on?  They mention a
tool, is there a workaround?

Where do those 3 wires from the MAF go?  how can I test that they all
work, if necessary I can run new ones.

I have a thousand ideas, none of which seem to be helping me :(

The car did manage to idle horribly for about 30 seconds.

I've had a couple bananas today, I'll admit ... I've officially monkey'd
myself into a hole I can't get out of alone.

I'll leave the rest choice expletives I set aside for myself today out
in the interest of George receiving this digest at work ;)

Please help, Best Regards,

Peter 'Jojo' Serwe

--
Peter Serwe <peter@easytree.net>
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