I have a 1992 f-150, 5.8l, E4OD, 4x4 with 122K miles

I just installed a new oil pan, timing set, timing cover, water pump, sparkplugs, wires, cap and rotor. Drove the truck for a few weeks with no issues. Now the truck crawls up a slight grade reving at 2000 rpm. The longer the truck runs the worse it gets and the worse the idle gets.

I was careful with the timing set. Just recheck the plug gap (.044) and compression tested the cylinders (106-124). Seems to idle fine. I also noticed that the upper radiator hose collapsed for a few seconds and then expanded again (suspect my rad cap may be bad).

Just rotated the crank to 0 degrees on the timing mark and the rotor is pointing to the #1 position on the distributor. Verified the firing order is correct.

Nathan Currie

 

check your fuel pressure and see if the cat glows after the truck runs for a while. or just take the cat off and see if it makes a difference. is the spout connector in its holder/connector?

 

At first I thought it was the transmission going out. The RPMs would come up but the truck would hesitate and seemed to have a hard time shifting gears. So I took it to the tranny shop. They thought the cat was plugged so they dropped the exhaust and the truck ran worse. It died before they got it off the lift. Once it cooled off a bit it restarted and stayed running. They checked the fuel filter. I'll have to get some tools to check the fuel pressure.

After I let it run for 30 minutes at idle in the driveway and shut it off the coolant started boiling in the engine and overflowed the overflow tank.

Spout connector is connected. I checked everything in the engine bay and I don't see anything disconnected.

Nathan

 

Sounds like you set the timing gears incorrectly. The distributor won't indicate this - to check it, you can test compression, but ultimately the timing cover has to come off to know for sure.

 

That's what I'm afraid of. I just want to check everything I can before tearing it back down.

If we assume that I am off on the timing gears what is the best way to get them lined back up? I have a compression tester and can get Cylinder #1 to TDC on the compression stroke. Would I then rotate the cam until I can slide the gears on with the dots on them lined up?

As I said I am trying to verfiy everything I can with out tearing it apart again.

Thanks
Nathan

 

Do the compression test. If you get consistently low but even numbers, you can bet the timing is off. If they're even & normal, IDK. But if you have ANY doubt about the timing, there's no way around pulling the timing cover to find out for sure. Compression pressure is tricky (which is why it's not specified), but a rough approximation is atmospheric (usually ~14.7psi) times compression ratio (usually ~9:1) for an engine in very good condition. Unfortunately, an engine in poor condition can be higher because of deposits in the combustion chambers raising the effective CR, so a compression test can't actually prove anything beyond a doubt.



If you find that it's off, I'd set the cam as close as possible to #1TDC, then remove its gear & the chain. The pressure of a valve spring may cause it to move, so immediately slip the gear back on w/o the chain or bolt to check. Then rotate the the crankshaft to the corresponding position, slip the cam gear off to get the chain on, then put them both back. If they line up, put the bolt in & put it all back together. If not, try again until it's right.

 

I'm just going to throw this out there, I didnt see it in your original post, but what about your ignition timing, did you recheck that after you got it running, make sure its set at 10* intial with the spout connector out.

 

I did not check the timing. I do not have a timing light. I'll have to buy one this week. Before taking to old timing set off I rotated the motor until the dots on the 2 timing gears were lined up. I slide the old set off, and slide the new set on with the dots lined up.
I am not getting any backfiring or poping out the intake.

 

If you're 100% sure the dots were aligned when you got the chain back on, then you can cross cam timing off the list. But definitely check spark timing.

 

I know this is an old thread but I finally borrowed a timing light and found some time to look at the truck. Here's what I found.

I corrected the sparkplug routing to eliminate crossfire.

I have the timing light probe on the #1 wire. The pot on the timing light is set a 0 degrees. SPOUT jumper removed.

It looks like it is reading about 10 degrees ATC. I need to clean up the timing marks and check again later when the sun is not blazing overhead. My manual says to check the emisions label for the correct timing, unfortunately my emissions label is gone.

Anybody know what the base timing should be for a 1992 5.8L with E4OD, non-California.

I am pretty sure I should be firing BTC not after.

 

the correct spark timing is 10* btdc

 

10° ATDC is way, way off. Somewhere around 10-12° BTDC should put you in the ballpark, it may take a bit more advance. You can tweak it after you get it running.

 

That's what I thought. It likes like I must have screwed up the timing set. Looks like I have to tear down the front of the engine again and check my timing set.

Just what I wanted to do.

 

Don't panic. think about what you're doing. The timing set is the cam to crank timing. It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the ignition timing which is distributor to crank. Ignition timing is simply a matter of rotating the dizzy till you get the timing marks where they belong, assuming that you have good timing marks on the damper pulley and on the indicator scale and you have #1 plugged into the correct post (it matters which post is #1 on an EFI engine.) If you're off by too much you may find you need to pull the dizzy and move it one tooth, again this is not earth shattering, just be very careful that you don't drop the dizzy drive shaft down onto the pan; that becomes a major problem.

If that fails to solve the problem THEN tear the timing cover off and check the alignment marks.

 

F$%K, D*(m it, Pi$$ me off. I think you figured out and now I know why.

With the SPOUT out I rotated the distributer until it hit 10 BTDC. The truck is definately running better, not perfect but a lot better.

With the SPOUT back in the timing advanced to about 20 BTDC at idle and when I bring the rpms up it advances to 30+ BTDC.

The distributer never came out of the motor during all the work I did so I could not understand how it could have moved. What did come out was the oil pump and I know I rotated the shaft to get the pump back in. Since the distributer runs off the oil pump shaft I assume that this is what threw the timing off.

I am not quite ready to call it fixed. The truck is trapped on the RV pad. I need to move the Gremlin shell to get the truck out and take it for a test drive to confirm that it is making power again.

On a side note, when I bring the rpms up I am getting coolant leak out the rad cap. I am going to go ahead and replace the cap.

I post an update tomorrow.

Thanks!!!!!