I have a 4.2 with 225000 miles, that's been blowing black smoke for some time and naturally has terrible gas mileage. I bought it used from a fleet and was running great with 187K miles when I bought it.

I go through a quart of oil every two days and before anyone says it, I know, What do I expect?? Well, I would like to see if I can get it running a bit better, and could live with oil consumption for awhile.

Yesterday it would climb a hill and today it won't even accel in the parking lot. I had to get a push from a friend to go up even the smallest grade. It will barely start now and once it does it has alot of black smoke and when I try to accel it revs very slow in park. When it comes back down to idle it wants to die.

As preventative maintenance a couple of months ago, I replaced the plugs and they didn't look too bad. This was before the black smoke was evident as well. It also had a new fuel filter a couple of weeks ago.

I don't get a check engine light, however, I don't even see it when I turn the ignition on. I would assume it has one, maybe it's burnt out.?????

Anyway, can anyone offer any solid advice? I don't have access to a monitor right now. I was thinking of cleaning the O2 sensors for starters. What about a stuck EGR??? It doesn't seem to be missing either, just no power and has been blowing black smoke to the point where the right lower quarter by the tail pipe is black as the ace of spades.

Thanks as always for any info.

Phil

 

Well, I don't really know what I'm talking about. But since the engine is burning oil, wouldn't that mean that the piston rings are worn out, and that there might not be enough compression in the cylinders? You might try a vacuum test on all the cylinders to see if this is the problem. That's just my un-educated guess.

 

It's definately getting tired, but something (electronic/fuel related) has happened all the sudden which leads me to believe it can be repaired and used for a bit longer.

Thanks for your reply

Do you suppose it could be a fuel pressure regulator going bad since it has been having so much black smoke, then one day it totally went south????

Phil