Greetings all,

I have a bit of a mystery on my hands. After browsing the forums, I've checked a number of things, and purchased a number of diagnostic tools that I really would rather not have spent the money on, but that's neither here nor there. My 2003 F-150 XLT Sport cranks, but does not fire. Here’s what I’ve checked so far:

Battery seems fine; cranking power was strong through many start attempts.
Spark tester proves that I am getting spark.
Fuel pressure gauge shows immediate jump to 40psi at key on, then pressure slowly drops over the course of about 1 minute to approximately 19psi, where it maintains.
"Theft" light comes on when key is turned on, then goes out after cranking the engine (although PATS would disable fuel pump, still figured I should indicate what that light is doing).

Now, here is some info which may or may not shed light on what’s going on (although it’s obviously not done so for me, and may have nothing to do with it):

I noticed a shudder at low speed acceleration, along with very rough idle and stalling, which led me to inspect the vacuum lines, where I found some of them to be dry rotted. I replaced them. It no longer stalled, but it still idled rough for about a week, then the rough idle went away. The shudder also improved, but sporadically would show up at low acceleration. About 2 months go by.

Then, the other day I put about half a tank of gas in (I was nearly empty, the “low fuel” light was on), and as I pulled away I noticed that the truck was surging, maintaining a high idle (about 1200rpm) which made it very obvious something was wrong. My gauges all read normal, except for my water temperature gauge; it read dead cold, which I knew couldn’t be, since I had just driven over 25 miles.

When I looked under the hood, I noticed that my power steering fluid was boiling. This led me to check my coolant, and the reservoir was empty…I know, shame on me for not checking that regularly. I have no idea if I’ve been gradually losing coolant or if it happened suddenly. I’ve never noticed a puddle where I park, though. I start the truck up with no problem, drive (still surging) about half a mile to a nearby gas station where I buy some water to put in the reservoir. That’s the last time the truck started.

I’m at a loss as to what to do next. I hope someone has either run into this before or can point me in the right direction. Any help is greatly appreciated. This is my daily driver, so I can’t go without it, as you can imagine.

 

Which engine?

Hate to be a downer, but I think you have probably cooked the engine. Doesn't sound good.

 

The high idles after getting gas and seeing the temp gauge cold is a clue the PCM got a signal for a cold start which normally sets high idle because it opens the IAC to cause high idle as it's supposed to do with that signal condition..
Very first thing is to address the loss of coolant.
If you can't keep it, the rest does not matter.
If the engine overheats, CHT tells the computer to go into 'limp' mode for which it won't run on all cylinders by design.
Find the cause of the coolant loss because it is upsetting everything else.
Maybe a head gasket for which it all goes out the exhaust and you never see it besides running rough.
Good luck.

 

Bluegrass, I think it may be a bit beyond that now - he says it won't even start.