I'd bet lunch you have water in the spark plug holes. I've seen it a hundred times.

 

Well, Ill try pulling the boots and shooting it with wire dryer

and see if that helps....couldnt hurt


thanks

Ill let you all know this evening

 

I just turned 36,101 on my supercrew and it did this very same thing. Started running like it was under water. Found out I had water/coolant in my 1st cyclinder. Was told that there was a sortof silent recall on this engine. Its in the dealer now and I'll find out more tommorrow. John

 

This morning I replaced the #4 plug and coil pack. Started up and idled fine in park. Put it in reverse and idled fine. Left for work got about a 1/2 mile and it ran like crap. It ran like crap for the rest of the trip. You can almost feel the miss come and go though. It's like 4 seconds of miss, 2 seconds of not, 1 miss, 5 no miss, 20 miss.... it's totally random. Tonight I plan to check the driver's side plugs again. All are brand new.... I am going to get some Techron fuel injector cleaner too. When I had the intake off I cleaned the EGR (what I thought I was the egr.) Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Before I had the head problems, I was running bosch +4's, and now I switched back to oe autolite platinums. It did run good for 2.5 days...

When I pulled the #4 coil there were no more signs of coolant.

Help??!?!

 

Doug, It sounds spark related to me, I've done head jobs myself and got coolant in the plug holes but I've also got a WDS that I can run a cyl balance test and see exactly which cyl it is. It doesn't take much coolant in a plug hole to cause a problem. When I've got coolant in a plug hole I pull the plug, start the engine and blow every drop out of the hole and then put a new plug back in, unless I've got more than one this usually corrects my problem. Your worse case scenerio would be if one of the valves on that head you had repaired is bad but generally if that were the case it would probally miss all the time.

 

mx,

You would run a wds on it to find the cylinder? That's good for you, but what can I do? I have a hard time accepting that it would be a valve too. It ran great on Sunday and Monday. Good as new. While driving down the road it's like the motor is slipping it's missing that bad. And it's the motor, not the tranny. Should I try running the motor and pulling each of the injector plugs in an attempt to find which one is bad?

I'm just searchin for help.

doug

 

You could kill cyls one at a time by unplugging the injector but if the miss is erratic it's going to be tough. If the miss is steady unplug one at a time while the engine is running and if you unplug one and it seems to have no effect on how the engine is runing then you found the bad hole. I don't know what a dealer in your area charges for diag, We charge a flat fee of 59.99. It may save alot of headaches and wasted $ to pay a dealer to diag. Its unfortunate that everyone doesn't have a WDS at their disposal, its an awesome tool for finding problems like yours. Good luck it sounds like your getting close to getting your problems resolved.

 

mx,

To diagnose a cel the dealer close to me wants $75 and the next closest one wants $85. They both asked me the milage of the truck. I wonder if they base price on that. That's what's wierd about the miss. It is hard to notice in park when cold. In drive when cool it is there. Might have to have the wife help me tonight while I go through them. I would think I'd only have to worry about the passenger side since that's the head I pulled, not the drivers.

 

I don't know the going rate up north but 75-85 bucks seems high, the dealer I work for doesn't charge the normal hourly rate of 80 bucks a hour for EEC diag and we definatly don't charge more to diag higher mileage vehicles. You might want to look at the other side, you could have got some coolant in one of the plugs when you pulled your intake. You can also kill cyls one at a time by unplugging the coil pack, try putting a slight load on the engine by putting the truck in reverse and power braking it. If its got a bad plug this will usually help make it show up.

 

mx,

I called a couple of dealerships a little further from me and they were about the same price as the others here. They all wanted to know the milage too before telling me the cost. Oh well. I'll get the wife outside tonight to have her help me for a little while. I haven't checked the driver's side plugs yet, WHo knows, maybe one could be loose. I checked the coil packs and they are all tight. I hate to put the old bosch's back in. When I pull spark to the cylinder, the miss should get even worse right? When I get to the one where it doesn't get worse, then I've found the culprit. Then pull the plug, run the motor without the plug, put a new plug in? That sound right?

Any way I could have knicked the intake manifold gasket when I put the intake on and that could be causing it? Wouldn't that have caused the miss all of the time?

Thanks.

 

Dnale,
Call Hines Park Ford in New Hudson. Ask for Vic in service. Tell him you know Chris Kolniak from Cummins and I recommended you to him. He may cut you a deal.

 

detroit,

I have actaully called Hines Park. That's where I have gotten alot of my parts from. Dave in parts recommended the place that fixed the head on my truck. Hines Park was telling me $75. If I can't get anywhere tonight, I'll give Vic a call. Thanks.

Doug

 

Sounds about right! I really doubt the intake gasket is the problem they are pretty tough to damage. If you wanted to ck the intake take some brake cleaner and spray around the gasket with the engine running and if there is a leak the rpm should change if you manage to hit it with the brake cleaner. Be careful if you have a bad plug it can catch the brake cleaner on fire. which I've done few time.

 

mx,

I'll try the plugs under load with the wife. Hopefully that will produce something. If not I have some brake cleaner laying around.

I'm confused that with all of the driving I've done, shouldn't the coolant have been driven off/evaporated? Granted I don't drive much more than 30 miles per day not much more than 10 miles each trip.

Doug

 

Its takes quite a while to burn off coolant and if the plugs really are the problem the coolant could have damaged the plug. I've seen plugs get cracked at the base of the porcelan which is almost impossible to see and will cause a miss fire. If your sure its a miss your feeling and you can't isolate it I think you only have a couple options 1 replace all the plugs, hoping it really is a plug 2 Start replacing coil packs which would be very costly. 3 Fork out the dough for diag.

I tell you a story about plugs altough its not on a car a plug is a plug. My son also races Mx, we went to practice and his bike was running like crap, the first thing I tried was a brand new plug right out of the box. It didn't change a thing I then spent the next hour or so checking the ignition and carb jetting, I even rejetted a couple times still no problems found or no changes in the way the bike ran. I finally grabbed another new plug and his bike ran like a champ. I wouldn't want to even guess the likelyhood of pulling a bad plug and replacing it with a new plug that was bad I'm just glad Its only got 1 cyl.