Good morning all.

I have a 91 f150 4x4 with a 5.8L. I do all my own routine maintenance (oil, plugs, etc...). I am self-taught, so have very little knowledge outside of the routine stuff.

My truck has been rock solid since I bought it in 92. It has 145k on it now. Last week, for the first time ever, it started getting hard to start. Immediately there-after, the check-engine light came on (I honestly had never seen it on before). The engine was running really, really rough, getting probably less than half the power it needed, and would often die if I kept my foot off the gas.

I immediately assumed a firing problem, so changed the plugs, distributor, rotor, wires. Several of the plugs were saturated in fuel. From my simple perspective, it seems that the fuel injectors may be going bad if there is unspent fuel in the cylinder. Is this assumption correct?

If so, are the injectors something that can be changed out without a need for high-end calibration equipment?

Thanks all for the input.

Mark

 

No no now, your getting all wound up and not using common sense.
First, if the plugs are wet it means there is an ignition problem.
Why not check for spark and read the codes before you start replacing things and spending money without reason.
The PIP in the dist.
The TFI on the outside of the dist..
The coil etc are all suspect to start with.
Good luck.

 

Like I said earlier, I am fairly new to this type of work, but enjoy the challenge, so please pardon my ignorance.

What is the PIP in the dist? I assume something in the distributor.

 

Profile Ignition Pickup 'PIP'.
Thick Film Integrated 'TFI' circuit.
The ignition references starts at the PIP. Signal is sent to the TFI for cleanup of noise spikes and sent to the EEC 'engine computer'.
The EEC adds timing and send the signal back to the TFI that in turn fires the coil producing the spark at the plugs thru the distributor cap[/rotor and wires..
No/intermittant ignition means wet plugs and misfire.
Problem can be any part or wire harness/plug faults.

 

While I agree there "could" be an ignition problem, if it is starting and running I would find it also possible that you have one or more leaky injectors. How many plugs were saturated? If they were all saturated, then yeah, ignition sounds about right. But if it was just two or three of the plugs, then it could more than likely be injectors. I have a set of injectors from an 93 mustang laying in my tool box, motor had 90000 miles on it. $20 + shipping if you want them. They could use new pintle caps and o-rings, but they will suffice without them

 

You might also want to remove the vacuum hose from the fuel pressure regulator and see if it has any gas in it. If it does, the regulator needs to be replaced. It's the thing on the fuel rail that looks like a squashed old film container with a vacuum hose in the top.