Ford 4.2 Litre won't stay running
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Junior Member
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 2
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From: Milford, Michigan
Ford 4.2 Litre won't stay running
This may be sacrilage to post about my 1997 E250 van on this site but it does happen to have the infamous 4.2 litre engine (that I'm sure many of you are well aware) which required a rebuild that I just finished after having only 40,000 miles on it (yep, lower intake manifold leak + hydrolocked = couple of bent piston rods).
Fired it up a couple nights ago for a couple of moments (30 seconds to 1 minute) before I finished installing the serpintine belt and radiator to see if it would run and it appeared to operate fine with plenty of oil pressure. Yesturday I finished the installation (even put insurance on the dang thing - probably jinxed it) anticipating no problems.
Now when I start the engine it will start up fine (mabe a tad bit of hesitation while starting) and run for a couple of seconds (3 to 7 seconds) and then shut down - time after time. I can't even keep it running using the gas pedal. Even tho' I've determined with a timing light that it appears that I still have spark as it's shutting down I beleive it is electrical in nature because fuel shows 1/4 tank and I can hear the fuel pump pressurize and turn off when I turn the ignition on.
I have a code reader but I get no check engine errors on the dash and the code reader does not detect any error codes stored in memory.
Caveat to this is that during my final instalation I added a Ford factory cruise control kit I picked up off of ebay that could be suspect (question- do driver air bag faults cause shutdown???).
Any help or suggestions in trying to track down a problem that gives no error codes to start from will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Randy
Fired it up a couple nights ago for a couple of moments (30 seconds to 1 minute) before I finished installing the serpintine belt and radiator to see if it would run and it appeared to operate fine with plenty of oil pressure. Yesturday I finished the installation (even put insurance on the dang thing - probably jinxed it) anticipating no problems.
Now when I start the engine it will start up fine (mabe a tad bit of hesitation while starting) and run for a couple of seconds (3 to 7 seconds) and then shut down - time after time. I can't even keep it running using the gas pedal. Even tho' I've determined with a timing light that it appears that I still have spark as it's shutting down I beleive it is electrical in nature because fuel shows 1/4 tank and I can hear the fuel pump pressurize and turn off when I turn the ignition on.
I have a code reader but I get no check engine errors on the dash and the code reader does not detect any error codes stored in memory.
Caveat to this is that during my final instalation I added a Ford factory cruise control kit I picked up off of ebay that could be suspect (question- do driver air bag faults cause shutdown???).
Any help or suggestions in trying to track down a problem that gives no error codes to start from will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Randy
Member
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
From: boston
I am fairly possitive that it's now some sort of policy that a car equipped with airbags is not allowed even by law to be operated without airbags, you should definately check into that situation, if you removed (in whatever manor, accident or such) i believe the computer will shut down your engine. not 100% but thats where i would go with my search.
