Well my truck finally died...

[shady]

Don't know if it was a head gasket or the whosawhatsamacallzit... but I was driving home from work this morning and it made a funny noise and immediately became everything I could do to get 45 mph out of it and sounded like it was on about 5-6 cylinders....... No smoke or funny looking stuff in the radiator though made it about 3 miles like that to the best place to get off the road (luckily), Died when I let off it, and coasted into there. Now it just wont start at all... I'm so sick of dealing with this thing that I'm not even gonna TRY to figure out this motor again. its getting something else with my tax return.

FUG IT

 

[Fordum]

Man, you gotta at least try to figure out what went wrong even if you don't fix it. Otherwise it will haunt you for years.

I pulled a guy out of a ditch in a Jeep one time. Dirt road, soft sandy ditch. He didn't even go into it hard.
He could have driven out, but his oil light came on. I pulled him out, somehow he had dumped all the oil out in the ditch.
We looked all under that thing to try to figure out where the oil came out. Filter was fine, pan looked good, plug in place, no oil cooler lines.

If we could have found and fixed the leak, I would have run to his hunting camp for more oil.
Finally I just towed him back.
Saw him driving it the next day, but did not get a chance to talk.

Hunting season ended, and I did not know where he lived. Next year he did not show up in the area.
Couple of years later, I saw his Jeep and ran it down. The guy driving said that the PO had died the summer after I saw him, and he had bought the Jeep. Said he did not know what had happened.

Few years later, I ran into the PO's son. He remembered me pulling them out, but said he did not know what they found wrong with the Jeep, since he went off hunting while they worked on it.

Stupid little oil dump has haunted me for 30 years..........

 

[shady]

I just went to meet the tow truck to get it home... it wasn't pointed in a tow truck friendly way... so I tried it for giggles. it started, ran real bad , I gunned it and spun it around on the ice and it died again... that was about as far as it went... wouldn't start again....

and it would haunt me except that I've been trying to figure this thing out for most of a year and I've run out of patience and idea's. I've already put over $1000 into trying to figure it out and have replaced every electronic component except the harness its self. is that hard to do??

 

[Stein]

I don't know the particulars of this truck or even what year it is, but any chance this still has a catalytic converter? I've had them break up, a chunk flops up blocking exhaust, it runs crappy, dies, piece falls back into the cat, runs fine until the next time it flops up and blocks flow.

 

[ryoken]

why do you think it's ignition?

you need to start with basic diagnostics... ya make sure the cylinders are healthy.. or will at least run reasonable with a comp test... a plug reading at that point can tell a lot too... you could have a bad valve, etc...

ya go from there.. guessing and throwing parts at it is no way to fix things...

 

[diesel4me]

Might have water and ice in the fuel tank ?...

 

[shady]

actually the way its running is hard to describe but im thinking one of the injectors isn't firing... I have an open spacer so it would still somewhat run like crap with one out... I just put new BWD's in a couple days ago... Yes they are the cheapest ones O'rilley's sell and I've been running it pretty hard for a couple days and still at 15psi. (made the allen to adjust it last night actually),,, so maybe I killed one too darn cold to go check.... not smoking, no blow back, no oil in coolant, cant be to hard at this point to at least get it back to where it runs ok, and just dies once in awhile like before I cant write it off yet but my I have a big enough return this year that I could buy a motor from summit if I wanted to, so repowering isn't a money thing anymore..... Now its finding one again. and all that...

 

[toomany]

Have you checked for vacuum leaks around the throttle body base? Common thing on TBI motors, more so if you have been in there to put a spacer in.

Did you check the obvious things? Plug wire melted? Bad cap/rotor?

 

[Russell]

Ignition module.

 

[toomany]

Ignition module.

That's another one to check. Usually though (in my experience) they run decent then shut off. Once they cool off it'll run good until the module heats up again. Could even be the whole distributor even. I know on TPI motors the reluctor wheels can give problems.

 

[ryoken]

never seen a bad module act up for a year... usually they just die, but I have seen the occasional one get freaky with heat cycles expanding and contracting cracks in em, but usually they'll die within a week or 2..

 

[Blue85]

Don't forget about the big list of trouble the new motor will give you. If you have low compression or a cracked head, then it makes sense to swap, but if it's an external engine issue, it will be way easier to fix then all the issues that will come up during/after a swap.

 

[shady]

Ive thought of the new motor issue's... because it's not NEW.... But all the things listed on here so far ARE. the current issue is something different.... I don't know what this is. I'm pretty sure I ended up sick between working out side last night and dealing with the burb this morning. So I wont be even looking at it for a bit.. some of you have been on my build thread and seen what ive been doing on there. Long story short,

ENTIRE ignition and sensor system new. (wasn't getting spark before, nothing seemed to fix it. )
Fuel pump a year old, great pressure.
New injectors a few days old.

I WANT an LS based motor in the worst way and keep trying to find a reason to do one.... but really there cant be much keeping this one from running flawlessly and I know that.... I'm just frustrated as hell with it and strung out about other things so the "MOpower, rip this sh!t out and start over" route looks SO GOOD. I haven't layed my plugs out yet but I numbered em when they came out and they all looked even and great. so i'm not real worried about cylinder issues. I'm really leaning towards an injector at this point. the only thing that can make it run/sound the way it does would be one of those not spraying I believe.... we'll see

Edit; I'll get back to the random dying thing after I get it back to running right lol.

 

[ryoken]

plug readings are a perfect indicator of a faulty injector.. easy to check when running with a timing light..

a "bang" is indicative of a mechanical failure.. not some bolt on part like a module, MAP, etc, thus why I suggested starting with the basics..

 

[shady]

wasn't a bang... just a "sound" may have been just the sudden change in the way it ran that made it SEEM like there was a sound... dunno,, had just gotten off of a 12 hr shift and was freezing my nuggets off so who knows lol. the difference under the hood was sorta like if you were driving down the road in a modern vehicle and knocked the intake tube off. had to hold it near the floor though to keep going so that explains that sorta...

 

[shady]

I still haven't checked it (working 6-6 days through monday) but I DID do some checking and realized that i didn't shop around long enough on injectors. I looked at the AC delco's through a couple places at a quick glance on google shopping and seen $166+ a piece and knew i couldn't afford it at the time... Their $100 on amazon I paid $80 for the ones i got. If I DO have a bad one I know where I'm going for BOTH to replace em

 

[shady]

well I checked a bunch of obvious things and then tried it. it started, ran rough, and with the hood open it sounds a lot like it has a big vacuum leak. either I miffed something up with the base gaskets (removed, cleaned off old, and replaced both gaskets) or theres an intake leak maybe. Its hard to tell with an open style air filter. I'm going to make a temporary stethoscope and also try the spot burst of starting fluid trick. It sounds like the passenger side rear ish area of the TB.

 

[shady]

I have to see if its the gasket that's leaking or the injector it's self but I found the reason it went to sh!t on me this time.... This was right after cranking it for a few seconds and then shutting the key off and running around to take the pic

not nearly as bad as I had first imagined.... (if it was head gaskets or something I was swapping motors) Should be easy enough to fix in place..... then ill be able to start digging into that random occasional dieing thing again.... but that's another issue and thread...

 

[ryoken]

yeah, that could be problematic... check them plugs too...

 

[shady]

squirting right past the electrical prongs bad part is do I warranty it, turn my pressure down to 12 from 15 which I was gonna anyway and try again.... or eat the $160 I paid for them, say F*** these BWD's and buy the delcos..??