Alright.....if you read in the Pub, you know my Ford is hormonal today.

I can turn a wrench, but I prefer not to actually know any more about this lump than necessary......so feed me, please.

1987 Ford E150 with a fuel infected 302. In its normal state of distune, has just humped 2000 miles plus downhill to and uphill from Florida. Occasionally farts and belches when too much is requested of it, but is reliable to date. Ran per usual until I shut it off this morning at 0530. Attempts to start since are unsuccessfull.

It has strong battery, and spins without difficulty and at length. Its never given a problem starting.

It really sounds no different than any other day when attempting to start. So I assume a lack of fuel or spark rather than compression...there are no tattletale signs of loose schrapnel in le motour.

Pull the air filter cover, give it a great 10 second blast of ether, and replace the cover. Keying the ignition yields one short fudda-fudda-fudda. Not the quick ignition and rapid rise of RPM before the ether burns off that you'd expect. Removing the doghouse and doing a spark check shows a fat healthy 2 inch spark from the boot to the plug.

So I'll looking at probable fuel deliver at this point. Is anyone familiar with these motors, and could give me more than generic advice.....which I'm fairly good at myself.

BTW, I have this 6 foot pry bar.........

[size=9][/size]
Hey Joe,

I had a 302 Ford give similar symptoms that you are describing. In my case, it was the timing chain that got stretched so badly that it jump time and would not start. After installing new timing chain and gears, it started right up.

Not sure of an easy way to check without disassembling front of the engine.

Another thing to check, if fuel injected, see if the inertia switch needs to be reset. It is a push/pull switch that will go off in vehicle is hit.

Hope this helps,
:grin:

You might want to check the inertia switch. This shuts fuel off in case of an accident. Sometimes they will trip for no reason. It is on the passenger's side kick panel on the trucks, but I don't know about a van. Swap your fuel Pump relay with the one for the horn, should be the same, and try it. Can you hear your fuel pump? Take the schrader valve cap off with the key on and depress the needle inside for a second. You should have a good squirt of fuel come out if the pump is working.

Keep us informed. I'll check back in with ya in a little while.

Joe,

CHeck the damn "hey, just letting you know you wrecked" switch first as stated above.

Second... have Bull turn on the ignition while you're down, not under it, but listening to the fuel tank... If you hear the buzzz of the fuel pump for a few seconds, it's probably OK... if not... It's probably the fuel pump... If you need to get one more trip out of it, you can usually pound on the bottom of the tank and it'll work for one or 2 more starts... but I wouldn't just drive on it that way until it goes out again. (also... you will have a fuel pressure port on the fuel rail... turn the ignition on and press the Schrader valve there and see it the fuel is pressurized).

Just My $.02... After these results, let us know what happened...

Mike

Because its a van, things are hard to reach. I've dug down to the fuel rail, and will yank the cap off and check for fuel pressure tomorrow.

What JJP said worries me. I didn't know if it was gears only or a chain drive. As I said, it spins over quite well......almost too well. Which is what started the cam timing fears in the back of my mind. Of course, that's usually when they skip...when the motor is shut off. :sad: And 136,000 miles.......

At that mileage, it shouldn't be the chain. I've owned 300,000+ mile Chevy's and never had one throw a chain. But that is a Chevy, not a Ford.

My first impulse says fuel pump, and with the symptoms you describe and the things you mention you did to check out the truck SCREAMS fuel pump. If there's no fuel in the cylinders, then there's less stuff to compress, so the engine will turn over easier. You've got fire, and if the cam chain jumped timing, it would still fire off with fuel in it, just like the ether did. So it's got to be a fuel problem of some sort, most likely the pump.

Are the tires cupped? Har har just funnin' ya. I'll second what has been said about the fuel pump and tip-over switch. My girlfriend's sable crapped it's pump and it would work intermittently, I had to replace the whole sending unit as one of the wires had arced and was busily trying to turn the whole mess into a rolling fireball. If you yank the sending unit, look for signs of arcs and burned/melted plastic around the connectors.

But that's a moot point cuz it sounds like it has jumped time to me.

An engine will actually start and run if you jump time by maybe a tooth or two. If the timing chain has indeed broken, you would be very lucky not to have the valves come into contact with the pistons. I still think it's a fuel problem.

It doesn't really start and run after blowing ether....just kinda fup-fup-fup's enough so that I know something was happening.

I never knew where the fuel pump was on this. There's not one in each tank, is there?

That age vehicle is probably either on the motor itself or it's on the frame rail somewhere. I don't think they started doing in-tank in domestics until the early to mid 90's, but don't quote me on that.

Should be a pump in each tank, with a boost pump on the frame, IIRC.

If neither tank works, and it's a fueling problem, try the switching valve. Bypass it if necessary, or check that the suspect fuel pump(s) are getting power.


If the timing chain is gone (never seen one just skip, they usually just strip the teeth and quit on ya), pull the distributor cap. If the distributor isn't turning, you've found your problem.

If it turns, check your timing with a light, and the spout removed. If it's in time (or close), then the cam timing is fine.

You've checked the obvious, like the plugs for fuel fouling, right?

North's got a good point about the distributor cap and rotor.

Well, except for the fact if you have spark, the distributor has to be turning... :oops:


If you have fuel & spark, Joe, check the timing.

Yah, that's pretty obvious. Fuel is easier to check, so that gets done first. A pump in each tank AND a booster pump? Holy..........but it is made in Canada, so you should know....and that's why I'm here. :grin:

But it doesn't really fire well when I feed it ether. Seems that if it was just a lack of fuel delivery due to a bad pump or switching valve that it would catch and rev right up as it burned the ether...not just make a couple louder noises and speed up just enough to let go of the starter, then stop.

It has strong regular spark, like it should...I just don't know if its at the right time. I've known engines to jump one or two teeth on the cam timing (chain driven). This engine runs the distributor off the cam, right? So if the ignition timing is retarded, the cam has slipped.

Yep, If the timing is retarded, or for that matter advanced but not likely, your timing chain could have jumped a couple teeth.

have you hooked up a fuel pressure gauge? ive seen a little fuel filter
hiding by the pull pump on frame rail cause probs.

On my 91 5.0 , the thottle position sensor went causing the computer to think the throttle was wide open, which turns off the injectors. I use an
12 volt lLED soldered to two sewing needles to back probe the injector
plugs to see if they are firing if that helps.......

I had a truck that did the exact same thing and it was a clogged fuel filter, but I suppose you already checked (or don't have one) that so I have no other words of wisdom.

My fuel pump died around 125k on my Ford IIRC. It was in the tank. Not fun to replace. You should be able to easily eliminate that though since the pumps are noisy. You will be able to hear them when you turn the key on if they are working. I doubt both pumps went south at the same time though. That is if you have a dual/triple pump setup.

You might poke around on these sites for more info.

http://www.ford-trucks.com
http://www.f150online.com
http://fordtruckworld.tenmagazines.com/forums/
http://www.superford.org/

If you were in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada today I'd tell you the answer was easy...the temperature. It's -40 degrees Celsius today. For you Americans that's -40 Fahrenheit as well. The only number on the 2 scales that are the same! No riding today!

I had a fuel pressure regulator fail on a Bronco years ago, though the failure mode was to fail to regulate the fuel at all, causing the cylinders to hydraulic lock. If a regulator could fail in a way that would not let any flow at all past the regulator, that might be a possibility. Good luck.

I can't believe nobody as said SELL IT yet...you guys are slipping. :???: :grin:

Have you had a chance to check fuel pressure yet? Some parts stores will rent pressure gauges.

If I recall, the cam gear has nylon teeth & after say...129,999.9 miles or so, they become brittle & can shear off, causing the chain to slip a few teeth.

If you pull #1 spark plug out & crank it around to top dead center (put finger over plug hole), look at your timing marks...it should be really close to zero, then pop your distributor cap off & see if the rotor is pointing toward #1 plug wire.

If there's practically no compression when cranking (finger over plug hole), that's a good indicator that the chain has slipped.

Found anything yet Joe?

Well.......good news, and a little bad news.


Collected Bull and went out to do some diagnostics yesterday. He sticks the key in the ignition and it fires right up. Been driving it since....feels no different than before.

Good news.....it runs.

Bad news.....Can't diagnose something that's working at baseline. So if it happens again, I'm no smarter (except that I'd know its not the cam timing). Although it runs, I've fixed nothing, and therefore can expect that the same will reoccur.....with good odds that it won't be anywhere near as convenient as it was this time.

Thanks for everyone's input on this.

You DO have fire insurance, right? :wink:

weird. :???: Don't you hate when they do that?

You'd rather find the problem and fix it.

Fuel line ice?? Water in gas?

You know how when people are just exhausted, you can't wake them up, yet there's really nothing wrong with them?

I dunno, maybe hauling two bikes, two folks, and two sets of gear 1000+ miles each way tuckered the old girl out a bit......

Maybe a little condensation somewhere... somehow.... eventually dried up???


(oops... I'm in the garage again.. can someone point me back to the bar?)

I still vote fuel pump... sometimes they'll do that when they're about ready to go... not run at all, then start running again for no reason. Been there, seen that.

Mike

http://cbr.geckobox.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=1

I'm just here to help... :lol:

Joe:

Run the ad in the paper NOW.. it's RUNNING!!!!

Joe, just for the heck of it, I would put a new distributor cap and rotor on it. I had the same thing happen on my wifes car. I didn't find it for a while. When it happened the second time, I put a new cap on it and it never happened again and that's been about two years now.

Put new cap, rotor, plugs and wires in before I took the van to SEXXT last year......so that's about 4500 miles ago.

He had a good spark, so the ignition system is OK. I'm still thinkin Fuel System. It wouldn't be the inertia switch, they don't reset themselves. It would probably be a bad relay or booster pump. I've seen the switch that switches the front and rear tanks go bad before and it causes the pumps in the tanks not to work. I have dealt with fuel injection problems for years. I used to be a technician in a dealership and just about seen it all.

Well........I've not had a problem yet with the switch....but its increasingly frequent that the gauge not work on one tank or the other (needle just falls to the lower "empy" stop). Are they on the same circuit, or might that play a part in it? Thanks, Donnie. Oh...one other thing.....which seems it would be a problem with the valve, not the switch. Gas from one tank will flow into the other on a relatively regular basis. I may use one tank until its 3/4 gone, and then switch to the other only to find that its only half full. Then, if I switch back after an hour or so, there's more gas in the first tank than when I left it. There's no leak...and the gauges are reflecting a fairly accurate condition when they work, because I get the same relative mileage from a fill, and run out of gas when I observe the gauge dropping steadily to empty (rather than just switching to it and having the guage simply fall to the lower stop).

The switch for the front and rear tanks controls the pumps, the valve, and the fuel level sending units in both tanks. If you have a problem with the switch, the pumps might not turn on, the fuel gauge don't work right or the valve won't function properly. That switch may be your problem.

The switch itself feels tight and appropriate. Is there anyplace else that might be a problem? Can the switch be disassembled? And if not, it is at basic DPST unit?

My F-250 had a recall on a valve that would go bad and do that. Mine never did but I had the recall work done. The recall said that if you had two full tanks and it did that, it could push the fuel out the filler cap. :shock:

been a while since I worked on dual tank fords, but if i recall it's a basic dpst unit. Once the switch is tripped in one direction it kills the power in the other therefore killing the relays that work the pumps and sending units in the tanks. You might be able to disassemble it and prod around inside it, but any dpst unit should work. Pop the dash surround off and take a look at it in your spare time. You might be able to replace it with a non-ford double pole switch at a fraction of the cost.

Yes, this has happened before. I never fill the tanks now unless I'm taking a trip and will be burning off fuel.

That valve may be your culpret. If it allows fuel to go into the other tank, you might not be getting the right amount of fuel pressure to the injectors or none at all if the valve has the fuel going from one tank to the other instead of to the engine.

Damn, I love being right :wink:

You're my hero Chris, can I grow up to be just like you?

Umm. No.


And I'm not wearing a spandex jumpsuit & tights, either :shock:

Why not? :wink:

Because that would be gay. :roll:

Aren't we all gay in one form or another.