n1zjd
New Member
- Joined
- May 6, 2014
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Maine
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1996 Ford Explorer
Howdy folks. A little history. I bought Explorer with 97k miles on it. Never an issue, just regular front end maintenance due to 'smooth' Maine roads hihi.
Fast forward 38k miles or so. Developed a very minor occasional coolant leak. Didn't pay any real attention to it of course....just assumed it was minor due to how little I would notice it and never any real loss of coolant.
I was riding behind a car that was going to slow for my taste so I put my blinker on and held it to the floor and went around the car. 30 seconds later I see my temp guage is a little higher than normal...no big deal I think to myself, it will come down. It didn't. It kept climbing until I didn't dare to wait any longer and pulled over and shut her down.
I blew the Intake Gasket out completely finally, I now knew what my minor leak was!
I decided to do the job myself. I bought a Haynes manual and started reading while waiting for the master gasket set to arrive. Tore everything apart and put it back together. Twice. Now about to do it for a third time.
1st time : Didn't get a good connection on one of the injectors so was only running on 5 cylinders.
2nd time : Running on all 6 cylinders. High idle on initial start, and then sporadic idle. Will idle fairly smooth for 30-60 seconds or more and then kinda cough, race, cough, race. Computer obviously trying to adjust for something.
3rd time Next weekend....
So me being me thought I could just tighten the valve covers without torqueing them down and what do you know one is leaking. So next weekend Ill be tearing things apart once again and replacing valve cover gaskets and properly torqueing them down....
Im pulling P0171 and P0174 Bank 1 and Bank 2 Lean as well as P0401 EGR Flow Insufficient
I believe the vacuum lines are all good.
Now to make a fool out of myself. Gasket set came with 6 rubber gaskets. 3 of which go in the Upper Intake Plenum...the other 3 I assume are for one of the other applications this gasket set covers....
My real question is, is what is that bottom gasket in the image for??? I don't recall removing this gasket, just the 3 rubber gaskets in the plenum...
Besides what that gasket is for any help in determining the cause of rough idle as well as lean issues?
Sorry for the long winded post. Ive been trying to figure out the idle issue for 3 weeks to no avail. Ive replace IAC, MAF, TPS, Replaced vacuum lines. I don't know what else to try at this point. Replace EGR valve? I dunno.
Thanks for any and all help!
Fast forward 38k miles or so. Developed a very minor occasional coolant leak. Didn't pay any real attention to it of course....just assumed it was minor due to how little I would notice it and never any real loss of coolant.
I was riding behind a car that was going to slow for my taste so I put my blinker on and held it to the floor and went around the car. 30 seconds later I see my temp guage is a little higher than normal...no big deal I think to myself, it will come down. It didn't. It kept climbing until I didn't dare to wait any longer and pulled over and shut her down.
I blew the Intake Gasket out completely finally, I now knew what my minor leak was!
I decided to do the job myself. I bought a Haynes manual and started reading while waiting for the master gasket set to arrive. Tore everything apart and put it back together. Twice. Now about to do it for a third time.
1st time : Didn't get a good connection on one of the injectors so was only running on 5 cylinders.
2nd time : Running on all 6 cylinders. High idle on initial start, and then sporadic idle. Will idle fairly smooth for 30-60 seconds or more and then kinda cough, race, cough, race. Computer obviously trying to adjust for something.
3rd time Next weekend....
So me being me thought I could just tighten the valve covers without torqueing them down and what do you know one is leaking. So next weekend Ill be tearing things apart once again and replacing valve cover gaskets and properly torqueing them down....
Im pulling P0171 and P0174 Bank 1 and Bank 2 Lean as well as P0401 EGR Flow Insufficient
I believe the vacuum lines are all good.
Now to make a fool out of myself. Gasket set came with 6 rubber gaskets. 3 of which go in the Upper Intake Plenum...the other 3 I assume are for one of the other applications this gasket set covers....
My real question is, is what is that bottom gasket in the image for??? I don't recall removing this gasket, just the 3 rubber gaskets in the plenum...
Besides what that gasket is for any help in determining the cause of rough idle as well as lean issues?
Sorry for the long winded post. Ive been trying to figure out the idle issue for 3 weeks to no avail. Ive replace IAC, MAF, TPS, Replaced vacuum lines. I don't know what else to try at this point. Replace EGR valve? I dunno.
Thanks for any and all help!
