98 Explorer low gas - now wont start

[rstout]

Last night i made it home with very low fuel. The gauge read E or slightly below E. I did make it home however. This morning i tried to start it and it won't start. The engine turned fine and sounded strong, battery is 3 months old, but it won't fire off. I assumed that it must be really low on gas. So i put in 5 gallons and tried again. But again it just turned over and over and didn't fire. I ended up renting a car and getting to work. Tonight i pulled a spark plug out and got no spark. does this make sense? any ideas?

thanks

 

[BrooklynBay]

At first, I was going to say that your fuel probably froze since it's so cold, and you only had a minimal amount. If you don't get any spark, then check your fuse for the ignition module.

 

[rstout]

all fuses look good. THe manual tells me that my year doesn't have a Ignition Control Module (1995 and earlier) but i did check the fuses and they look good. is there some computer / sensor that would prevent the spark plugs from getting a spark....some distributor sensor?

 

[BrooklynBay]

You do have an ignition module, as well as a crankshaft sensor. You have a coil pack, and no distributor. That is the set up on the 4.0 engines. The sensor replaces the geared distributor, and feeds the ignition module with a train of pulses. This fires the coil packs to fire in a specific sequence (I think 1-4-2-5-3-6). Check your repair manual for a diagram.

 

[BrooklynBay]

By the way, welcome to this forum! I saw that you just signed up.

 

[rstout]

just want to close this thread out. I purchased a new throttle body sensor and crankshaft position sensor. I went to install the throttle body sensor and stripped out the first screw. I did, however, unplug the wire harness and then re-plugged it back in. After calming down i went under the car to remove the old crankshaft sensor. After two minutes i realized that my big hand can't even come close to reaching the sensor so i quit. I put my tools away and then returned to the car to try to start it, just cuz. What do you know.......it fired up!! no problems since. thanks

 

[BrooklynBay]

Thanks for keeping us posted.