at last,i finally found the prob. for the check engine light

[snooper0069]

well after fighting the check engine light coming on and then going off i finally found the culprit. it was the fuel pressure regulator. when i pulled the vacuum off of the old one with the engine running it made no difference on the idle. well i changed it and when i pull off the vacuum on the new one the engine revs up. a mechanic told me i was running on idle pressure only, this accounts for the check engine light coming on, it was starving for fuel. now when i give her the gas down the road she scoots . this made a big difference on my power .
the only drawback is with the old reg. i had no power ,but my m.p.g. was 22.5 to the gallon . i checked it after the change and im getting 20.0 , but with a ton of more power . guess i can live with the new power.

 

[Alec]

glad we got it figured out. figured it was either fuel or spark after most of the other stuff had been replaced. The only thing that fooled me was usually the FPR sticks open with it goes bad; yours stuck closed, producing different symptoms.

How long do you think the FPR had been bad? Cause excessive periods of time while running lean can cause engine damage.

 

[red96camaro]

Did you ever get a read on the light? If so what had it said? I keep having msifires. Going through plugs and wires less then every 5 k.

 

[Alec]

red96,
Throwing out some guesses, but could it have something to do with a bad injector or a bad coilpack?

 

[snooper0069]

iv been having this prob. for a year now. as snow white as the plugs where im lucky i didnt fry a valve or piston . just for good measure im going to have the injectors cleaned . this is the last thing i have to do to it ,it will be like new now.

 

[red96camaro]

alec, a/c dripping because of a a/c component recall onto the coil pack is what made a friend of mine's f150 misfire all the time. Anyone hear of this with an explorer? any recalls I should check out for my constant misfires? I'd liek to get my truck running smooth again so I can make paragon. The one time I don't have obligations my truck is sick

 

[Alec]

Red,
If you've tried everything else I'd say it's the coilpack. There might be a way to test it, I dunno.

 

[snooper0069]

i had to change my coil pack on my X. when you would pull a spark plug wire and put it close to the coil pack the fire was orange ( sign of weak coil) . i put the new one on and did the same thing and the fire was a blueish white like it was supposed to be.

 

[Mbrooks420]

I had a coilpack go on my old Cutlass. There must be a way to test them because it had 3 coilpacks and hey only replaced the one that was bad.

 

[Opera House]

Fuel pressure regulator

When my 92 Explorer reached 150K, I decided to put in a new fuel pump even though everything was ruuning great. There was a new whine from the fuel pump that would change in pitch. I figured why not replace it in good weather. After I did, the engine sometimes stalled at stop lights and would loose power on this high speed right exit turn every day on the way home from work. Always at the sme spot. I went searching for electrical problems and even replaced the new pump. I replaced the fuel pump fuse with an amp meter in the cab so I could monitor urrent. Quarter inch spade lugs fit in the fuse clips just fine. Pump current ould be about 4-5 amps. If I watched the meter, the current would slowly drop to about 2 amps at whih time the engine would stall. Sometimes it would shake violently and start running fine again. Having tried everything else, I replaced the fuel pressure regulator. Had to know for sure so I cut open the old regulator. There was a large bevel worn on one side of the seat. This is most likely the result of the spring being lightly offset so it only opened to one side. The new pump, with the higher flow rate, opened the valve further. The offset of the spring and the bevel, caused it stick open. This bevel was just about to cut through the center tube in a few more miles. Then a pressure gauge would have detected the problem. Before this, I had never considered pressure regulators as wear items. Consider replacing the regulator when you change a pump.