Daughter's 94 Explorer died in the road. Help!

[Explorerdad]

My daughter's 94 Explorer has been having a starting problem for a while but it was intermittent. Every once and a while she would try to start it and it just would not fire up. Starter turned over the engine just fine. She would try a couple of times and it would start. This week the truck missed, spit, and sputtered with her in a drive through but then ran fine. Yesterday she was driving home and the truck just quit in a busy intersection at rush hour. She said it started to sipt or surge but had no power. She was able to limp it to the curb where it died. I got there and tried to start it with no luck. It acted like it wanted to run on one cylinder for a minute or so then nothing. Starter worked just fine. I took the ICM out and had AutoZone check it and it passed. I plan to check the fuel pump, and all of the fuses. What other sensors, modules, or ignition parts will cause this type of sudden death? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[bullinerfamily]

you might want to check the ignition coil. my 92 xlt was having similar problems and thats because the ignition coil was not giving spark to all the plugs. and engine was really ruff, sputtering and making a low popping noise. if anything you might check, but im not an expert. hope this might help some

also just thought about it my, veh did stall a couple different times at red lights

 

[BP_93explorer]

i've had a problem very similar to that. it wasn't an explorer but it might help. the truck would start when it wanted, left me sitting at places a lot. it would also die going down the road. there was a short somewhere that would affect the fuel pump. the fuses and box checked out fine, it was between the fuse box and the pump itself. i think it was grounding out on the frame or something. very annoying problem, i changed fuse boxes, injectors, the pump, and a few other things.

 

['92Bauer]

How are the plugs? And the ignition coil sounds like another good idea to check out.

 

[greasemanicure]

The way that I diagnosed the same symptoms on my truck was to put a timing light on each of the plug wires in rotation. Found that two of the cylinders were getting weak or intermittent spark. Changing the coil assembly fixed it.

 

[StillKicken]

If he ran codes on it, would that show if the ignition coil, etc is bad?

 

[Ranger379]

no one mentioned the fuel filter, maybe someone got sucked in and really plugged it up,ooo if its intermittent, this may sound stupid but i seen it happen lol, but did u check the battery? had a problem with a car once and it turned out that the neg bat terminal was really loose, sometimes made connection, sometimes it didnt, good luck

 

[pope_face]

no one mentioned the fuel filter, maybe someone got sucked in and really plugged it up,ooo if its intermittent, this may sound stupid but i seen it happen

That's some serious clog there!

 

[Ranger379]

That's some serious clog there!

lol ya i know but hey u never know anything could happen,just thowing the possibility out there, one of my friends cars did that one time, stalled almost everytime u let off the gas and ran like total ****...


edit: lol i just seen that i wrote that *someone* got sucked it lol, sorry i was kinda tired when i wrote it hahaha

 

[marragtop]

When you turn the key to the ON position, you should hear the fuel pump prime for a second or 2. If you don't hear that, it's a fuel delivery problem. Check fuel pump fuse and fuel pump relay in the power distribution box. You can also try smacking the gas tank to see if that kicks the pump in.

 

[ma96782]

No start:

Three things to consider:

1) Spark.......are you getting any? Delivered to the cyls in correct order/time?
2) Fuel Delivery.........are you getting delivery? Pressure, correctly metered?
3) Elec........do you have enough power being delivered? Check: Battery/Alt/Cables/wires from ignition switch/ground/shorts?

Aloha, Mark

 

[Explorerdad]

Update on the dead explorer. I realized that the fuel pump was not coming on so I drained and pulled the tank and replaced the pump. Now the explorer runs but the scary thing was the problem with the pump. The ground connection on the old pump looked like it had been damaged or not formed correctly. The wire was off of the connection but was close enough to touch the terminal. I have not tested the pump out of the truck but If it works then there could have been a spark inside of the tank. Has anyone heard of anything like this?