Engine Misfire

[Ford_Racing_Guy]

so on my way to work directly from school. My explorer doesn't feel like she's running right, and i also notice that when in overdrive if i want to slightly accelerate the whole thing would vibrate funny. first thing i was thinking was that the tranny was gonna go out on me.

so i keep driving and hoping for the best when i finally come to a stop at a stop sign and i listened to the motor and sure enough its missing :fire: :thumbdwn:

so i get to work and pop the hood just to have a look see. checked some vacuum lines and whatnot and parked and went to work. so afterwards i buy some seafoam and put it in the tank and drive home and it drives just the same. i just ran some in through the intake and i'm letting it sit. i guess what i'm trying to knock off my list of possible probs is the fuel injectors may be clogged.

I'm pretty sure that it has to be one of the three, spark plugs, plug wires. or the coil pack.

since i don't have any free time till wednesday morning that is when i'm gonna change the plugs. if that doesn't do it then i'll swap the wires and coil pack. and hopefully that fixes the problem.


have you ever had that where your just driving along and its running good and then it just starts misfiring?

 

[Critical_Level2]

I had a problem very similar to yours. About 3 months after I replaced the plugs and wires it just suddenly started running like poop, it struggled to limp home at 35-40mph. I thought water in the gas tank, since it had just gotten cold and was sitting for a week with less than a 1/4 tank of gas. Put drygas in but did not help. so next I pulled the plugs, all were fine except 1. The ceramic around the top had cracked, so the spark was going to the block, not the tip of the plug (remember electricity follows the closest path to ground). I would suggest looking at the plugs and making sure they are goo, remember to check teh top parts too where the ceramic part is.

 

[Ford_Racing_Guy]

hey thanks

 

[MrShorty]

A cylinder balance test would help isolate which cylinder(s) is (are) misfiring.

 

[Ford_Racing_Guy]

what i'm gonna do is just replace all the plugs and wires.


i wanted to swap out the autolites for NGKs soon anyway and the wires look like they have never been changed.

if the problem still exists i'm gonna get a new coil-pack

 

[Eneurb]

Don't go too crazy throwing parts at it... you may spend needless money guessing, it could cost you less to pay for a diagnosis.

 

[Ford_Racing_Guy]

turned out to be a bad plug


so its all good now