I need advice for a 2001 Explorer Sport that's running rough.

[Belladora]

HI,

I have a 2001 Ford Explorer Sport 6 cyl that I bought in 2005. I have loved it. Fun to drive and been my baby. Two days ago on the way home I passes a snowplow and noticed some black stuff flying as I went by. It then started to run rough. No engine light came on. But after I stopped and turned it back on the engine light stays on.

I had it tuned up wires etc about 6 months ago and haven't driven it a lot. It does have 146,000 miles on it. 89,000 when I got it.

I took it to a mechanic who had it most of the day. I called and was told he wasn't sure what the problem was. Later that day he called and said he had bad news. It was out of his league. He said to give him time to put it back together.( I live 5 blocks away) I went ahead and went down and it was sitting on the lot.

He said 8 cyl were misfiring. 2 no compression or it could be a timing chain. He never told me the codes. But he did say he would put an engine in it for 600.00 for the labor.

It starts up fine, runs rough. Oil pressure is fine. Temp is fine. I have noticed this year a sound that made me think of a manifold leak but when I would take it down there it would quit.

I am sick over this as it is my only car and I really like this vehicle. Any ideas?

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! I've moved your thread into the stock 95-01 section. You said that it's a 6 cylinder, but 8 cylinders are misfiring?

 

[Belladora]

6 cyl

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. It is a 6 cyl. He said 8 but I figure that was just a mistake.

If I take this truck to Autozone and they scan it and give me the results of what it says I will post it here.

 

[Belladora]

A guy put it on a scanner today. It said P0301 misfire 1 - 5 - 4 -6 Running Lean. It is a 4.0 Vin E. He thought it might be the coil. He cleared the codes and it ran some better.

I then took it somewhere else and they sprayed water on the coil and it did run rougher. He replaced the coil with another one and it didn't help.


I saw no arcing in the dark or hear any. They said possibly plug wires. They are fairly new but does that mean they still could be bad.

Help

 

[Belladora]

BTW They said it was running Lean. We added 2 things of dry gas and added some high octane gas. That morning before this nightmare happened I had added $10 gas from Speedway.

 

[2000StreetRod]

Misfire sources

The PCM computes the power of each cylinder and when one is low reports a misfire for that specific cylinder. Typical misfire sources are ignition, fuel injection and compression.

Ignition problems could be due to a bad plug, wire or coil.

Fuel injection problems could be due to a bad injector, pressure regulator, fuel filter or pump. The only problem that is cylinder specific is a bad injector.

Low compression could be due to worn/broken rings, worn or sticking valves, blown head gasket or cracked head.

You're getting misfires on multiple cylinders and lean codes that started at the same time. I doubt the problem is low compression unless the black you saw was due to backfires that blew the head gaskets (not likely). Blown head gaskets or bad ignition should not result in a lean condition. I suspect that your problem is fuel related.

Has it been more than 30,000 miles since you replaced the fuel filter? It may be clogged and your engine is starving for fuel. I suggest changing your fuel filter (if applicable) and adding fuel injector cleaner after. Then I'd perform a fuel pressure test.