massive headache my last resort

[cammiecamaro]

I bought a 95 4.0 explorer from a guy on the cheap and he couldn't figure out what its problem was. Paid him the cash and replaced the TPS in front of him and drove it home. After driving it around for over a year I made the following observations. 1. Dummy removed the CEL bulb so he could forget its problem. 2. He did a hack job trying to replace the EGR valve after he snapped it off the pipe. 3. Being a chevy guy, this is a really nice riding little SUV. The quality is much better than the Blazers I used to own.

Then all hell broken loose. It began to intermittenly stumble on start up until you gave it some throttle and became more frequent, like it wasn't running on all cylinders. Then it began to do it while my wife (its her explorer) was driving it down the road. At first, it wouldn't do it for me, just her. Then one day while climbing a slight incline (no more than 2 % grade) it finally did it to me and took a long time to start again afterwards. It was so infrequent that I didn't bother to look into it hard, just asked around. Finally, on our last snowy day this past year, it did it again and left us (me, wife and daughter) sitting on the side of the road in a blizzard for a couple hours. It has not moved since I got it home. In that time, I've replaced the fuel pump, regulator, lines, injectors, tps, maf, coil, pcm, ignition module, crank sensor and tested the function of all of them. Dull yellow spark, plenty of fuel pressure, and I'm on my last nerve with this thing. I haven't touched the thing in a few months and out of ideas.

Someone recommended that I reach out to other people that actually work on the things and get some direction. My father has been a master mechanic for years and taught me quite a lot but he's even stumped. I'm sick of my wife driving the hell out of my camaro and whining about her car not running. I don't have a bunch of money to drop at a dealer. I actually like this explorer and would hate to get rid of it. Does anyone have a direction to point me in?

 

[koda2000]

you've thrown a lot of parts at this truck w/out knowing what the real problem is. i don't see plugs/wires listed. have you changed those as well? do you have a CEL on? if you've got a weak yellow spark it would appear ignition related. will it run on starting fluid? have you done a compression test (best way to measure the health of an engine)? have you checked/tested ground connections?

 

[1998Exp]

95 would most likely have EECIV (OBD1) engine management. It's nowhere near the self-diagnostic capability of OBD2, but still useful. After checking the obvious (fuel, spark, air, compression) it's still worth reading the stored codes and running the on-demand diagnostics (engine off and engine on). The good news is that you can do that with a paper clip. If the CEL is inoperative, you can use a test light to read the codes. If you don't know how, Google is your friend...

I bought a 95 4.0 explorer from a guy on the cheap and he couldn't figure out what its problem was. Paid him the cash and replaced the TPS in front of him and drove it home. After driving it around for over a year I made the following observations. 1. Dummy removed the CEL bulb so he could forget its problem. 2. He did a hack job trying to replace the EGR valve after he snapped it off the pipe. 3. Being a chevy guy, this is a really nice riding little SUV. The quality is much better than the Blazers I used to own.

Then all hell broken loose. It began to intermittenly stumble on start up until you gave it some throttle and became more frequent, like it wasn't running on all cylinders. Then it began to do it while my wife (its her explorer) was driving it down the road. At first, it wouldn't do it for me, just her. Then one day while climbing a slight incline (no more than 2 % grade) it finally did it to me and took a long time to start again afterwards. It was so infrequent that I didn't bother to look into it hard, just asked around. Finally, on our last snowy day this past year, it did it again and left us (me, wife and daughter) sitting on the side of the road in a blizzard for a couple hours. It has not moved since I got it home. In that time, I've replaced the fuel pump, regulator, lines, injectors, tps, maf, coil, pcm, ignition module, crank sensor and tested the function of all of them. Dull yellow spark, plenty of fuel pressure, and I'm on my last nerve with this thing. I haven't touched the thing in a few months and out of ideas.

Someone recommended that I reach out to other people that actually work on the things and get some direction. My father has been a master mechanic for years and taught me quite a lot but he's even stumped. I'm sick of my wife driving the hell out of my camaro and whining about her car not running. I don't have a bunch of money to drop at a dealer. I actually like this explorer and would hate to get rid of it. Does anyone have a direction to point me in?

 

[cammiecamaro]

Yes I did change the plugs and wires. I know how to run diagnostics and all I got back were EGR codes. It will run on starting fluid but as soon as you run out of fluid, it dies. The problem got progressively worse, when I first started tinkering, it would start and idle but if you touched the pedal, it'd died and now it won't even fire up on its own. The reason I threw parts at it was using google and reading all the posts with similar issues. I was starting to think it tripped the inertia switch but that is in working order. I was also beginning to think something in the pats system malfunctioned but I don't know how fords work.

 

[R1dd1cK]

95-97 explorers do not have pats.

 

[cammiecamaro]

Does it have any kind of anti theft?

 

[R1dd1cK]

Im not sure on that one. If I was you I would get a fuel pressure tester and test the fuel pump. I know you already replaced it. I would also check out the cam and crank sensor.

 

[cammiecamaro]

I've checked the fuel pressure and its middle of the road of wheree it should be. I've also tested the crank sensor and it reads the correct amount of voltage. As for the cam sensor, I've had a hell of a time trying to get back to it and test it but its on my list of things to do in the a.m. is it possible that it jumped time somehow?

 

[tenny]

you mention "plenty of fuel pressure"....but what exactly is the pressure..??

and.....do you visually check the VOLUME...???

should be at least a liter per minute.

this sounds like a fuel problem to me......I would do the fuel unit
drive it......see how it acts.

 

[R1dd1cK]

if it jumped timing that bad i don't think it would run on starting fuild. Now I dont know if this will work or not. It works on my 91 tbird with dis. On my tbird if the cam sensor is bad you can unplug it and there is a 1 in 3 chance it will start. Maybe some one with a little more explorer experience will chime in.

 

[cammiecamaro]

Fuel pressure was at 42 psi at cranking and without the line on the regulator, it shot clear across the garage. I'm sure I got plenty of pressure.

 

[cammiecamaro]

As soon as I mention the year explorer, the dealership guy I've known for years becomes a mute and won't answer any questions about it. Id like to swap it all for an older year model, they are so much simpler to work on. Never had a problem out of my 91 ranger stx and there was a lot less wiring in it.

 

[cammiecamaro]

I'm just gonna start at square 1 in the am. Ill post my findings.

 

[tenny]

cant wait to see what you find.....

I live for this ****....hahahaha

 

[jremington59]

Have you checked the fuel filter?

 

[bill06447]

Sounds like EGR might be stuck open...

Bill

 

[429CJ-3X2]

This is going to sound stupid and way too simple, but make sure your negative battery cable(s) is(are) properly attached to clean spots on the frame/engine. Years ago I had a '70 Cyclone GT 429CJ. I drove it home in a snow storm one night and parked it with the nose out of the wind. (I thought.) The snow packed tight under the hood. It took me 3 months to get it started again. It would crank, and almost start on starter fluid. It was getting fuel. It should have started. I changed everything I could think of, and eventually concluded it had to be something really stupid. I finally took the neg cable off the engine block and cleaned it up under it, even though it looked ok. Put it back together and it fired right off. Apparently it was grounded enough to crank and provide a little spark, but not well enough to both crank and spark enough to start at the same time. These computerized engines are much more sensitive to electrical issues than the simple cars of the '70s. My Sport Trac won't crank if the small ground wire isn't well connected.

 

[my98nnj]

It will run on starting fluid but as soon as you run out of fluid, it dies.

I think this is key. If it runs on starting fluid, then your issue is clearly fuel delivery. It seems you've verified you have fuel pressure and volume, now start looking at the injectors. The injector pulse timing usually comes from the camshaft sensor. I think that should be the next step in your trouble shooting.

 

[cammiecamaro]

Yes I've tried a couple different brands of fuel filters. Like I said, I've been working on this thing for about 6 months in my spare time and just coming up empty. I'm gonna crawl all over this thing and check the grounds. It seems like a silly problem is what its going to be. The guy I bought from snapped the egr pipe off at the valve and just slathered jb weld all over it. I'm going to the jy to get a replacement pipe. I got a injector pulse tester from blue point a while back and all the injectors I can get to with it give a signal. Is there an easy way to check the cam sensor?

 

[shepard56]

fuel pump relay, even if itlooks good, replace it. it looks like a fuse.