Starting Trouble

[jacoby0419]

I've got a 03 Explorer Eddie Bauer with the 4.0 flex fuel installed. The truck has 205k on it and is mostly factory parts.

I left for work this point and stopped about 3 miles into it at a gas station, all normal so far. When I went to start the car it fired, stumbled bad for about 3 seconds and died. Then would not restart.

The truck turns over a little slower than before and sounds like it has a little lope while it does it that wasn't there before.

I checked the battery and terminals and that's not the problem. I also have power to the coil pack, but it doesn't look like I'm getting any spark.

Any suggestions at where to go next?

Thanks for the help

 

[Exproblems]

I've got a 03 Explorer Eddie Bauer with the 4.0 flex fuel installed. The truck has 205k on it and is mostly factory parts.

I left for work this point and stopped about 3 miles into it at a gas station, all normal so far. When I went to start the car it fired, stumbled bad for about 3 seconds and died. Then would not restart.


Thanks for the help

As you tried to restart the engine, could you smell a strong odor of gasoline in the air around your vehicle? The engine turning over slower after it wouldn't restart multiple tries is probably due to the battery getting low on power. My original 4.0L V-6 in my EX last year wouldn't start one morning on first fire up of the day and I heard a strange sound for about a second just as the engine was trying to first start. The engine never started after that and I could smell gasoline fumes in the air around my vehicle. It turned out my rear timing chain "jumped out of time" due to bad or worn out timing tensioners causing slack in the timing chain and the chain skipped teeth and out of time. I needed to get a new engine because the rear chain failed. Engine must be pulled to work on that chain. Have a compression test done and if you get "zero" compression on either the left (front timing chain) or right (rear timing chain) bank cylinders (all 3 cylinders for that side of engine showing zero compression), your timing chain jumped out of time as mine did at startup. Hopefully for you it is something else, but I gave you a place to start looking. Good luck with it.

 

[jacoby0419]

I'll pick up a compression tester. It's what I was afraid of as it did sound different when trying to start.

 

[jacoby0419]

I checked one cylinder on each side and I've got compression. I picked up both the crank position sensor and cam position sensor. It turns out I am getting spark, I was just having difficulty testing it earlier as I was by myself. The plugs has gas on them when I pulled them so I'm hopeful these sensors will take care of it.

 

[Joe in NY]

Check compression on all cylinders to be sure. One on each side still leaves four cylinders a mystery as to how they are acting.

 

[jacoby0419]

Check compression on all cylinders to be sure. One on each side still leaves four cylinders a mystery as to how they are acting.

Good point, since it went from running great to not running at all I was checking to see if I threw a timing chain and bent valves. At this point I'm in diagnosis mode for major problems. Since the two showed good compression I'm hoping that it didn't throw major time and it's an electrical gremlin at this point.

 

[jacoby0419]

I replaced both the cam and crank sensor and still can't get it to start. Suggestions please?

 

[ccm2001]

Maby its not getting fuel? Fuel filter blocked?

 

[jacoby0419]

I can smell gas on the plugs and can't get it to fire even with a shot of starting fluid.

 

[jacoby0419]

I also just tested all 6 coils and one had weak spark, replaced the coil pack and no difference.