Suddenly running RICH and no Check Engine Light, Help!

[fredm54]

Hello everyone, this is my first post! Last night I drove our 2001 Sport Trac to the store about 6 miles away. 15 minutes later I drove to another store about another 2 miles. 15 minutes later I start the engine and it immediately died. I restarted and this time played with the gas pedal to keep it from dying.
I noticed an extreme rich gas odor while I'm having a hard time trying to keep it running. I start to drive home and found that if I pressed the gas a little too much the engine would begin to die! It probably took a couple city blocks to get to 30 mph! At red lights I switched to Neutral to help keep it from dying.
I finally get home and I shut the engine off. I can hear some cracking noise from underneath so I looked and saw the Catalytic converter GLOWING RED!!!

I sprayed some water to cool it down and to prevent a fire and any damage. I got my wife out to show her that the Sport Trac has a major problem. So I restarted it (maybe 5 minutes elapsed since I got home) and now it's running just fine!!! We drove it around for a good 30 minutes, fast, slow, everything and it's like nothing was ever wrong!

Sorry for the long post I'm almost done! The check engine light never came on. I have an OBD reader (it just reads and clears codes) so I never bothered to check for a code since the check engine light never came on.

My wife has been in the car going around shopping since 10 am and it's now almost 2pm and the Sport Trac is running fine!

She drives this a lot and this can be very dangerous especially making a left turn because if it acts up again we'll be across the oncoming traffic and the truck will try to stall. Then the first reaction will be to step on the gas which will then stall quicker then CRASH!!!!

This morning I disconnected the battery for a few minutes so the computer would lose any stored data and reset itself to factory defaults and I put a bottle of Gumout injector cleaner in the gas tank.

Any ideas???? thanks, Fred

 

[huskyfan23]

Glowing red, I'd say it's a clogged cat. Get your codes pulled at Autozone too. Your timing may be also off , or you could have a fuel injection problem, so don't go replacing the cat without posting your codes.

 

[PSVIP]

....Gremlins????? sorry NFI here, warranty??? If so take it to Ford... being that the catylitic converter was glowing red that would be a good starting point. if the converter was restricted that COULD account for your symptoms. Good luck bud.

 

[fredm54]

It only did that during the ride back from the store. It ran fine all day today.
I don't think the catalytic converter would clog for 1 trip, unless someone shoved something up the tail pipe and it blew out? But it was bad all the way to my driveway, then 5 minutes later all is well! I would guess that excess gas was being getting in and/or not enough air was getting in. Would there have been a code even if the Check Engine light never came on?

thanks!

Fred

 

[huskyfan23]

Oh wow, thought you said you had a CEL. I'm guessing the crackling noise was probably the stuff in your cat breaking apart, but that's really all I can tell you with since it was fine after you drove around again.