I am looking for either confirmation or other suggestions to try....
I could go into great length and detail on what happened but I'll keep it as short as I can. I used ChatGPT to help me diagnose and get me to where I am now. I used GPT because I didn't want to search and read endless posts on what to do.
Two weeks ago I was pulling our camper back from a rental. I stopped at a Love's to dump the tanks and get some gas, only put in half a tank. As I was coming home down the highway, it started shuddering really bad and got a flashing cel. This was about a tenth of a mile from my exit. I went ahead and pushed on thru gently, exited crossed over the highway and parked it a parking lot cause I knew it probably wasn't going to be able to make it the three more miles home.
Lucky for me i had my bluetooth code reader on me and I was just generally monitoring how the car was running on this trip (seeing if it was worth putting 91 in vs 89). I got codes P0300, P0301, P0302 and P0303.
GPT recommended to test the evap purge first. It tested fine. I had to come back the next day with tools to get deeper into it. During all of this testing I had reset the cel and started it multiple times. P0302 (miss-fire on cylinder two) was always there.
Next was change the plugs. There are 104k on this beast, we've had it since 20k and I never replaced the plugs. It was long overdue anyway so I replaced them with Motorcraft ones. It was running better, but it was running poor and strong gas smell from the exhaust. CPT recommend that there might still be excess fuel lingering and to let it idle for 10 min then try a short slow drive, without the camper. I did that and it was starting to run better but got a flashing cel after about 5 min putting around the parking lot I was in. I tried swapping the coils from bank one to two. Same result, no driving.
Next it wanted me to test the exhaust side VCT, still go miss-fires.
Next was check the injectors. It had me unplug the low pressure #2 injector, luckily I could just get in there to do that. You could tell a cylinder was missing and it took about 2 min before the cel flashed. CPT diagnosed it was a leaking #2 High pressure fuel injector. It was now nearing the end of the day and I was NOT going to do an injector swap in a parking lot. I got a neighbor to tow my camper home, and I limped the car back to the house, never went over 20.
I ordered 6 new motorcraft cm-5254's from Rockauto figured since I'll be that deep into it might was well replace them all. Local dealer wanted $160/ea, but rockauto was $64/ea. Them eventually came in and within a few days I had replaced them and reassembled eveything. It started up pretty good, It idled for maybe 40 min before the strong smell of gas would go away. Took it on a 30 min gentle drive, and all was looking good.
Wife took the car the next day, it's her's. Told her to drive it gently for a few days. She said it was running good and there were no more problems. She drove it about 75 miles. I took out to the store and decided to try flooring it to see how it does. First short pull was OK. A tiny amount of Shudder. 2nd pull however got a flashing cel. It stayed on for maybe a minute and drove poorly. But it turned off and continued to drive normally. I drove it normally the rest of the way to the store. CPT told me it was still "re-learning" and to continue to drive gently for the next 100-200 miles. That kind of seems absurd to me. I would think it should have been fine after that 75 miles. I was still getting a P0302 for that miss-fire on #2.
The wife needed to car I didn't have time to research online and it was driving fine as long as you didn't try to accelerate hard. I thought maybe GPT was right and it still needed time to "learn" shouldn't though. She drove another 300 miles. She said no problems. No flashing cel. No steady cel. I ran the codes, nothing. Ok, let's go try it again! First pull... Flashing CEL! Cylinder #2, again. WTF! So, when I took my kid to an art class last night I brought some tools and re-checkd the gap on the #2 PLUG. I had gapped them all at 0.031, as I had found conflicting info everywhere as to what they "should be". I re-gapped it to 0.028-0.029 and swapped the #2 coil with #4. Took it for a run and same thing. Anything from 3/4 and above throttle and I'll get a misfire.
I am at a loss here so I asked GPT again. It is saying that it's going to be a sealing problem now... It is saying most likely a burnt/leaking exhaust valve. Or a cracked or worn piston ring land. Or least likely a Head gasket micro-leak. It wants me to do a compression test and/or a leak down test to determine what it the source. I can try to do a compression test this weekend, that's an easy tool rental job from Autozone. But the leak down, I don't think they would have that tool rental there.
Any suggestions out there on what to do/try? REALLY, don't want to have to take off the head..... But if I have to go that far might as well do the dreaded cam phasers too...
THANKS
I could go into great length and detail on what happened but I'll keep it as short as I can. I used ChatGPT to help me diagnose and get me to where I am now. I used GPT because I didn't want to search and read endless posts on what to do.
Two weeks ago I was pulling our camper back from a rental. I stopped at a Love's to dump the tanks and get some gas, only put in half a tank. As I was coming home down the highway, it started shuddering really bad and got a flashing cel. This was about a tenth of a mile from my exit. I went ahead and pushed on thru gently, exited crossed over the highway and parked it a parking lot cause I knew it probably wasn't going to be able to make it the three more miles home.
Lucky for me i had my bluetooth code reader on me and I was just generally monitoring how the car was running on this trip (seeing if it was worth putting 91 in vs 89). I got codes P0300, P0301, P0302 and P0303.
GPT recommended to test the evap purge first. It tested fine. I had to come back the next day with tools to get deeper into it. During all of this testing I had reset the cel and started it multiple times. P0302 (miss-fire on cylinder two) was always there.
Next was change the plugs. There are 104k on this beast, we've had it since 20k and I never replaced the plugs. It was long overdue anyway so I replaced them with Motorcraft ones. It was running better, but it was running poor and strong gas smell from the exhaust. CPT recommend that there might still be excess fuel lingering and to let it idle for 10 min then try a short slow drive, without the camper. I did that and it was starting to run better but got a flashing cel after about 5 min putting around the parking lot I was in. I tried swapping the coils from bank one to two. Same result, no driving.
Next it wanted me to test the exhaust side VCT, still go miss-fires.
Next was check the injectors. It had me unplug the low pressure #2 injector, luckily I could just get in there to do that. You could tell a cylinder was missing and it took about 2 min before the cel flashed. CPT diagnosed it was a leaking #2 High pressure fuel injector. It was now nearing the end of the day and I was NOT going to do an injector swap in a parking lot. I got a neighbor to tow my camper home, and I limped the car back to the house, never went over 20.
I ordered 6 new motorcraft cm-5254's from Rockauto figured since I'll be that deep into it might was well replace them all. Local dealer wanted $160/ea, but rockauto was $64/ea. Them eventually came in and within a few days I had replaced them and reassembled eveything. It started up pretty good, It idled for maybe 40 min before the strong smell of gas would go away. Took it on a 30 min gentle drive, and all was looking good.
Wife took the car the next day, it's her's. Told her to drive it gently for a few days. She said it was running good and there were no more problems. She drove it about 75 miles. I took out to the store and decided to try flooring it to see how it does. First short pull was OK. A tiny amount of Shudder. 2nd pull however got a flashing cel. It stayed on for maybe a minute and drove poorly. But it turned off and continued to drive normally. I drove it normally the rest of the way to the store. CPT told me it was still "re-learning" and to continue to drive gently for the next 100-200 miles. That kind of seems absurd to me. I would think it should have been fine after that 75 miles. I was still getting a P0302 for that miss-fire on #2.
The wife needed to car I didn't have time to research online and it was driving fine as long as you didn't try to accelerate hard. I thought maybe GPT was right and it still needed time to "learn" shouldn't though. She drove another 300 miles. She said no problems. No flashing cel. No steady cel. I ran the codes, nothing. Ok, let's go try it again! First pull... Flashing CEL! Cylinder #2, again. WTF! So, when I took my kid to an art class last night I brought some tools and re-checkd the gap on the #2 PLUG. I had gapped them all at 0.031, as I had found conflicting info everywhere as to what they "should be". I re-gapped it to 0.028-0.029 and swapped the #2 coil with #4. Took it for a run and same thing. Anything from 3/4 and above throttle and I'll get a misfire.
I am at a loss here so I asked GPT again. It is saying that it's going to be a sealing problem now... It is saying most likely a burnt/leaking exhaust valve. Or a cracked or worn piston ring land. Or least likely a Head gasket micro-leak. It wants me to do a compression test and/or a leak down test to determine what it the source. I can try to do a compression test this weekend, that's an easy tool rental job from Autozone. But the leak down, I don't think they would have that tool rental there.
Any suggestions out there on what to do/try? REALLY, don't want to have to take off the head..... But if I have to go that far might as well do the dreaded cam phasers too...
THANKS
