Hi all,

First off, thanks in advance for reading...I've a 1999 Mountaineer with the 5.0 engine that's a bear to start sometimes. I did a search, read through some threads but didn't really seem to find anything that describes my particular problem.

In the last month or so it's (usually) a real pain: the motor will turn over and crank and crank but not fire. I had the battery and main electricals checked...alternator, battery are all fine (though the battery posts were corroded and needed cleaning).

The readout did indicate that the amps were a little low for starting, but still in a normal range (so the guy told me). At first I thought this problem was just a dead battery, but when jumping it didn't start the Mountie one morning, I knew it was something else.

Occasionally when warm, the motor will fire but only on a few cylinders before shutting down. Turn the key again and it'll fire back up. Starting up even when warm is a bit of a 'hope and pray' affair, but once she's running, it's fine.

I'm decently mechanically inclined, but most of my wrench turning outside of oil changes has been on an '86 camaro when I was 16 and my 30 year old motorcycle now, so I've not been under a car hood in awhile. Just anything that could point me in the right direction would be immensely helpful, I can turn the wrenches myself, just need some advice to get me goin'.

Much appreciated!

 

The next time it acts up try holding the throttle open a bit. If that doesn't work, you could try squirting a bit of throttle body cleaner in to the intake to see if that gets it to sputter like it wants to start. If you have a spark tester, have that in one of the spark plug wires as well. If it sputters with a shot of cleaner, then you're looking at a fuel issue. If it doesn't appear to have spark, then I'd suspect your issue is a bad Crankshaft Position (CKP) sensor.

-Rod