I've managed to nurse my truck back to running condition after my last malfunction. It's up to 103k miles now and it wants some more TLC. Started it today and started hearing a clicking noise like the neighbors cat had got caught up in the radiator fan. Popped the hood and nothing (darn, really don't like that cat). Anyway, checked the service manual and it says that it could be a bad cam bearing, uneven wear, sticky valve or a dirty combustion chamber. I disconnected individual plugs and came up with the noise in the number 3 cylinder. After a minute I reconnected the cylinder and my wife noticed some really black nasty crud dripping from the exhaust. I believe it could be the dirty cylinder because it ran without the noise all the way home.
Does anybody know of a way to clean out a cylinder without taking apart the whole engine?
If it were carbureted I would just dump a little fuel down the neck and let it soak a little. Can't figure out how to really do that with an injected model and I really would like to do this in as little time as possible.

 

Ford sells Combustion Chamber Cleaner. They used to call it Tune Up Cleaner. Not sure what it goes by now.
It seems to work well. You spray it in a vacuum hose...usually the PCV, with the engine running. Spray it fast enough that the engine almost stalls but not quite. When the can is nearly empty you can stall the engine with the spray. Let is soak for about 10 minutes then take it for a spin. Watch that you dont choke anyone with the exhaust though......you'll get clouds of smoke out of it
You can also take the truck and get the whole thing cleaned out on a Motorvac or Wynns cleaner. They have a fine spray that cleans out the intake, combustion chambers etc. Supposedly they work very well.

 

A mechanic friend of mine uses the Wynns system and claims it works REALLY good. He puts it in all his personal vehicles as soon as he gets them (used that is) and says it makes a huge improvement. I keep thinking about having it done on my truck. I do run a bottle of Chevron Techron through the fuel system 2-3 times a year. Always had good luck with it. Used to sell it at the autoparts store I worked at and always recommemded it and customers seemed real happy with the results. A bottle only treats like 12-15 gallons though... you'll need to use 2 for the truck. Maybe try that first if you want cheap. I think that if it's to the point that you are having problems you may want to spend the bucks and have it cleaned with the stuff that goes through the vac system like Wynns or one of the others.

 

I had the MIL light come on while I was hunting for this cleaning stuff. Had it checked at the base auto hobby shop (Snap on OBD II, great little tool!) anyway, came up with a misfire code on both the #1 and #4 cylinder. I'll come back to that in a second. I check for this cleaning stuff locally and couldn't find anything that you didn't just dump in the fuel tank. I finally found a kit called Chemtool by Berryman. It is a three part kit, intake cleaner, Combustion chamber cleaner, and a fuel system cleaner. All of this for about $20. I decided it would be a good idea to check the plugs and wires to see if that was causing the MIL.
I last used some Champion Spark plugs and some Bocsh cables. The cable on the #5 dryed out and started splitting and the others were getting that way too. But this may be attributed to some dummy (I raise my hand in this case) hooking the entire ignition system up backwards last time he changed the cables. For all of you that don't like the champion spark plugs. They kept on working until I had burned the insulators down to nothing. Wrong firing order for about 6,000 miles or so. After having my wife read the firing order to me, changing out the spark plugs and using this kit, the Ford is back to blowing away all the little rice racers here on this god forsaken island.
Now all I have to do is fix this wierd noise in the back and it will be good as new (almost) but I'll address that in another thread. Thanks for the help!