I wanted report on the performance of our Ex across country from Pasadena, Ca to D.C. and back. Bare with me please as I tell you the story. We had 2 real cases of trouble along the way, one man made, and one due to age and ware. The first manifested itself as we were about to leave Phoenix AZ headed east. As we were waiting in line to fill up at the local Costco in 110+ heat the engine stumbled once while at idle. Now mind you this truck runs as smooth as silk never a cough, so my wife and I looked at each other in amazement. What was that? It smoothed out again so we figured maybe it was just the extreme heat. I knew better. So we headed NE to Gallup NM. The truck ran great climbed up out of the desert towards Gallup no problem. The next day we headed east on I40 and refueled in Albuquerque. Fast forward to Elk City Ok. the trouble came in hard, #9 was not firing(DTC P359). Now some of you will know right away what that code is really telling you, but in my haste to get going I replaced the coil. Fast forward again to somewhere in Kentucky the trouble reappears in hard. Oh yes and I have to confess my wife identified the trouble. Here's a picture:

This is the connector for the #9 coil. I know it looks like the wire was cut but it wasn't. I cut the white & pink sheath away to see the break. The pink and white wire on the left was broken inside the sheath. The only clue was a tiny, and I mean tiny break in the insulation. My wife got a glimmer of something shiny. It must have been holding on by a few strands, and the last one broke. Apparently at times the one or two strands couldn't fire the coil hence a miss now and then.
Here's a picture of the Man Made trouble:

Can you see it? That little hole is between the intake boot and the throttle body. In my haste(again) to get going I did a lousy job of re clamping the boot. This showed up a "lean switch" problem on the 02sensors BK1 and Bnk2. My wife had enough and fired me.

 

Always seems simple once you find the problem. Disappointing how such a huge machine can be brought down by small imperfections. Hope the rest of your trip is trouble free.

 

My thoughts exactly. Of all the things I thought could go wrong and prepped for, a tiny broken wire. After the repair the Ex performed flawlessly for the rest of the trip.

 

If you grab the driveshaft near the yoke and push/pull on it, if it's bad you should feel movement.

 

Right, you should not feel any play in those joints.