Two somewhat related questions:

#1... really bad miss, what all should I be looking at?

The old gal has been down since early August or so for brake and suspension upgrades, and not driven much since late April before that. Last driven sometime in August, no engine problems. Last weekend, first road test other than creeping through the development, had major miss at highway speeds. Started up OK on second crank in low 40s, I likely didn't hold the key long enough on first crank. Very slow to accelerate on street out of the driveway, reminded me of EPBV on on a cold start on cold day after sitting for a while. I don't have EPBV anymore, and figured this was just from sitting. After a few minutes and reaching the highway, I could get up to 55 or so with some roughness. But trying to cruise at 55/60 in overdrive (E4OD), really rough and shaky. Trying to lope along at 1100 rpm, thought something would shake apart. Locking out OD and keeping her above 2,000 rpm... tolerable cruising, but still some roughness. Below 2,000, and especially trying to lope along below 1,500... really bad miss and shudder. Idling or coasting didn't seem too bad. The miss and shudder were very regular at all times, not coming and going. I did get the truck warmed up; maybe 25 minutes total driving, mostly at highway speed, with no improvement. No check-engine light.

I'm concluding this isn't driveline. Miss and shudder varied with engine rpm, not road speed. Accelerating got me through the critical rps fairly quickly. I'm thinking engine, specifically fuel. Fuel pump is low mileage; tanks, shower heads, and connectors to tanks are about 3 years old. I did have a seeping hose barb in one of the lines to the rear fuel tank; I tightened up the hose clamps.

I know I need to check the wiring in the valley... I had a squirrel starting to squat there. Pull filter cap and look at the filter and bowl, and dump some Diesel Kleen in there.

But what else should I be checking?

For the curious... the downtime started as Hydraboost. Had sticking front brakes, then blew a hard line in my driveway while trying to diagnose. Some of the parts are still original, nothing newer than at least 15 years. Turned into new hard and soft lines, wheel cylinders, calipers, and master cylinder, as well as Hydraboost. The brakes seem to be OK. While down for brakes, I also did RSK... which so far seems to be OK. But this miss makes the old gal not road-worthy.

#2... I really should break down and finally get a code reader. What do folks recommend? I have a Banks Powerpack system (yes, boo! to me... but it works for me) so I'm looking for something stand-alone rather than tuner-chip-based. Link to phone or laptop is OK, but I'm looking for something easy to set up, as I'm not an assimilated youngster born with embedded Bluetooth...

Insights are appreciated.

 

Nothing wrong with Banks products just a bit $$$ but quality stuff.

As to your first problem sounds like wiring issue or as its getting colder might be injectors that are worn out. You can buy a shim kit on ebay to shim the armature on the injectors and should help tremendously on cold start up.

Problem #2
Depends what year your truck is and if its OB11 compatible 94.5-95 need the PCM programed for the OBD11 plug to work with some of the cheaper scan tools.
alot of guys rave the OBD11 dongle and download the Forscan? Torque pro? App. Cant remember hopefully someone here will shine some light on this. I haven't trouble shooted my truck in years and when I do normally I have gauges and a multimeter that help me fix my truck as my pcm isn't OBD11 compliant yet lol..

 

The dang tree rat started a nest in the center of the valley. I didn't think to look at wires when I cleared out most of the leaves and grass, or until a day or two after the road test. Wiring issue makes sense, as I'm wondering if I lost one whole side. With luck, it's one big obvious chew mark, or an open connector.

I just looked at the FORScan website, and I'm more confused than when I started.

 

I use forscan. I cant vouch for its usefulness on the OBS as I havent hooked it up yet, but I use forscan for all of my other vehicles and it works great. I've used it to pull the key code off of a door pad, diagnose misfires, and all kinds of techy stuff I didnt know how to do without google.

 

Ohm out the injector harness with pic in the link
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...load-test.html

 

One time I had forgotten to plug in the driver front injector harness at the valve cover. Truck started fine but idled like ***...you probably just have an open circuit to a set of injectors.

Do not overthink this, just start with the IDM ohm out and go from there.

 

Duh... see if either the tree rat or the ape who cleaned out the tree rat's mess pulled a connector apart. And the pin diagram... OK, someone probably has put a price on it. But extremely useful. This is why I ask! Thanks, guys. Hope to get to this on Sunday.

 

Found the problem, and it will be easy to fix once I have some more info. Getting the info... that's the problem.

Multiple-expletives-deleted tree rat not only started a nest in the valley, but also chewed off 4 of 5 wires right at the passenger side rear connector to the under-valve-cover wiring harness. Insulation, copper, everything. Center wire still had some copper and insulation left. Obvious teeth marks, and no signs of heat. I was down at least the 2 rear cylinders on that side, and maybe the whole bank. Kind of surprised I didn't have an electrical fire.

I have several spare pigtails from doing glow plugs and UVCH several years ago... the problem is what wire (vehicle side) goes to which wire on the new pigtail. The center orange wire is still kind of attached, so that's obvious. On the vehicle side, it's 2 blacks and 2 white-with-stripes... one stripe dark red, the other dark blue. The chew off is right at the connector, so unless I get lucky and can cut the connector apart and find enough insulation inside to match colors, I need to find a wiring diagram.

 

Alliant Power has a direct fit pigtail plug with new pins, just connect to your wiring if acceptable.

 

Mystery solved! Cut the lone dangling wire, brought the connector inside, and cleaned it off. There's enough insulation showing on the underside of the connector that I can make a color match.

Outer pins are same color, both are black or very dark brown. Center pin is orange. Of the inner pair of pins, the front inner is light-colored with dark blue or maybe black stripe. Rear inner is light-colored with red stripe. Hard to tell if the light-colored insulation was originally white, beige, light tan, or something like that. But the color stripes are distinctive. This is for the passenger side rear connector. I imagine that the other connectors have different color stripes on the inner pair of wires.

I have 4 new pigtails from doing under-valve-cover harness when I did glow plugs several years back. The new pigtails are all the same... will fit any of the 4 connectors. Just need to connect to the right wire. Easy enough to do if everything is still connected and you can cut and attach one wire at a time, or cut the wires away from the connector. A bit of a mystery if some evil tree rat chews them off right at the connector.

 

Pictures of the carnage?

 

Get a obd2 tool off amazon for 25 bucks and get forscan. You can do a buzz test and monitor important stuff while driving down the road with a laptop.

 

A bit too close for good focus, but any farther away and you can't see details.

Center (orange) wire insulation chewed through all the way around, and about half the wire strands chewed through. The end is where I cut it. The other 4 wires, chewed off right up against the connector, insulation and wire strands. Doesn't show in the picture, but the underside of the inner pair has just enough of the color stripe that I can match to the wires. Note how tight to the connector the chew-throughs are. The wiring side only has damage right at the break.

There are chew marks on the end of the latch block, top center of picture, facing the camera. Also chew marks on the top right of the connector, like the critter was trying to bevel the corner of the connector.

I didn't notice any damage on the UCVH side, and the front connectors on both sides looked good. I didn't get a look at the driver side rear, under the turbo.

Quick look around, this is the only damage I saw, and nothing else seemed amiss on the test drive. The damage was very targeted to just this connector. Like they were trying to disable the truck so their nest wouldn't drive away, rather than random carnage? Maybe I should get worried about how smart they are getting. And no, I can't plink them in my neighborhood. Need to attract some hawks, owls, and foxes...

 

AP0010 will fix you up without hackery.

https://www.dieselpowerproducts.com/...werstroke.aspx

 

Whole inj harness on ebay new for 400