1994 f150 with the 4.9, 162k miles. Ran great until recently I started noticing a bit of power loss when it was fully warmed up after driving the highway for a while. Occasionally it would stall while idling, but would start back up. Was fine when cold. I had to take the fuel tank (single 16gal rear tank) out to change the seal as it was leaking, and I went ahead and replaced the entire fuel pump assembly.

Job went fine, put everything back together, put 5 gal gas in, and it started right up and idled just fine. I’ll also mention that I had replaced the fuel filter the prior week. I then let it idle and warm up, then turned it off and did an oil change. I unplugged the coil wire on the distributor so I could crank the engine without starting (to circulate the oil and make sure the filter was filled). I have done this numerous times before.

Cranked it, plugged the wire back in, then it wouldn’t start. Would crank fine, but wouldn’t even try to start. Sometimes, with the key on the on position, I would hear the fuel pump turn on and off randomly for maybe 10 sec, and there would be various odd clicking and other sounds from the engine bay. This did not happen every time however.

I checked spark with an old spark plug on one of the cylinders, no issues. I swapped the horn and fuel pump relays. Didn’t help. I tried cranking several more times to no avail. A little while layer, I cranked it again and it started right up. Idled just fine for a couple minutes, then suddenly died. No spluttering, just suddenly off. It would not start when I once again tried.

I was able to get it started a bit later and took it for a drive, it ran great, back to normal power levels and idled well, but it would randomly almost stall and die, until after about 10 min it totally died. Was several minutes before I could get it back going. On the drive back home it died several more times. It would start to splutter and stall, and sometimes modulating the gas would help but it would always just die after a couple seconds. When trying to start it, would sometimes kind of catch and try to start and giving it gas just might bring it to life, other times it just cranked with nothing.

Any help is much appreciated. I have a cross country trip soon and need to get this totally fixed asap.

 

Have you checked for codes?
sounds like it might be a fuel issue, but if you have any codes, it might be a good place to start.

 

sounds like its gassier than exxon mobil
the coil wire was NOT the thing to pull, infact, that sounds like a way to damage something. where else would that energy go to!
anyway, the fuel pump relay next time.

Also check vac leaks?

 

Havent yet. That was my first diagnostic check for tomorrow morning

 

My mistake. I assumed it was harmless but I see what you mean and stand corrected.

I will check tomorrow, but it idles at a normal rpm so I doubt there is a drastic leak that could cause something like this

 

does your idle lope?

 

So, I got it fixed.

Turned out my check engine light bulb was bad, fixed it, then checked the codes. There were numerous, but the key one was 211 indicating that the PIP signal was erratic or missing. I replaced the distributor, set the timing, and cleared the codes. Truck runs great and no check engine light, so all is well!

 

That's great! The system works. Thanks for the conclusion.

 

Glad you found it and reported back.