My Dad has an 85 E150 302 Motorcraft 2V. The van has been running good for the last two years since he got it. A couple of weeks ago the van would start missing/sputtering around 50MPH but otherwise ran fine. He replaced the fuel pump, replaced the fuel filter with the see through glass type and ditched the one that screws into the carb, wires, plugs, cap, rotor, and dry tank additive. No difference. In fact, the problem has grown into running fairly descent at idle, a little rougher than it was before, but not terrible, you can rev it up in neutral and it sounds OK but when you put it into gear and start to go it just loads up, no power and stumbling. No backfiring thru the carb or exhaust. He brought it over yesterday and I noticed that when it was running that the fuel in filter was only half way filled. I didn't think that that was right so we started at the tank and traced the fuel lines for leaks. Didn't find any. Got to the carb and found one vacuum line that was destroyed and a cap that was rotted so we replaced them. Took the carb off and cleaned the EGR plate ports and put new gaskets on. That helped the gas flow as now the fuel filter is completely full of gas but it still acts the same. I don't see how this would help the fuel delivery to the carb though unless we ratted something loose in the carb.
I would like to rebuild the carb as I am thinking that it is a power valve or accelerator diaphragm pump but wanted to run it by you guys first. The guys on the 385 board have been real helpful to me so I thought I'd try to post here for him.
Does this van have codes that I can pull with a voltmeter or a test light? Where is the plug located on a van? There is no emission light on the dashboard, it looks just like my 79 Bronco. He doesn't have a book on this and was hoping someone here could help out. Maybe a MAP or O2 or some other crazy sensor or even the brain? We have checked all of the vacuum hoses and replaced any suspect ones and probably a lot of ones that were OK. There is electronics hooked to the EGR so I think that it is an EEC-IV.
New development. He just pulled the cable off the battery while I was in here writing this. Let it set for five minutes and put it back on. It is still loading up but it seemed to get a little better. Any ideas??? I'm getting ready to do a search on the internet but wanted to post this first. Thanks guys...

 

When was the last time it got a complete tune-up? This could help alot, especially if the plugs look worn. If they look really sooty, I would suspect the carb maybe, but I would also change the O2s out. These early computer systems were a pain, and if you don't live where there is emmissions testing, I would just swap out the carb for a Holley 2300 series 350cfm 2BBL.

Jared

 

Thanks for the quick reply, Jared! We just replaced the plugs along with all of the other regular tune-up parts. I have a good Motorcraft carb that is the same model but doesn’t have all of the emission accessories that the van has. Maybe we'll just slap it on and see if it helps. About the O2's, that's where I was going with the codes. Can you pull codes on this animal or do you need a tester? That's a good idea about pulling the plugs. Since they are new, it will be easy to tell how they are burning. First thing tomorrow I will pull them. Thanks.

 

Just an update. We installed a Motorcraft 2V from my old 79 351M out of my Bronco on the van this morning. Although it did not have all of the emission support that the 85 carb had, we hooked it up just to see if it got better. We started it up and it runs great! Now my Dad wants to keep the 79 carb because he says that it ran better than the 85 ever did. Hopefully, it won't confuse the brain because there is no signal now to the EGR, no signal from the TPS, no dashpot, some funky solenoid on the back of the carb and some valve next to the accelerator pump. I think that is all that will be affected. Any thoughts on bypassing these systems and any repercussions that will arise from this?

 

Your emmissions light will come on. Big deal, just cover it with tape. No smog station will pull the doghouse off to inspect, so make sure it looks stock from the front, and you're golden.

Jared

 

If it runs ok, great. But I would always wonder if the distributor would be working correctly. With a computer system, it has no advance weights and no vacuum advance. The timing is totally controlled by the computer. And it gets it's info from sensors on the engine, some of which you may have eliminated. I don't know enough about that system to say, it may work fine, or it may be in some sort of limp home mode that will let it keep running and give some timing advance. To totally divorce the engine from the computer, you could swap in a duraspark II ignition system/distributor.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 24-Nov-02 AT 07:07 PM (EST)]After considering everything, we decided to just rebuild the 85 carb. Just finished up and it is running good now and we have re-attached all of the original emission controls. Thanks all for your input and help.