my buddy owns a 96 7.3 and has told me that at some points i starts acting like its running out of gas...it begins to shake and studder...the check engine light comes on...all power pretty much stops...it happens for a moment...once he lets it sit for a second it goes back to normal...when it first happened about two weeks ago...he figured he was about out of fuel...but i did it again as he was leaving the gas station...any ideas...any help wuld be great...

 

Yeh, sounds like one whole bank of injectors is shutting down. More then likely time to check the valve cover gasket wires. If this is what it is, it will only get worse with time, until eventually it won't run properly at all. My 96 had a similar problem, except the progression was more severe, in that within 1/2 hour of the first occurance it wouldn't run properly anymore. And once the engine is cold (and it is still doing it) it won't run anymore as a cold engine won't run on only 4 cylinders, while a warm engine will.

Use an ohm meter to check each of the 5 pins in each of the 4 valve cover wiring connectors. The 2 outside pins (1 and 5) are for the glow plugs and should have about 2 - 5 ohms to ground (depending on the temperature of the glow plugs). The other three pins are for the injectors, and should not have any resistance to ground at all. By the way, pin 3 is ground for pins 2 and 4 and you should have some resistance between 2 and 3 as well as between 4 and 3.

Chances are very good that one of the glow plug pins is bad, has melted the surrounding insulation, and is changing the resistance between either pin 2 or 4 to ground. When this resistance is out of specs the IDM will shut down a whole bank of injectors to protect the IDM from damage.

Good luck.

 

thanx alot man...i'll be getting on that bright and early tomorrow morning