Vehicle is a 91 E-350 box-conversion with the 351W.

I bought it on E-bay, and it appears that one of the prior owners (obv someone who has no idea what happens when you 'modify' a computer-controlled engine) 'declared war' on the under-hood emissions control equipment (specifically vac-operated emissions equipment - hoses are cut and plugged with screws or superglue, the hose that goes into the top of the air-filter intake tube is MIA, etc))... Things are just 'gone'...

The vehicle does not perform properly, of course - lack of power/accelleration, poor idle when 'cold' (eg to start you have to give it gas or it will stall, once it's warm it idles ok)... Granted, it's no Mustang or Camaro, but when a V8 feels like a small 6 or import 4... Not good...

It's not burning oil or coolant (no smoke out the exhaust) - I haven't pulled any plugs yet, so I have no idea what they look like, but I am suspecting that 'Bubba' has paralyzed the ECM by removing stuff...


1) I'm normally a GM *car* guy (first Ford, first truck) - this truck (well, it was a van, now it's a truck, I guess) is a buy-use-resell sort of thing... So I don't know what is missing from under my hood (this has also been posted under the E350 section), or what it's doing/not-doing to the vehicle...

2) With GM V8s, there's a lot of free and commercial software out on the internet to interface with the ECM (WinALDL, FreeScan, etc) - in fact it seems that most of the OBD-1 PC scanner software I see is GM *only*... Is there anything similar for Ford engines, or is the only thing that will 'help' me a dedicated scan tool?

3) Is this a distributor based, or pure-electronic ignition system... Is the timing adjustable, or is it 100% PCM controled & do-not-touch?

4) Any other pointers?

 

Loose wires - one (green) appears to be out of the fuse box...



Engine (Inside) - anything obviously gone?



Apparently, when you don't want something (I have NO idea what it was) in your car, cutting the hose and plugging it with a screw is 'acceptable'... Also, the pink hose (looks like a vac line) has been cut and plugged with GLUE) - see next picture...


Pic of the super-glue plugged hose - it goes into the assembly pictured above. Any idea what it's *supposed* to be connected to?



Air-cleaner intake duct - something's supposed to go into that round hole (a hose, of some sort??) - Gone...


Something electrical WAS here - it's not now... (Same area from a different angle, below)...


And the view of the 'missing' area again... I have no idea what (or how many 'whats') is/are supposed to be there...

Also, there is a vac valve that goes from the black 'ball' in the back corner - the vacuum trigger hose and the hose to the ball are there, the hose going out of the valve (on the bottom) is just dangling loose, not connected to anything... That would be the black hose that curls around onto the metal plate - you can see the vac valve, and you can see the 'end' of the hose in the 2nd-to-last pic...

Any help would be appriciated.... PLEASE...

 

Wow!! That's nasty. Is the Air pump still there and plumbed? I see the thermactor diverter valve on the pipe connecting the heads at the back, and the plumbing for it. The 2 solenoids on the bracket with the coil are part of the Thermactor(air injection) system as well. These control valves between the air pump, heads and cats and divert air into the heads, to atmosphere, or to the cats depending upon conditions. If the valves are removed or are inactive and the pump is dumping all it's air into the heads then the motor will run very poorly.

A scan tool for this vintage motor is a waste of money, you can pull the codes without it... http://www.fordfuelinjection.com/?p=13
Start there and follow any problems the codes point you to.

 

Ok, so the 'amputated' items are all from the AIR injection system...

If this system ends up completely disabled, will that affect operation, or is it only an 'issue' if it's been incompletely hacked out (a high possibility)?

Thanks for the code info, will go from there...

Any other input?

Also, how can I get the dash temp guage working again? Since the truck is allready jerry-rigged beyond restoration, is there any way I can run wire direct from some-place to the guage to get it operationg again? Same for the fuel indicator... IIRC both are voltage-based, and the sensors that operate them are variable-resistors (one thermal, the other based on the in-tank float)....

 

The dash temp gauge is driven by a seperate single wire sensor near the front drivers side of the lower intake. It's a small little thing about the size of a dime with a stud sticking out the top... the wire just pushes on over the stud.
The fuel level indicator is fed from the intank float..as you suspected. Either it's dead, there is an open wire, or the gauge is bad. BTW.. if you remove the trim and glass covering the gauge cluster the gauge sections unplug from the base.. making it easy to test out another gauge from a salvaged cluster.

As for the air injection system, if the pump is dumping it's air to atmosphere and all the other plumbing is removed then the motor should run fine. I don't think the valves in the plumbing can be relied upon to properly seal, that one on the back of the motor is a 1-way valve, so it will allow air to be drawn in which will screw up the O2 sensor measurements. Better to remove the pipe completely and plug the heads.. the holes in the heads just happen to be threaded for a pipe fitting.

 

If the air pump is just below the alternator, with a hose connected from it to the airbox, it's still there and very much still running... There's definately pressure pulled from that hose, which would be pumping air out of the airbox, and presumably into the works of the vehicle, as noted above....

The solenoid that was connected to the bolt-plugged hose (and the hose tree with the pink glue-plugged hose) traces back to a metal pipe under the engine - I assume this is also part of the air-injection system, as it seems to go back towards the cat, and has zero pressure with the solenoid/hacked-hoses removed....


Vacuum pressure for this vehicle is a steady 18PSI at idle (measured from the line going from the intake to that electrical device next to the coil)....

 

And I'm either running rich or oil-fouled... I doubt it's oil, as I'd be getting blue smoke out the back....


Plug has a black carbon coating... Insulator is blackish-brown...

 

Yeah that's rich!! As I said earlier.. if the pump is dumping all the air it moves into the heads then it will cause a rich condition for sure.

 

If I were to remove that pump from the vehicle, would the tensioner be able to take up the slack, or would I have to stick something in it's place...
Due to the damage done to the vehicle so far, I don't see restoring the AIR system as practical...

Or is that not worth the effort (eg should I just plug the hole in the heads)?

I would also assume that since air-injection is needed for the cat to work properly, the cat has to go, or get gutted...

 

Kill the Cat. I hate Cat's

 

Under normal operating conditions with the motor up to operating temperature, the air from the pump is dumped to atmosphere. It's only injected at cold startup to help light of the cat and cleanup emissions. Best bet is to remove the remaining plumbing and just leave the pump in place, you'll need a shorter belt if you remove the pump, and it doesn't consume any power to turn. You won't need to remove the cat unless it's plugged, cross that bridge when you come to it.

 

UPDATE:

Ran code check...

KOEO:
Sec Fuel Pump Circuit bad... (I know this, it's been 'bypassed' with a switch in the cab)

First run pulled a 41 'HEGO/HO2S voltage low/system lean', and a '4/3 3/4 shift solenoid fail' (odd, this isn't an OD trans - I can't find an od on/off button, and the pattern is P-R-N-D-2-1).. Second run, these went away, leaving only the fuel-circuit code from the 'hack-job' secondary fuel pump wiring...

KOER:
41 'HEGO/HO2S voltage low/system lean'
12 'Engine idle out of range/low'
13 'Engine idle out of range/high'

If I read this right, it's telling me that my O2 sensor (or one of them) is dead, and sending a constant 'lean' reading back to the comp (which would explain the run-rich condition, as the computer responds with a 'full-rich' mixture, right?)

So far, the air-pump seems to be completely disabled (eg it never blows air into the heads, and is not connected to the exhaust system - disconnecting it from the heads and sealing the connection does not affect operation)...

So I've got a run-rich condition, a code for a bad 'HEGO'/'HO2S' sensor, that's it so far...

There's a potential exhaust restriction (due to the performance 'issue' I felt - or can the O2 sensor cause that?) too, although the only way I can think of to test that is to cut the cat out...

Any input...

 

Like I said Kill the Cat.

 

Yep, O2 reads low so the computer keeps dumping more fuel in. The truck should only have 1 O2 sensor in a small tube connecting 2 points on the Y pipe... passenger side. Check the wiring for the sensor as well as the sensor for broken wires, corroded contacts. If all that looks good change the sensor.

 

P.S. Should I try to reconnect the secondary fuel pump to the factory wiring, or leave it jerry-rigged?

Is the computer supposed to turn that pump on and off, or is it supposed to be on 24/7 (fuel pump located above fuel filter, under the vehicle in the driver's side seat/door area)....