96 PSD 280K I have been having issues with rough idle and miss at start up. After a couple of minutes the miss would disappear and the truck would run fine. Last Sunday I thought about chech the HPOP resevior to see what the level was like. Dropped the plug around the engine somewhere. It never hit the ground. After 1 1/2 hours of searching with mirrors and magnets, I figured I would start the truck to vibrate the plug to the ground. Started right up and after about 2-3 seconds, oil went gushing out of the hole (What in the heck was I thinking?!!!) and was all over the engine compartment. Plug did not hit the ground. Acquired a 7/16-20 bolt, applied an O-ring to it and installed it in the HPOP. Rinse the oil off of the engine compartment. Went and fueled the truck. Started truck the next morning and the CEL was on. No noticeable difference in the performance of the engine. Drove 20 miles, stopped to check the new oil plug/engine. All seemed visually fine. Turned off the engine, seeing if restart would get rid of the CEL. Would not restart. Messed around with connectors, particularly the IPR (had it come lose once before) and the truck started. Still has CEL. Figured I would not turn engine off until I arrived at work. Commute on Monday/Friday is 4 hours. Truck made it to work just fine. (CEL still on) Turned off and it would not restart. End of the day the truck start just fine (still CEL). Drove to trailer (1 hour) no problems. Restarted fine. Went to get groceries and it would no restart. Had buddy tow back to trailer. While in tow, tried to start and it fired right up. Tuesday morning, truck started rough in the morning, made it the hour drive. Would not restart. Messed with the IPR with no success. At lunch time, the truck started. Unplugged the IPC, no change. Unplugged the IPR, engine died and would not restart. Noticed the wiring harness connector to the valve cover gasket was corroded so bad that it will need replacing. Called on wiring harnesses. Have to go to Ford I guess. Don't know part #'s. Tuesday afternoon, fired up rough and after about 15-20 became rougher. Shut it off and got a ride back to my trailer. I need help with diagnosis. Most of my specialty tools are 4 hours away. My guesses are the IPC (but I think it would still run with default settings) or the IPR since when I unplugged it, plugged it back in and no start. The harness might be the culprit. Where do I get one. Any help quickly would be great. I will try to get it running before Friday, when I need to drive it home. Thanks.

 

first off you need to get the codes read if possible, 2nd if you said the valve cover harness is corroded beyond recognition then that could very well be the problem, odds are its melted underneath the valve cover.

its normal for the truck to die when you unplug the ipr, when you do the magnetism goes away and the oil is dumped back to the resevoir. as for a connector, ford sells the pigtail but it was discontinued 4 years ago, try to put it on the national locator or find a junkyard unit, any ps 94.5-03 will work or the 6.0's use the same one too.

icp sensor wont be the culprit since you eliminated it by unplugging it with no change.

the rough running and no starts points along with the damaged valve cover harnesses points me to those first, but best bet is check the codes, actually record the codes, clear and re-test since you will have a bundle of false codes from you unplugging things while it was running