Yesterday, I came home from work early in preparation for the big storm.

It was about 95 degrees outside. The truck runs fine as long as the traffic is moving.
When I trolled around in a parking lot it ran fine. Then when I was about to leave It died on me. I could then turn it over and over. But no fire. I got thinking about while I was sitting there. I let it sit with the hood up for about twenty minutes. Then I ran a jumper from the test pin that activates the fuel pumps to ground.

Then it fired right up. And it ran fine all the way home.

Later I left again. This time at a stop sign. I had about a 2 minute wait there. It idled okay all the way to the sign. When I got ready to leave it died on me. Also would not restart.
I did the same thing with the wire after about 20 minutes.

The only thing I can think of is the fuel may be vaporizing. I'm not quite sure how to check or fix this problem if it is the case.

A little advice would very nice.
Thankyou,
Robert E.

 

any Ideas?

 

Only thing I can think of is vapor lock and thats only a guess.
I had a 78 F-150 do that to me a few times til I loosened up my gas cap 1/2 a turn just on a hunch.
Never did it after that.

 

Where are you at?

 

I live in Southeast Texas. Mr. Ike came through early this morning. All is well now.

My dad and I talked about my truck he seems to think my idle rpms might be a little low. They run around 500-600 or so. He suggested if I could bring them up to 650 it might solve the problem. But I don't know of any way to control the idle speed directly. The repair manuals all indicate that if idle is a problem then it could be a bunch of things.

 

There is a screw on the throttle body that you can adjust idle with.

The book way to adjust idle is to unplug the IAC (or is it TPS?.. sorry).. I think IAC motor, then adjust the screw until it's barely idling. Then, plug the IAC back in and that should be good. If it isn't, there isn't any harm in setting your idle up to 650-700RPM.

I think if it was your fuel pump, you would hear that infamous whining noise that bad fuel pumps make. But, not everything works out hunky dory.

 

Hey thiaks I will try that.

 

You really can't adjust the idle with the throttle stop screw. The computer adjusts the idle speed automatically. That's why the book tells you to disconnect the idle air control unit. There is a minimum amount of air that is supposed to go around the butterfly, and the rest is controlled by the IAC, which is controlled by the computer.

Next time it happens I would check for spark. If you have no spark till it cools back off, I would suspect the module on the side of the distributor.

 

Thankyou I will check that. How do I check the spark? Without shoring something out or knocking myself for a loop.

 

You can take a sparkplug wire off, stick a screwdriver up in the wire and while holding it by the handle, hold the metal part next to the engine block while someone cranks the engine. I believe the parts store does sell some spark indicator tools.