Hi Guys.

I was wondering if someone might be able to help me out. I recently went off roading through real silty mud. It covered my entire engine. I mean everything.

I was at the off-road park and on my way home it started to overheat. I pulled over, waited a long time for it to cool enough to add water. Drove home.
Then I let it cool for a few hours and took it to a near by coin-operated car wash and washed what I could out of the radiator. But because of the guard, I had to spray from the front. I figured all was well, went for a 40 minute drive, didn't overheat, nothing. I thought to myself "Great!"

Well, next day, on my way to work it over heated. I was about 45 minutes from home so I parked it at my sister's house and took my brother's car. I went back the next day and washed all the mud I could from the radiator (it was pretty thick on the back) and as the dry mud came into contact with water, it pretty much melted right off.

Then I decided to wash the engine, here's where the problem really begins.
I washed the engine, and washed it real good. I removed the plastic over the intake, (not the intake plumbing itself though), the plastic over the radiator, and blasted water, little by little to get the sandy/muddy stuff outta the way.

I thought, good, now I can drive this thing and have some fun.
Well, not really. I pulled 4 codes:
P1309 Camshaft Position Sensor
P0442 Evap Leak
P0301 and P0307 Cylinder Misfire

I removed the COP and blew out all the moisture and consequently sand that was in it. Replaced the CPS, and since I don't have a smoke machine, ignored the evap leak. I cleared out the codes and went for a ride.

But the transmission is now, very slow to shift. It will take about (not exactly sure but approximately) 10 seconds to reach 30MPH, and if I floor it, even longer. If I keep the accellerator depressed, it takes a while for the transmission to shift gear. I haven't had much time to work on it, but will be headed there in a few hours. I'm just looking for Ideas as to why this might be happening.

I've taken it for about 10 miles in-city and it hasn't pulled any codes. OD light isn't blinking, I'm out of Ideas.

The Truck is a 2001 F150 screw 4x4 with the 5.4 shift on the fly. I was wondering if maybe the axles are vented and maybe I blocked a passage, or maybe a speed sensor of some sort. Is there a way I can test the speed sensor?

I have my motorcycle as a seconda try mode of transportation, but with fog, it's pretty scary.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!

 

Respectfully, it is hard not to sound insulting on this but you brought on all the issue by your actions.
Never power wash these motors with high pressue. It's bad enough to put water on the motor by any means.
I feel you now have mutiple issues that have to be worked out one at a time.
Get the missing cylinders and the cam position sensor issue cleared first to see what effect it has on transmission shifting.
Once you get some of these issues cleared it becomes more clear what the remaing problems are.
After all this, don't use the truck in that manner again or you will be right back into issues again.
I know there will be some replies that say they mud the their trucks all the time but they also have maintaince isses as well.
You just have to be ready to accept the results of that kind of playing.
At this point I have no idea what the transmission shifting issue might be except to say shifting is done by signal from the computer that operates flow control valves in the valve body. Maybe you pushed in the transmission pan playing in rough terrain. There is a cable harrness and plug in the side of the trans. You have a lot to look at for damage now.
Good luck.

 

Yeah, I know I brought this onto myself, I didn't blame anyone else. It's not my first time playing in the mud, but this was a thinner siltier mud (think puddle with real fine dirt)
I've already eliminated the misfiring, and the CPS problem.

I'm trying to figure out why it's slow to shift/get up to speed since I'm not getting any codes (No MIL, no blinking OD, no blinking check engine, nothing).


Does the 97-03 have vented axles? (I have 3.55 LS, if that matters)