1995 E350 460 (7.5l)

I am having a hell of time chasing my stalling issue. The van will drive perfectly fine then all of a sudden it will stall (even at highway speeds of 60mph) and won't restart for 20 minutes or so. Sometimes it will do it at stop lights, and I have had a couple of times where I would drive it to the store, everything working fine, only to come out and it won't start up. It doesn't sputter and die it's instant. It doesn't matter if I hit a bump or not. I have fuel pressure when it happens but spark intermittently. It's just bizarre. I am at my wits end and ready to (GASP) take it to a mechanic and let them deal with it.

Things I have changed.
Fuel Pump
Fuel Filter
Fuel Pressure Regulator
Checked fuel pump wiring.
Spark plugs and wires
Distributor cap and rotor
Coil
Ignition Control Module
Battery
Battery cables
Battery connectors
Starter Soleniod
Starter

Normally I don't use the throw parts at it and see method of troubleshooting but I really didn't mind as the van has over 200,000 miles on it with mostly original parts so all this stuff could of used replacement anyway.

 

well my first guess would be the ICM (you say no spark but fuel pressure so i would assume it's an electrical issue) but i see you changed that out. did you replace it with a new one? i hope so.
first thing i would do would be to check the firewall electrical pass thru connectors for corrosion or maybe even one of the contacts is diving back into its shell. then i would procede to the connector by the aircleaner for the engine harness and check that one out. if they look good then carefully inspect the coil electrical connector checking esp where the wires crimp to the terminals.

if all looks good and you see no obvious signs that the harness has chafing etc issues. i would hook up a meter with some extension wires so the meter is in the cab where i cansee it and connect it to the coil + connection. watch your meter when the van dies or misses. if NFF, move to a different ignition component until you find the culprit.

i can scan the factory manual and send you relevant pages. contact me offlist @ esteyes@***.net

did you check to see if the ign switch is the culprit? hanging a bunch of keys on it will do them in. get your meter out (or test lite - just don't "find" the airbag wiring) and test each of the switch outputs.

what does the fuel pressure read when it quits - sb at least 30psi.

 

You have a bad PIP sensor in the stator assembly inside the distributor.
Just change out the distributor.
Pull out the SPOUT jumper and set the timing to 10*BTDC with a timing light.

Also make sure the ICM they sold you is Black in color and not Gray.
A Gray one will not work right and you will not have as much power plus you will also have a code set in the PCM Computer memory.
If they sold you a gray one put the old Black one back in, they very seldom go bad.

 

Hook up a code reader, get some freeze frame data.

 

I wanted to give a solution so far in case someone searches for this later... I talked to a friend and he suggested the pick up coil, well I just changed out the distributor as subford suggested and so far so good.

Thanks..

 

Well you do not have a pick up coil, they were used with the old Dura-Spark 2 Ignition system but if you changed out the distributor then you changed the PIP sensor that is used as a trigger in the EEC-IV Ignition system that you have.