So My truck has done this twice to me now, both times in the morning. i live in Salt Lake City and it has only happened inthe morning so i dont know if it has anyhting to do with the cold.
Anyway, it will start up fine and after i put it in drive and hitthe gas it falls on its face and dies, then wont restart. When it happened yesterday I could not get it started for about 15 minutes and then i held the gas pedal to the floor and it fired up. What would cause this? Im pretty sure its a fuel problem but im not sure what problem . .

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks, Dan

Oh . . Its a 1990 F150 302L Auto

 

Sounds to me like your FPR (Fuel Pressure Regulator) may have bitten the bullet. Holding the throttle to the floor (WOT -- Wide Open Throttle) prevents the fuel injectors from firing in start mode. If the FPR has failed, it will dump too much fuel into the plenum and flood the engine during starting. That's pretty much the only way to flood an EFI engine. Tapping the throttle with the engine not running does NOTHING. The primary purpose of EFI development was to eliminate fuel waste and hard starts associated with carburetors.

If you look toward the back of the fuel rail on the drivers side, you'll see the FPR. It will have a vacuum line going to the intake plenum. Pull that vacuum line, and see if it smells like or has liquid fuel in it. Another test to confirm, but make sure you don't try to start the engine when you run the test, is to cycle the keyswitch on a few times with that line off. If the FPR is leaking, fuel will come out the nipple. It's simple to replace, albeit, you have to do part of it with feelavision. If I remember right, the hex-key bolts are metric, so hope you have some metric allen wrenches in your tool arsenal.

If it were a fouled injector, that's another possibility, but fouled injectors are fairlly uncommon. There is really only one way to get too much fuel in that engine for it to start. Even if the ECM were in fail-safe mode, it should start relatively easy. Mind you, it would have virtually no power and will probably smoke like a coal fired locomotive. But, if the FPR is toast, that too will make it smoke very black.

 

Thanks for the reply,

I have not worried about it too much lately because it has not happened for two weeks. I will look into the FPR and see if it is leaking, although the truck does not puff out black smoke.

 

How cold has the weather been up there? You might have ice in your fuel lines. A little dry gas (alcohol) might help by removing whatever water there is in your fuel system.

 

Its been as cold as 30 degrees so far this year, and it will get a lot colder.


Maybe when it does get colder this problem wil be a lot more consistant.