engine dies, then restarts if moving
 

Hi. Newbie to the forum here. I have a problem.....

I have a 2002 PSD, crew cab, ARE shell, rhino lining, lariat model, 97.5K miles, no mods, original owner.

2 days ago, while driving at 55 or so, the engine died. Radio stayed on, A/C stayed on, trip meter did not lose the mileage, the roof computer console did not lose power, no gauges flipped.

The power steering and power brakes were gone. Two left side "icons" lit up - the water-in-the-fuel icon and the engine icon (service engine soon?). Don't know about any right side icons.

After about 5 seconds, the icons went off and the engine resumed on it's merry way.

Yesterday, the same thing happened.

Today I took it to a dealer (yeah, a dealer). No codes were set, nothing showed up on any diagnostics.

They suspected the CPS (I thought that too after reading some of the posts here), so I had them replace it. It was the less expensive part (they charged $35 for the part).

They also topped off the oil - 2 qts!! (I thought it was fine.....but the incline on the driveway must be more of a factor than I thought when reading the dipstick).

Picked up the truck. It did it's engine halt thing 3 (!!!) times on the way home.

That tells me - 1) oil addition was not a factor and 2) it ain't the CPS (assuming the new CPS is good, though a DOA CPS is always a possibility I suppose).

Don't know if something they did today necessarily made the problem worse, it could just be the natural progression of the failing part....

In all 5 cases over the past 3 days, the A/C was on max. When the A/C is on max, I do notice some rough idling, and the voltmeter I have plugged in to the power outlet shows 13.2x volts versus 13.5x volts when A/C is on regular.

It was 100+ here today (sw of houston) so max A/C was preferred....

I've searched the forum all evening and have found lots of good info, but nothing seems to stand out as a scenario exactly like the one I'm having, though I have found lots of good info (perhaps the K&N air filter I have isn't such a good idea, for example).

Any ideas?

Thanks for your help - losing power on this baby at any speed is, well, scary. Plus I bought this machine with idea of keeping it for a long, long time.....another 100K miles at least.

I know it is long but read this post https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...road-dead.html check the wiring harness for chafing

Hey, welcome to FTE. I know it may be painful, seems there is another AC related truck problem going, but I would try driving around with the AC off and see if it happens. Might want to do this at night. If it is AC related that will narrow it down immensely. Good luck and let us know.

Wow. That was an adventure, both in reading and for Mr. F350-6.

There's a lot of info there, and a lot of parts and locations I'm having trouble visualizing. I'll do a re-read.

So, if I understand correctly - it all boiled down to chafing on the engine wiring harness (there's multiple wiring harnesses running around the engine - or am I confused) that caused intermittent and irregular shorting, thereby resetting the PCM?

350-6's all boiled down to the wiring harness that goes over the drivers side valve cover, the harness did not have enough room and over time literally rubbed away the protective coating, and the wire loom cover.

Well, in the interest of debugging this problem, I drove to work today with no A/C. It was only in the low 80's - plus people 40 and 50 years ago got by with no A/C.

No problem going to work.

No problem going to lunch.

Then came the drive home.

About 1/3 the way home (5 miles) the motor cut out, but then came back in about 5 seconds. I noticed this time that the water separator and SES were the only icons lit up - plus the tach went to zero and then back up. A/C was off at this point on purpose.

About 2/3 the way home it happened 2x really quickly, then the glow plug light came on and the motor did not come back. I coasted to a halt in the grassy median. I tried to crank it up, but all it would do was crank. Note that the glow plug light was still on - and it was the only thing on. I recall reading that on F350-6 post.

So, I called the service rep at the dealer and told him I was having a bad day. He apologized, set me up with a tow truck and a rental car - and apologized some more. No charge on either.

I did have to wait for an hour for the tow truck - it was 100 or so, but it was a "dry heat".

When the truck got there the driver pointed out the fact that my truck was pointed the wrong way and it'd be real cool if we could spin it around. I told him it was deader 'n hell, but then I recalled that somebody's (F350-6) truck finally started after sitting around for a while.

So I tried it. It started and I got it turned around. Amazing.

Off to the dealer we went.

The tow truck driver had a '97 F450 with 350K miles on it. He asked about my mileage and commented that mine was barely broken in. One of his other trucks, you see, a '95 F450 ran for 1.4 Million miles, but it took two engines, one at 800K and the other at 600K. Impressive.

Anyways, we'll see tomorrow what path they take at the dealer.

Side bets on whether they get a code???

I got $20 on the chaffed harness, According to f350_6 the glow plug light is the key.

You know the symptoms, you are an educated fellow who can speak intelligently about his truck and engine. Do not let the dealer over charge you for this fix. If the service manager starts spouting off tests and terms that you do not understand, ask him to explain them. Sometimes service writers/managers are the best sales people a dealership has.

Oddly enough, at lunch yesterday I stopped at wallyworld for a roll of Scotch
33 tape. The fail progression was too fast.

well, it is fixed.

I called the dealership this morning and they said it could take lots of time and effort to track this down. I told them I believed it was a chafed cable (thanks to you guys and your info here).

The service writer then said they had some TSB's related to that so maybe they'd start there.

Anyhow, the truck had no code this morning and fired up just fine. So, the mechanic took it out for a spin and it wouldn't fail. After he pulled back in to the dealership and got to the garage it failed. He stopped, grabbed the computer and (woohoo!) it gave him a clue on where to look.

It was a chafed cable on the harness that runs right next to the top of the shock bolt. (seems like I ran across that on one of the threads here) The computer read was some sort of VREF problem. Being in the semiconductor industry, I can understand how a fluctuating VREF can drive electronics to greatly misbehave.

The fix included a nice red plastic cap on that bolt.

I'll take some pictures and post them once I (re)find my stinkin' digital camera.

Towing - $0
Rental - $0
Bill for today's fix - $0
Getting back in the drivers seat - Priceless

I think they took it kinda personal in that what they fixed and charged me for on Monday didn't really fix the problem.

Thanks to all you guys that piped in on this thread and that contributed to F350-6's thread and to all that keep this forum running.

Hey do I get any credit on this? If you had enough patience to read all the way through my forum you'll notice that the cable over the driver side shock is one of the one's I recommended checking.

Glad you got your truck up and running again. Those electrical gremlins can be a real pain.

Yeah - you get a ton of credit.

Your thread saved me a lot of pain and agony and is what prompted the wallyword tape buy.

The doggone thing cratered too quickly though.....but since I have the tape, I'm gonna tape up some cables. I can't see how it could hurt.

On a related note - I now have a nice RED plastic cap on top of the shock bolt.

Was I the only one that didn't have one???

If I'm not - shouldn't everybody have one?

Yes, definatley, F350-6 deserves the most, if not all the credit. He (and you) both experienced this first hand, I was just the guy who followed it the first time and remebered where the thread was.

BTW I do not have a shock bolt cover, but for some reason my harness is secured to the frame with no left to right movement.

Glad you both got em fixed

That's great it was found and fixed and that the dealer didn't charge anything extra for it. I bet the tech at the dealership was extremely happy that you pointed him toward the problem. He could have spent a lot of time chasing this electrical problem before he found it.
Joe