1998 Ranger No Spark!!
 

Hello all at FTE, I have a 98 Ranger w/ 2.5L. I have a no spark issue. Tha truck has been cranking and running great. I had the battery disconnected for 2 days while I was fooling around with my speakers when I reconnected the negative, the truck would turn over and not crank. The battery is an optima and is only a month old. The plugs are only 3 months old. The negative connections are clean and tight. I have fuel but no spark. I have pulled a plug and connected it to the wire and held it to the valve cover to verify no spark. I get 12V at the main wire going to each coil pack but nothing at the plug. Could this be a PCM issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I have no blown fuses and I check and verified all relay are working.

Could be the PCM, as it's job is to provide the ground for the coil packs.

Is the PCM power relay ok, if in doubt, swap it for the A/C power relay & see what happens.

But unless you did something to the PCM while messing with the speakers, it's likely ok.

Seeing as how you had the B- cable off, maybe the battery to chassis, or engine, ground is open.

So if you have a good set of jumper cables, parallel the B- connections between the battery post & engine & body, with the jumper cables on the batteries B- post, the other end connected to a unpainted bare metal spot on the engine & body & see what happens.

If it starts, remove one jumper cable at a time, to see which one kills the engine.

If no joy, look to the crank or cam sensors, as they tell the computer when to ground the coil packs for spark & squirt the fuel injectors.

Do you have a CEL lit????
If so, if you have, or can come by a scantool, hook it up & pull the trouble codes, as they can offer up good clues.

A bunch of thoughts for pondering, let us know what you find.

Thanks for the info pawpaw. I tried what you suggested. Grounded to the frrame and engine and even put a new relay in for the PCM and still no spark. I went and got an OBD II reader and it will not read. It keeps saying to check connection. The connection is good. No bent pins or broken wires. Could that mean that the PCM has gone bad? By the way everthing else works fine ie. lights, fan blower, fuel pump, ect just no spark to the plugs.

Check the cigar lighter fuse, it also provides the B+ 12 volt supply for your code scanner.

BTW, welcome to FTE!!!!

no spark? check voltage supply of ignition modul, coils and check PIP (if you have no O-scope - use LED with 1kOhm resistor). This is first step.

Thanks for the welcome pawpaw. That was the first thing I did when the scanner said it couldnt connect. The cigar lighter was operational no blown fuse.
Pablo, I have checked the ignition coils. I am getting 12V on the + center wire going to the coils. Th other 2 wires on each coils comes from the PCM. On my 98 there is no ICM it is part of the PCM. I would appreciate any other suggestions guys. And again thanks.

does the 98 have a coil pack? I blew a coil pack out of the blue on my truck.

Matt

Yes fordboy, it has 2 ignition coils. But i have ran the truck off of just one pack before. The odds of blowing out both packs is pretty slim, i would think. But it could be possible.

My dad has the same problem after he fixed the horn. Engine lost the spark out of nowhere. Fuses are good. I can't think of anything other than ecu or cas being bad. We'll keep looking and post if we find something

[QUOTE=7shot;7262769]Hello all at FTE, I have a 98 Ranger w/ 2.5L. I have a no spark issue. Tha truck has been cranking and running great. I had the battery disconnected for 2 days while I was fooling around with my speakers when I reconnected the negative, the truck would turn over and not crank. The battery is an optima and is only a month old. The plugs are only 3 months old. The negative connections are clean and tight



Did you every fix the problem ? My 2000 is doing the same thing

Only other thing i can think of is the crankshaft sensor,,,,it tells the pcm to fire the plugs, check to see if magnet fell off sensor,,,or lose connection,,,or critter chewed the wires