Ford F150 Guru's, need you help.

[meatloaf]

Got a 94 F150 from a friend for my part-time AC work. Truck had been in use/parked at Rockport for about 8 years, mainly from house to pier (about 4 miles round trip). There is rust, mainly under the truck.

Truck starts fine and runs fine for a little while, after a few miles it will lose power, check engine light comes on and if I floor the gas pedal, it may get its power back and run for a few miles, then issue repeats itself. If it does not get power back, it will die and will not start. It will start the next day with no problems and after a while same issues as above occur.

Here is what was replaced by the mechanic: Ignition control module, mass air-flow, distributor, plugs, wires, dizzy cap. Mechanic also checked the gas tank switching valves, they are ok. He says it is not a fuel problem. He also says it is not the computer since the problem is intermittent.

Truck still has issues, 6 weeks later mechanic has still not /found fixed the issue.

Rusty terminal end(s) somewhere? Any ideas?

Thanks,
Luis

 

[Lake Rat]

Not sure if this is the same problem or not, but my dad had an F-150 that was in the fleet when we had our drillling company, when you gave it the gas to go, it would actually slow down, the more you back out of the throttle once going, the faster it would go, come to find out, it was the cat. converter on the exhaust . But it always started, so maybe not the same, but it may be something to take out of the equation....

 

[TXHC]

Try the Catalytic Converter. If you can stand the sound, just unbolt the exhaust forward of the converter and see if the issue remains. If it's cleared up, you know it's a plugged converter.

I had a '94 Chevy K1500 5spd with a 4.3 V6. It was a TAMU-CC campus truck so it spent it's entire life at TAMU-CC and had lots of rust, but it was so clean inside and it ran so good. It would run fine, but after about 5 minutes it wouldn't have any power. I had the pedal floored to maintain 60mph. Anyway, I determined it was the converter, and had a friend install a new one since I had too many cars in my shop to pull the truck in. I see you're in S. Austin, so if it turns out to be the converter, go see Jarrel Thomas. He's on Old San Antonio Road, and is the last driveway on the right before you cross Onion Creek heading towards Buda. He has an exhaust shop and does great work.

 

[meatloaf]

WL, TXHC,

Thanks for the tips. I had mentioned to the mechanic about the muffler or cat being the problem and he said that could not be the problem because it (problem) is intermittent. I have no confidence in this guy, who was higly recommened by a friend. Jarrel's is about a mile from my house. I will follow up on this.

Luis

 

[grant5127]

A simple test with a vacuum gauge will tell the tale...

 

[TXHC]

The plugged converter on the '94 Chevy I described above was also intermittent. Sometimes it'd have plenty of power, sometimes it'd fall flat on it's face. A big chunk of the honeybomb catalyst was broken, rattling around in the converter body, and would plug up the flow.

 

[meatloaf]

So, the problem turned out to be the distributor. Turns out that the 1st remanufactured dizzy was bad. Mechanic could not figure out the problem until he called an 'old school' mechanic friend that diagnosed and fixed it. has been running good now after 200+ miles.

Thank you all for the suggestions.

Luis