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Owns A Torsen
Joined: Mon Sep 18th, 2017
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Don't know if I posted everything last year when I was doing it, but the issue is what prompted the coil thread where I discovered all the subtle nuances in the vertical VS horizontal plug.
**NOTE** during this entire process the engine was not over heated not even once. By me anyway I did loan the truck to a friend who my wife could kick his butt in a mechanical concept test. Previous owner claimed to have replaced the heads with brand new ones, there wasn't any evidence to support a theory that he was a hack, everything looked good. The truck has over 200,000 miles and I had been driving it daily for over a year with no issues.
First thing that happened: coolant leak. From: busted plastic tank on radiator, split down the side.
I knew that normally the system doesn't build enough pressure to split a radiator unless the cap is stuck EVEN if there is a cyl leak in to the water SOOOOOO I replaced the radiator with another I knew was good, flushed the entire system with water only including both ways through the heater core, replaced the cap. Water was dead clear, drained/added 50/50 coolant/burped with my unusual long funnel method.
It started missing immediately upon starting and sometimes during running. I noticed it doing this way before but only once every couple months.
SO since I had pressure washed the engine bay I figured I might have soaked a coil or wire or connector.
I pulled the plugs and replaced them all. #4 was water fouled. See pic in post #1 of this thread.
While plugs were out I got a compression reading. #4 was actually higher than the rest. It was surprising being I had a tick for a few weeks and thought I might be wearing a cam lobe down or smoking a lifter.
It still missed, the only code it would kick intermittently was an obvious one for misfire #4.
So I had a new set of wires laying around, I replaced #4. Still missed during startup.
SO since the plugs were different from the ones in it originally I took one of the good plugs I had replaced and installed it. Still missed during startup.
So I put a coil on I knew was good. Was off a 3.0, which is what spawned the learning curve on the differences in horizontal and vertical plug 6 cyl. coils. Still missed during startup.
So I kept on driving it. It would miss always when started then stop and occasionally randomly while driving.
2 trips to ex-work later I heard the slushing of coolant through the heater core you hear when a ranger is low on coolant.
Checked, it was low by a half gallon. Filled.
2 trips to ex-work later I heard the same slushing. Checked it, half gallon low.
Some time during this I got my short cab running well enough to drive. Until then I would just top the coolant off before I went home from ex-work.
The fact that is misses 100% when started told me that the residual pressure in the coolant was releasing in to somewhere that the spark plug has access to. The only question is... is it from under the intake manifold or the head gasket. Or cracked head or cracked block or alien conspiracy, black magic, shift in the space-time continuum causing an alteration in everything we know as reality, or perhaps it was the earliest case of Covid-19.
Whatever it is I am taking it down here as soon as I leave the laptop and go to the garage. I need to have this truck running before I can tear the short cab down for the V8. Well it would be nice, I have sort of assumed my wife's 2017 CRV but I don't like leaving her stranded.
Yes I know this doesn't kill completely the injector theory, but the coolant loss has to be fixed first and the injector can't cause that. If it still misses after that I will throw an injector in it or switch 1 and 4 to see if the miss moves to 1.
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00 XLT 4WD RCSB 3.GO! Jalapeño
01 XLT 2WD RC Steppie 3.0 auto Silver
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