Closet Extremist

Truckin'

So....it's been since the end of March (I remember because it was my sisters Birthday) that my pickup ran correctly, and frankly, I've been crestfallen over the situation. One day, it was runnin' like a damn sewin' machine, and the next it had a "miss" in it "worse than a cross-eyed sniper". Back then, I figured that it might be something simple, so I put a tune up onto it (Oil and Filter change, new plugs and wires, Air and fuel filters) but the stutter in the motor still persisted.

It would still start every time I turned the key, and it would drive up the road, but it didn't have the power to pull a "greased string out of a cat's ass". Since I've been working so much lately, I've only been able to get back to it intermittently. When the engine first started "missing" the "Service Engine Soon" light came on in the instrument cluster (which is an indication of anything from "The damned engine blowed up" to "You runned out of Windshield Warsher fluid".) so I carried it down to the local Auto Parts emporium and plugged it into a computer. This high-tech piece of diagnostic brilliance informed me that I had a code 1033 (or somesuch) and that translated to "Cylinder Three Misfire". Huh, I knew I had a miss anyway. At Least they didn't charge me for the use of the OBD II code reader. I cleared the code, and went up the road, but it wasn't even a mile before that light was back on. Fuck.

In situations like this, the cause can be one of three things: There's no fuel...There's no spark to ignite aforementioned fuel...or there's something majorly mechanically FUBARed in the valve train. Since I'd already addressed the spark issue with new plugs and wires, I figured it wasn't gettin' no gas, and I got a new fuel injector for it. It took me something like four hours to get it installed, as I've never had to pull the throttle body and fuel rail off of a vehicle before. With the assistance of a Haynes Manual I prevailed, and fired that mother up... Double Fuck! Still miss-ing.

At this point, I've almost resigned myself to the fact that I've purchased a "Lemon". One of the suggestion's in my Shop Book is to get a Compression Tester to determine if there's anything mechanically wrong with the cylinder or valves. I was scared of the outcome, so I put it off for at least a month. This afternoon, I decided that I would bite the bullet, and find out just exactly how bad things were going to be to get this damned thing fixed. I laid out the 25 bones to get a Compression tester, and commenced.

In order to get a baseline, I pulled the plug from the number two cylinder and checked the compression. 130 PSI. Cool. I hooked up the nefarious cylinder number three, and got the same reading. COOL! Well Fuel and mechanicals have been eliminated, so I guess it's back to spark. The only other thing to replace is a solid-state coil pack, that I figured would cost me an arm and a leg. I want a fully functional POV, so I cinched up my checkbook and went to the parts store. They had eight of them in stock... the one I bought was worth $25. Twenty minutes of replacing the part later... I pulled out of the subdivision and chirped the tires shifting from first to second gear.

I've got my damned truck back!

Posted by Johnny - Oh at May 26, 2007 10:34 PM | TrackBack