Post by strippitman on Mar 14, 2014 7:57:53 GMT -5
Two weeks ago yesterday I drove to work and my truck was running fine. That afternoon I went to drive home and the thing started really hard and was running terribly. The idle would rev up really high and then it would immediately bog down and die. When I would stop at a stop sign, or light, I would have to work the brake with my left foot and control the idle with right foot on the gas pedal. As soon as I got home I called my buddy who is a mechanic to get his thoughts and see if he'd be able to look at my truck fairly soon. Well, he was swamped with vehicles to work on and he said he couldn't get to mine for almost a week. He suggested that if I wanted to try some things myself that he would recommend I do a tune up and see what happens. Ok, no problem, right? I went out to the local auto parts store and had them hook their code scanner to my truck to see what the error codes say. IT read that there were misfires on cylinders 4, 5 and 6. The first thing I think is that there is a bad coil pack. So, I buy plugs, wires, a new coil pack and a fuel filter and head home and get to work on it in my frigid garage. I got the coil pack changed out in no time at all and fired up the truck...still running bad. Ok, time to get to work and the plugs. I start with the easiest plugs which are all on the drivers side and they happen to be the three cylinders I was getting misfire codes from. I change one and start the truck....still rough. I change the second one and start the truck....still misfiring. I change #3 and start the truck...misfiring!! Ugh, now I start looking at the three (almost invisible and inaccessible) plugs on the other side and I'm dreading to mess with these. I start working on the first and I'll be damned if I didn't break the plug off in the block!! I'm thinking, "Oh Sh!t, now what?" So, I stop right there before I break anymore off. The next day I call another mechanics shop to see if they can get my truck in to look at it since my buddy is so backed up at his shop. They said yeah we can probably get to it on Tuesday. In the meantime, I knew I had some front end parts that needed replacing. Over that weekend, I put in new upper control arms and ball joints, tie rod ends and brakes on both sides of my vehicle. Saved myself some big money right there and it wasn't very hard to do either. The mechanic looks at my truck on Wednesday - yeah, he was a day late. He says the only way to get the plug out is to pull the head. He gave me an estimate of $1700 ! And, he said, that may not even fix the original problem. Until we can get the plug issue taken care of we can't even diagnose the original problem. So, I called my buddy to get his opinion. He said he thought he could get the plug out without pulling the head to save me a lot of money. I told him, "it's all yours!" I got the truck out to him but I knew it was gonna be a few days before he could work on it. Well, to make a long story short(er) he was able to get the plug out fairly easily and complete my tune up! Immediately after completing the tune up he called me and said that it's running great. I also told him that my service engine light has been on for a couple of years and that the code scanner keeps saying that both manifolds have a "mixture lean condition". I always figured it was because the oxygen sensors were bad. So I asked him to get me a quote on replacing the O2 sensors. He said, "I don't think the problem is with your sensors, I discovered a really bad vacuum hose leak on your truck and fixed it. That should probably solve the problem". He was right! For the first time in 2 years, I do not have the service engine light on in my truck. With all the work he did, it ended up only costing me $380!!! That's far less than what I was afraid things were gonna cost when I first broke off the plug. My truck runs great now by the way. It's almost like I got a new truck Now you can say that I'm "Happy, Happy, Happy"