Kinda Urgent...

[johnnybob06]

ok.. so my baby is in need of new wires and sparkplugs... I'm well aware of that, and they were ordered today.. gunna get in on Saturday.

the question is, how long can she take it until she flat out dies?? She already has the SES light on, and shakes whenever she gets to an idle... I've got to take a trip out of town tomorrow afternoon, and it will be a total of 2 hrs, back and forth... give or take a half hour or so...

Can I make it??

Any input is great!!

Thanks!

John-Robert

[rmuller]

Did you check the codes and see what they are? Is the SES light solid, or blinking? If blinking, don't drive it..

[johnnybob06]

yeah.. the codes are a P1300 and a misfire in Cylinder #3 and 5

funny you would mention the blinking... when the light first turned on, it blinked for a good 5 seconds, no chime or anything turned on and then it was solid...

now, it's just solid..

[rmuller]

How many miles on the truck?

Could be plugs, wires, coil pack, ecu, etc.. try with plugs and wires first.. I personally wouldn't drive it extremely far just due to the fact that its misfiring and not efficient... I'm not sure how much harm you could cause though..

[johnnybob06]

There are 45,xxx miles on it..

yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the wire and plugs... I just need to go outta town, but I don't wanna be stuck there either!

So.. thank you for the input!!


John-Robert

[Elemental]

45,0000 miles..... Flash SES... I'm betting plugs and wires arent the fix.

[johnnybob06]

Yeah.. well.. I'm not gunna be driving her.. I've got a car to use to go out of town.

and it only flashed for like 5 seconds.. and that only happened once. Now, it's just a solid SES light.

When I went to get the codes read, it only indicated misfires in cylinder 3 and 5, so.. we will see!

Wish me luck and pray to the LR gods for me!




John-Robert

[wimp]

not sure if 3 and 5 are on the same side of the engine, but my buddy's misfired a bunch and finally figujred out that the head gasket died. Coolant into the mixture resulted in a crappy detonation. has your temp gauge moved at all....even intermittently?

just a thought

[johnnybob06]

The 3 and 5 are on the same coil I believe...

and how do you know if your head gaskets are bad?

What do I check about the coolant?

Would that be covered under an extended warranty?

Thanks for the input!

[Menace2U]

COuld be various things. I just had mis-fires on my '04 on cylinders 5 and 8. Turned out to be bad ECU. But that is rather odd. Wires and coil are good to check first. For the coil pack wiring, it looks like this:

Top PS - 8 5 6 1 - DS
Bottom PS - 2 3 4 7 - DS

8/5/2/3 are fired by one coil pack on the PS of the engine bay. 6/1/4/7 are fire by another coil pack on the DS of the engine bay.

Its not likely that part of the PS coil pack has failed resulting in mis-fire on 3/5 only. 5/8 are paired as are 2/3 for ignition firing and signaling from the ECU so it would make sense to see those mis-fires in that combination. Since you have 3/5 mis-fire, it would be good to check the head-gasket leak as others mentioned since those cylinders are next to each other on the DS of the engine bay.

If you just had one mis-fire and its not flashing when you drive then you may have an intermittent problem and not a full blown failure. Have you checked the plug wires to make sure they are connected well on the plug-ends? Have you hooked up a test light to make sure you have strong spark going to 3/5? What was the last thging you did before you got the SES light?

AndrewT

[johnnybob06]

First off, thank you so much you your thoughts Andrew!

How would I check a head gasket leak? I've got minimal mechanical knowledge, but I've got some friends that are better at it than me.

I can definitely check the wires and make sure they are connected well. Do I just pull the plug out and put it back in? I'm sorry for the incompetence when it comes to this stuff...

Would you mind explaining the test light for the strong spark?

and the last thing I did, that I think set this whole thing off was powerwashing the engine.

I was under the impression you could powerwash the shit outta everything, and that's what I did!.. The second I turned the engine on, the belt screeched and I got a mild shake for about 30 seconds.

that was three weeks ago.. since then, about a week ago, it finally shook enough to throw the SES light..

Thanks again!!