A little sputter.

[GT Fanatic]

did the tune up on my sisters 2000 expedition. test drove it and it was smooth and great. my sister goes to pick up dinner later and now it has a small sputter to it. any ideas? in order to do this tune up required disconnecting the fuel rail to access the plugs.

thanks for any help in advance.

[green1995gt]

did the tune up on my sisters 2000 expedition. test drove it and it was smooth and great. my sister goes to pick up dinner later and now it has a small sputter to it. any ideas? in order to do this tune up required disconnecting the fuel rail to access the plugs.

thanks for any help in advance.

Did you have codes before the tune-up? did you check to make sure everything is plugged in all the way? It sounds like what happens when you dont get the fuel regulator plugged back in good.

But there are a number of things it could be. Also you dont have to pull the rails on those just need a 7mm wrench for one coil pack the rest the 7mm socket will work on.

Also did you replace the coil boots when you did the plugs? Those are bad about dry rotting. Or if you dont have a coil boot all the way on the plug.

But if you had a miss-fire before and it ran good then started sputtering then if it starts missing again you could have a bad injector that is fouling out the plug.

[GT Fanatic]

[QUOTE=green1995gt;485860]Did you have codes before the tune-up? did you check to make sure everything is plugged in all the way? It sounds like what happens when you dont get the fuel regulator plugged back in good.

But there are a number of things it could be. Also you dont have to pull the rails on those just need a 7mm wrench for one coil pack the rest the 7mm socket will work on. The drive side with all the heater core hoses was a pain and I couldn't see anything with all the stuff moved outta the way.


Also did you replace the coil boots when you did the plugs? Those are bad about dry rotting. Or if you dont have a coil boot all the way on the plug.
How do you know? All I can do is push is down and screw it in. I plan on double checking my work tomorrow. If this is the problem and my sister drove it to work (10 minutes) you think it will harm anything?


But if you had a miss-fire before and it ran good then started sputtering then if it starts missing again you could have a bad injector that is fouling out the plug. She took it down a bumpy road and I was thinking something came loose from the drive. I already replaced one injector yesterday. Nobody sales those boots or the fittings that crack at the bottom of the injector. What if debris got on the bottom of the injector while I was trying to insert them back in the holes?

[green1995gt]

As far as how you know if a boot is bad or not on all the way, I dont know other than when it happens to us we usually drive it for a few miles to throw the check engine light back on so we can see what cylinder is miss-firing, then double check that cylinder pull the plug out and make sure there is nothing wrong, I have had a brand new plug that the porcelain was cracked or we cracked it putting it in.

[green1995gt]

If it ran fine until the bumpy road I would bet something is loose, or a boot is bad.

[GT Fanatic]

Thanks for the help. Got autozone to hook up the scanner and found out there was a misfire on number 3. Pulled the coil and spark plug back out and cleaned them off and put it back together. If it does it again, will have to replace the coil. Thanks for the help. Made it a lot easier for me.

[green1995gt]

No Problem