Keep up the good work.

 

keep on plugging away.... I think you will find that these trucks may seldom run right. but they rarely dont run at all..... in short... "its not likely to leave you stranded" even when throwing up smoke fluid and codes......

 

Well said sir, well said.

 

ok here's what my line of thinking has been....the oil had gas in her....and the plugs were soot black...and two of them were wet with gas....I think it was cyl 2 and 4 have to go take a look in a minute....I am thinking it is one of the coil packs....I found a parts distributor in cleveland that sells them they list online for $25 ea with a quantity of four I would probably buy all four replace them and keep the three good ones for known working spares.....anyway here is the link....www.worldbestpriceautoparts.com
they are made by RICH PORTER TECH .....I am wondering if they would let me pick them up there well I am going to go outside and trace those plugs back and see where they sit on the pack.

 

After my issues I'm still betting it the ECU. Yes, I know you cleaned yours etc... but there is probably other damage already done. As resilient as the ECU is suppose to be, it's still and electronic part and that+water means problems.

Get yourself a good used ECU, have the dealer reprogram it and I bet you problems go away.

 

I recently had my plugs foul due to old O@ sensors casing a overly rich condition.

Changed the O2's, they were black with soot.

Put in new plugs, went with what Spike said and used the 2 dollar champion coppers.

I was surprised when i put them in, the Bosch's I had in there were 13/16, these Champions were 5/8. First time I ever ran into that. At first, I thought they had screwed up and given me the wrong plug. Looked at the Champion website and confirmed the thread size and depth was the same, but the drive size was totally different. All the plugs I had ever used were always 13/16. For some reason, i thought if the drive size was smaller that the thread size would be smaller also. Boy was I wrong. First time I have been wrong about anything in a very long time, but it does happen.

 

well nga after careful consideration of what you said....I took the ecm out to have another look at it. On closer inspection I found that three adjoining lines of wire on the ribbon cable were visibly burnt on the inside....I fooled around for a couple hours thinking I might re solder these and after burning myself a couple of times with this damn cheap iron I threw the ecm in the can. I went on ebay and found one from a yard from the same year and type. they say it is a crap shoot as to weather you have to have them reprogrammed or not....I'll be honest I am a cheap s.o.b. I rarely pay full price for anything and I don't like to pay for something I don't have to. I wonder if it is rare that they just mate up...or is it that the ecbm and the ecm once talking realize that the serials don't match. anyway thank you for making me doubt myself heheh really I needed to go take another look.

 

I have been having rover with draws hehehe...I got my new brain today. Tomorrow I will put it in and hopefully she starts up so I can drive her to the dealer to make sure it is reprogrammed. I hate paying the money...but The info in here says that the alarm system has a code that has to match the ecm and when it asks for it and it isn't necessarily going to ask for it right away if it doesn't get the response that it requires it will not start. So to the dealer to make sure. Either way between ebay and what the dealer will charge I will have 200 in the brain and that sure beats a couple grand any day. after they flash it I will think of a way to keep it from coming into contact with the dreaded winshield wash fluid that eats the box. any who thats whats shakin with me...if all goes well I can go get echeck tomorrow and get tags on her. that would be nice.

 

update...had rover towed to the dealer today to get her brain reprogrammed....engine runs really good now no miss just blowing out a lot of carbon at first and really the engine really good thumbs up between ebay junk yard and the dealer oh yeah and insurance towing I got another brain in her and reprogrammed for 198 dollars....took most of my day and I have been up almost twenty four hours but all in all a good deal I think.
now I am looking at the thermostat because she wants to overheat and then she is fine....hmmmm sounds like the thermostat sticking open and then cooling down enough or vice versa....what is a good temperature for a replacement? low or high?

Oh yea on the way home also....got to drive her on the freeway for the second time shook me up pretty good a couple of times and I mean literally. I haven't tried to straighten the steering wheel yet but it is on my list.....but I am thinking the wheels are really out of alignment. does this sound right? I don't know how to describe the symptoms too accurately they really threw me....the steering isn't as tight as it should be....but around 60mph...if you drift a little and hit a tiny bump at the same time it started wobbling violently until you drift it a different way to stop it or at least it seemed that way. It did it to me a couple of times I had to get off of the freeway with all that traffic it was dangerous....and I didn't want to do any damage to the vehicle.....or hit somebody clevelanders drive like maniacs anyway.