[Iron duke]

Originally Posted by MountainBrew

It's been quite a while since I posted on this but the truck is doing very well on the trails, and not terrible on the highway considering I haven't re-geared it yet.

A friend of mine got stuck in the snow at about 11,000ft last week so I went up to pull him out, and it quickly became obvious my electrical system isn't up to the task of running my winch while pulling on an F-150. So, I figure it's time to do the big three wiring upgrade I should've done a long time ago and replace the 7 year old lead acid battery. I'm also considering upgrading the alternator but that discussion is for another time...

I used to have a 1st gen, and always really like the setup 4crawler did with his dual batteries mounted under his vehicle.
Dual Battery Installation
I searched far and wide and haven't found anyone who did that on their 3rd gen yet. Since my spare tire is now mounted on my rear bumper I have tons of spare room back there where I could mount a couple of batteries. I've pretty much decided to go with AGM Interstate batteries from Costco because the price is good and the warranty is better. I would wire it pretty standard for a dual setup with an isolator and some remote battery terminals up front for jumping, etc. I dont plan to weld with them so I wouldn't do the series/parallel setup 4Crawler did.

Thoughts? Stupid idea? Part of me is saying just do the wiring upgrade and get a better battery and call it good, but the other part wants to do a sick mod.

I mean couldn't you technically just get a big jump starter pack and use the winch fine on that? I know it's not fancy or cool but it would save a lot of work. Just a thought...
If in fact you have time (and Christmas money lol) then running dual batteries is what a lot of people do that are serious about crawling/overlanding. It would be cool to see how you do the dual battery system too.

[MountainBrew]

Originally Posted by Iron duke

I mean couldn't you technically just get a big jump starter pack and use the winch fine on that? I know it's not fancy or cool but it would save a lot of work. Just a thought...
If in fact you have time (and Christmas money lol) then running dual batteries is what a lot of people do that are serious about crawling/overlanding. It would be cool to see how you do the dual battery system too.

I actually carry one of those around at all times anyway...so maybe I'll give it a test run. In the meantime I'm going to do the Big 3 upgrade and get a 24f AGM from Costco and see how is goes.

[MountainBrew]

The good first because the bad is really bad.
I replaced my radiator and hoses, and swapped from Prestone green to Toyota Red with a few distilled flushes in between. Also added a transmission cooler inline with a transmission fluid filter. I flushed the trans per the video from @mtbtim and replaced the current (surprisingly clean) fluid with Valvoline Maxlife. Worked great.
I also added a trans fluid temp gauge to the a pillar and it is working great. Taken a few highway rides and the trans temp stayed around 150 even with some good old fashioned Colorado inclines. Haven’t climbed in 4low yet but I like that I’ll be able to monitor temps on the trans now.
Did the t-stat while I was at it, and found the jiggle valve was at 12 o’clock not 6. The debate continues I guess, I follow instructions and put it at 6. Motor temps stay perfect.
The ugly
My truck in general. Nothing new here. The paint was faded 20 years ago, now the clear coat peels like an old sunburn. Also my haircut.
The bad
I did a compression test yesterday. Warmed it up first and pulled the gas tank pump plug under the back seat.
Started on the passenger side first. All three were within 10 points of 160. Not great, but with 300k on the motor it’s kinda what I expected. Consistently average/below average is my middle name.
Then came the drivers side. 70ish on all three! What a major let down. I assumed a bad head gasket would be one cylinder if leaking outward, two cylinders if leaking between cylinders, but all three?!? Timmy mentioned to me in video comments that it could be a cracked head and now it’s time to do a leak down test. I’m going to see if Orielly loans them out and go from there.
I already have a JDM replacement sitting in storage right now, but honestly I’m not confident in doing the job myself. I watched about half of Timmys 5vz replacement series (finished the engine tear down last night) and it seems like there is a heck of a lot I can mess up on this job.
IF it is a cracked head, would the motor fail over time or catastrophically? I’m considering just running it this summer and dealing with it after the camping season. As of right now the car runs fine. It’s a bit of a dog but I put 33s on and tons of armor without regearing so I expected it to be slow. It’s starts immediately every time and doesn’t blow smoke, just a bit of condensation vapor at start up. My oil and coolant levels don’t noticeably change either, and both look good to the naked eye, not that it really tells me anything.
I’ve invested a lot into this truck so I’m not giving up by any means, I just don’t necessarily want to tackle an engine swap right now. Thoughts?

[G_Raw]

You could pay a shop to do the swap. Thats what i did since i didnt have the time or space to pull off the swap. Truck was out of commission for a week. Im just about finished with the break in of the new motor. And camping season is about to start. And i have piece of mind.

If you opt to not tackle the issue now you risk damaging other components depending on what's truly going on with your motor. Also I pushed my motor a bit last summer when my issues came up. I was 8 miles off road with my family when the engine started misfiring hard, there was fires that started that week in the mountains near where we were, and no one else was around...that was not a fun situation to be in or drive out of the mountains. It immediately made me think "what if the motor fully gave out at any point offroad?". That was not something I wanted to have to deal with so I personally retired the truck to my grocery getter and commuter ( it's a 20 minute drive to work nothing crazy) until I could get my new motor built and put in.

So I guess my point is be mindful of what you're actually risking with each decision and if you're fine taking those risks and dealing with the potential negative outcomes then run it hard! If you aren't okay dealing with or fixing those negative outcomes then bite the bullet and figure out your plan of attack to get the issue fixed sooner rather than later.

[MountainBrew]

Originally Posted by G_Raw

You could pay a shop to do the swap. Thats what i did since i didnt have the time or space to pull off the swap. Truck was out of commission for a week. Im just about finished with the break in of the new motor. And camping season is about to start. And i have piece of mind.

If you opt to not tackle the issue now you risk damaging other components depending on what's truly going on with your motor. Also I pushed my motor a bit last summer when my issues came up. I was 8 miles off road with my family when the engine started misfiring hard, there was fires that started that week in the mountains near where we were, and no one else was around...that was not a fun situation to be in or drive out of the mountains. It immediately made me think "what if the motor fully gave out at any point offroad?". That was not something I wanted to have to deal with so I personally retired the truck to my grocery getter and commuter ( it's a 20 minute drive to work nothing crazy) until I could get my new motor built and put in.

So I guess my point is be mindful of what you're actually risking with each decision and if you're fine taking those risks and dealing with the potential negative outcomes then run it hard! If you aren't okay dealing with or fixing those negative outcomes then bite the bullet and figure out your plan of attack to get the issue fixed sooner rather than later.

That is certainly something I’ve thought of...or tried not to think of. The wildfire that shut down I-70 for a month last year was about 2 miles from my house and charred our favorite camping spot. I’m going to talk to some shops on Monday and figure out what sort of time and $ this is going to end up costing me. Since I already have a JDM motor it will just be the cost of the r/r and any timing belt things I want to replace


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[G_Raw]

Good luck with the rig. For what it's worth local shop with mechanic who has a Sami built up quoted me $1600, Yota 1 quoted me $2000. Yota 1 might be near you if you're close to where 99 intersects 70. IDK if you providing your motor does anything to the Yota1 situation. I had them build my motor so they were putting in one of there own...they are cool though I'm sure they'd work something out with you.

[MountainBrew]

Originally Posted by G_Raw

Good luck with the rig. For what it's worth local shop with mechanic who has a Sami built up quoted me $1600, Yota 1 quoted me $2000. Yota 1 might be near you if you're close to where 99 intersects 70. IDK if you providing your motor does anything to the Yota1 situation. I had them build my motor so they were putting in one of there own...they are cool though I'm sure they'd work something out with you.

Thanks for the advice, unfortunately I’m at a very different part of I-70 where the CA turns into CO


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[MountainBrew]

Well the saga continues. A few folks mentioned bad compression on all three cylinders on the same cam could be caused by timing being off. So I rotated the crank pulley to “0” and it looks like both cam pulley marks correctly lined up. Other than the fact that my timing belt was put on backwards I don’t see any issues.






The leak down test kit arrives in a day or two so we will see what comes next.


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[MountainBrew]

Another note, the piston heads all appear to have plenty of char on them, consistent on both passenger and driver sides.


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[MountainBrew]

I did a wet compression test today and the compression numbers basically doubled to about 150+. Looks like the rings are bad, I assume from a fueling issue on the driver side washing the cylinder walls and wearing them down.

So I found a shop to do the motor swap since I don't have the stones. I'm paying more than I care to admit. Before the JDM goes in I'm going to do the timing belt and all the fixins, real main seal, flex plate, injectors (motorwest), knock sensors (yota1) and valve covers with a lash check/adjustment. Anything else I should be looking at?

[Bad Luck]

Originally Posted by MountainBrew

I did a wet compression test today and the compression numbers basically doubled to about 150+. Looks like the rings are bad, I assume from a fueling issue on the driver side washing the cylinder walls and wearing them down.

So I found a shop to do the motor swap since I don't have the stones. I'm paying more than I care to admit. Before the JDM goes in I'm going to do the timing belt and all the fixins, real main seal, flex plate, injectors (motorwest), knock sensors (yota1) and valve covers with a lash check/adjustment. Anything else I should be looking at?

I'd consider resealing the oil pan since the engine is already out

[MountainBrew]

Originally Posted by Bad Luck

I'd consider resealing the oil pan since the engine is already out

Yep the oil pan will be resealed, thanks for the tip


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[MountainBrew]

The motor is currently out and all the accessories and many of the engine peripherals are being swapped over as we speak. I have a very important question for you all though...

As I mentioned, my theory as to why all three cylinders on the driver side were low compression is because some sort of fuel system malfunction was washing the oil from the cylinder walls and causing premature (300k mi ) wear.

If that is the case, what would be causing that to occur? I admittedly don’t know very much about the inner workings of the fuel system. The injectors are all being replaced, but what could have caused all the injectors on one side to not function properly? Ie what tells the injectors to fire, and what controls how much fuel is delivered per injector? Is the amount of fuel injected to the cylinder variable or the same during every stroke, and only the amount of air is changed?

I initially assumed the fuel rails were at a fixed psi, and the injectors all allowed a fixed amount of fuel to inject during each stroke, but again I know very little about this.

I certainly don’t want to have this continue and ruin cylinders on the replacement motor.

I searched all over and was having trouble finding a good “primer” on the fueling system for the 5vz. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Edit: so I grabbed a hold of both ears, pulled my head out of my #%$, and read more about fuel injection systems. It seems the amount of fuel delivered to the intake is controlled by the amount of time each injector is told to fire. I’m assuming in the 5vz that is controlled by the evil, which determines the appropriate amount of time/fuel by reading from the MAF and the o2 sensors?

In any case, what would cause fuel wash on all three cylinders on the same side?

Is there a wiring harness that could go bad on just the driver side injectors? Is it possible that bad O2 sensors or vacuum lines could be making the ECU think it’s running lean and cause it to run rich and in turn cause the fuel wash?

The wiring harness that runs under the floorboards/kick panel on the driver side of my vehicle had a short at some point that melted some wiring sheath and keeps my fuel gauge from working correctly. Everything else seems to work fine. Could something that far back be the cause? I can’t imagine the fuel system has any wiring that far back except for the fuel pump wires.

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[photoleif]

i'm just throwing a random guess your way. one entire side could have low compression simply because something common to that side is leaking, for example head gasket. i had a HG in a 3.slo go the way that so many of those do, and when we disassembled enough to see what was up, the blowout, so to speak, wasn't "everywhere" like i was assuming at the time, but instead it was more along one side. after your tech gets your rig all reassembled, make sure a compression retest happens before you drive it off. also make sure the spark plug wires are in the correct arrangement or that poor engine will try to jump off the mounts.

if they're the actual cause, latent issues like what you were musing about (wiring issues specific to one side) could recur and then you'd know, since at that point you will have replaced a lot of whatever else it could have been. my guess is, it will behave well and that's that. given that the O2 sensors are common to the exhaust in a 48-state model like mine (yours too?), it would be impossible to use that data to change the mixture for just one side. typically, loose or disconnected vacuum hoses cause crappy running that is really obvious in performance or sound, so i'm not going to implicate that since you haven't mentioned any really bad performance or CEL codes for that matter. however now would be an excellent time to replace as many vacuum hoses as you have time and patience for. i used a couple gauges of fuel line to swap out most of mine.

[MountainBrew]

Originally Posted by photoleif

i'm just throwing a random guess your way. one entire side could have low compression simply because something common to that side is leaking, for example head gasket. i had a HG in a 3.slo go the way that so many of those do, and when we disassembled enough to see what was up, the blowout, so to speak, wasn't "everywhere" like i was assuming at the time, but instead it was more along one side. after your tech gets your rig all reassembled, make sure a compression retest happens before you drive it off. also make sure the spark plug wires are in the correct arrangement or that poor engine will try to jump off the mounts.

if they're the actual cause, latent issues like what you were musing about (wiring issues specific to one side) could recur and then you'd know, since at that point you will have replaced a lot of whatever else it could have been. my guess is, it will behave well and that's that. given that the O2 sensors are common to the exhaust in a 48-state model like mine (yours too?), it would be impossible to use that data to change the mixture for just one side. typically, loose or disconnected vacuum hoses cause crappy running that is really obvious in performance or sound, so i'm not going to implicate that since you haven't mentioned any really bad performance or CEL codes for that matter. however now would be an excellent time to replace as many vacuum hoses as you have time and patience for. i used a couple gauges of fuel line to swap out most of mine.

Great points and advice, thank you. I was not throwing any codes and frankly the engine ran great, albeit underpowered because of stock gearing on 285s and lots of armor. Next winter I will correct that issue and spend way too much $ at ECGS.

Does the wiring harness that goes to the injectors treat all injectors the same as far as injection duration is concerned? I know I’m not using the correct terminology and barely know what I’m talking about, but I’m wondering if the system could make the drivers side injectors fire differently than the passenger side? If not, that sort of eliminates a fuel wash issue since the driver and passenger side compression readings were so dramatically different, but also consistent within each side.

Maybe the best bet is to run a leak down on the old motor and that could help narrow it down to a HG issue? That would be ideal since that problem wont transfer over to the new motor.

Certainly going to run a compression check before I pick it up.

Thanks again


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