Expert: mark henson Date: 6/25/2008 Subject: Ford E-350 will not crank when hot
Question QUESTION: Hi, The E-350 has a 300 6 cyl and intermediately it will after driving and motor warm up, either stall and shut off or will not restart after being keyed off. I have been trying to fix for a year have and have tracked it to:after stall or no recrank there is power going into the coil but no spark firing out of coil when hot let it sit and cool off and it will fire up and drive like new until it decides it is going to mess up.I have changed coil,module,battery,computer brain,distributor,plug wires,ignition key switch,ignition relay,starter,alternator,and voltage regulator
ANSWER: you know there is power going to the coil on the positive side have someone spin over the engine while you check power again and make sure it doesn't go away if it don't check the other side while engine cranking and see if it pulses if not it is not being triggered and could be pick up coil inside distributor i know it has been replaced but stranger things have happened-if power to coil is disappearing during crank when hot-check ignition switch and connections from it to coil if there is a noise suppressor on side of coil unplug it. be sure and check all grounds especially smaller wire coming off of negative side of battery this is computor ground and can cause major running problems. i know people like to repair their own vehicles and i don't blame them at all but after replacing all of these items a reputable garage might have been able to save some money although the problem might be hard to find.
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QUESTION: HI, Thanks for those great heads up answers, Van stalled today so i checked positive side today while spinning over and it went out for a second on came back on. So I checked the other hot wire that goes to the small silver cylinder shaped part that mounts to the coil mounting bracket and the power was steady on while spinning over with no pulsing or blinking just steady on. The second the test light off -I thought the test light went off could be cheap test light , will try testing again soon. does the hot to top of coil suppose to stay on steady? and does it require a certain level of power? do I need to test with a Ohm meter instead of a test light . Just so you know I have had this Van in 4 different supposed reputable shops and spent right at $ 2000.00 on no answers to any thing . it has been terrible so I am trying myself. Thanks so much, Alex
Answer don't blame you for trying it yourself sometimes these things can be hard to find-yes the hot side of the coil should be hot at all times when the key is on it would take more than a flicker to stall the van from this wire although a split second drop in voltage would result in a misfire-you should have battery voltage on that wire so a voltmeter would be what you would use-the negative side would probably drop down to about 7 volts. let me know. thanks
