Help with '96 Town & Country Van :confused:

[Ben Rumson]

3800 v-6 engine w/ 100k miles. Good oil changes and air filter.



Going 80 mhp down the freeway the van just stopped making power. Acc. Pedal down and the van cond\stantly decreased. Max RMP was about 3k. Coasted off the the should of the raod. Van would barely idle and if put in gear it would not go foreward and would quit. I waited about 5 minutes and then restarted the van. It gradually reved up to 2500k rpm and eventually got up to about 30mph. It drove this way for a few hundred hards and then lost all power again. Even with full throttle, the van kept decellerating until it was barely rolling. The idle was spratic this time and the engine sputtered every time I tried to nudge the accel pedal. "Service Engine Soon" light came on. Oil and transmission fluid checked-out good.



Dad-in-law towed us to an Autozone about 10 miles away using his 2 wheel car dolly. Their handheld diagnostic do-hicky said "multiple cylinder misfire", but gave no code for what component could have been causing it. He reset the code.



We towed it the remaining 50 miles home and installed a new Coil unit ($51) where all 6 spark plug wires attach. Quick test drive felt great, but the "service engine soon" light came on again. I was already 2 hours late for my best friends wedding so we jumped in the CTD and headed out. This morning my wife drove the van 40 miles away to her parents and reported all ok... until the return trip this evening. About 10 miles from her parents the van lost power and did the same thing as it did yesterday. Looks like the coil didn't work.



I replaced the plugs and air filter last year. Pretty puzzled as to what "Multiple engine cylinder misfire" means. ??? I don't think it's the timing belt, because when it was running it ran very smoothly.



I could really use some help here.



I'm thinking perhaps a bad fuel pump?, clogged fuel filter? (I use 4 oz. of Berryman B-12 Chemtool about every 4th fill-up so the fuel should be pretty clean), or possibly some other electrical component... ???? Something is making the cylinders misfire and and cause total loss of power. I really thought the coil had gone bad and was shorting out and causing the cylinders to misfire.



This is uncharted territory for me. Thanks in advance for the help.



- Ben Rumson

435-563-3396 MST

-- email address removed --

 

[sdalton]

good luck. A neighbor of mine has one. It has 150k on it. It has been through 3 trannied and numerous other things. They are getting rid of it asap.



With the electronics involved, I would take it to the dealer, and let them diagnose it. It does sound fuel related, or computor related.

 

[parcher]

I'll bet your life savings (notice I didn't say mine?) that you need a new fuel pump. I've seen this vintage have problems with the pcm coil driver circuits but they usually just shut off. Power loss like you describe sounds just like a fuel pump dying.

 

[Royk]

My 95 gasser Ram did the same thing at around 115,000 miles. It turned out to be the fuel pump. Sometimes it ran great and then all the sudden it would just lose power to the point you could barely keep it running. Shut it down for 20 minutes and it would run fine again for a while.



I brought it to the dealer and we hooked up a fuel pressure guage to the shraeder and tucked the guage under the windshield wiper. Then we went for a drive. After a couple miles the needle dropped like a rock. We limped back to the lot and they put in a new pump. Problem fixed.

 

[Gray Ghost]

Unless I misread, you said you replaced coil and plugs. I have a 96 pickup with a v6. I had a check engine light after I replaced the plugs. I landed up replacing rotor and cap plus wires. My was diagnosed with multi misfire also. You might try that and see if it doesn't fix the problem. My 2 cents.

 

[rkressg]

My 94 T/C did the same thing when it hit 150,000. It took a fuel pump and fuel filter to get it running again. I first would have said the direct ignition module, but you already changed that. Could be more, with out looking at it, could be anything.

-Rich

 

[Ben Rumson]

Thanks to all !

I'm going to start by hooking a fuel pressure guage to the shrader valve and take it for a run. Sure sounds like the fuel pump... Thanks a ton for all the help! If a pump doesn't do the trick, I'll look at possibly replacing the injectors.



I do know that the tank has never run dry - which I've heard can kill a fuel pump real fast, but that's not to say that it hasn't started to give up the ghost on it's own either.



One thing I forgot to mention, that I just remembered, was that my wife had filled the tank the day before. We started having the problems within 60 miles of the fill up. As we sat there on the side of the road, she glanced at the fuel guage and noticed that the fuel level was well under the 3/4 mark. With under 60 miles, the guage should have barely srated moving and been on the top end of full.



Question: If an injector stuck open would this explain the no power symptoms (multiple cylinder misfire reading) and perhaps why the gas guage was so low???



Thanks

 

[parcher]

DO NOT REPLACE THE INJECTORS. All 6 injectors drop dead at the same time? Not likely! Fuel pump, fuel pump, fuel pump!

 

[Ben Rumson]

Parcher... Lunch is on me !!

Originally posted by parcher

DO NOT REPLACE THE INJECTORS. All 6 injectors drop dead at the same time? Not likely! Fuel pump, fuel pump, fuel pump!

Based on what you noted and how close my symptoms parallelled those of Royk and RGilbert, I did as you recommended and focused on the fuel pump. Lifetime warranty through AZone was $175. I also got another fuel filter ($16. 99) so I could replace it while everything was lowered. Both the canister fuel filter (I tore it apart) and the small square pre-filter on the bottom of the fuel pump were full of a dark brown clay-like paste.



I'm not sure if the problem was the pasty, restricted filters or something electrical inside the pump - BUT after about a 40 mile test drive (had to go this far to get to the interstate so I could try the new pump going 80 mph - which is how fast we were going when it gave out Saturday) I think I've driven it enough tonight to confidently say that it's FIXED. Oo.



It was the pump, the pump, the pump!



Thanks to all for your help! Special thanks to Parcher for talking me out of picking up a set of injectors on the way home and for convencing me it was really the pump. This is my first pump gone bad and it just didn't make sense to me how the fuel pump could be making the van do what it was. I had expected a bad pump to just not push any fuel rather than act up so intermittently and gradually. I was stuck on the idea of either electrical (coil) or injectors - because of the "multiple cylinder misfire" reading.



I'm serious now, lunch is on me if your ever passing through northern Utah!



Thanks again.



PS Now my wife has her van back... and I don't have to have her drop me off at work and watch her drive away in "Big Red". A pretty girl in a big red CTD... everyone else was watching her drive away too!

 

[parcher]

Glad to help. Here's how the pump causes "multi cylinder mis-fire", mis-fire monitoring is accomplished by the pcm "knowing" that a plug just fired and "looking" for a very slight increase in engine rpm. If the problem is isolated to one cyl then the pcm will will throw a "cyl #x mis-fire" code. By having poor fuel delivery the engine can't maintain a proper fuel air ratio and the lean cylinders don't produce the needed bump in rpm to satisfy the mis-fire monitor. Single cyl mis-fire = injector or ign system. Multi-cyl mis-fire = fuel delivery (generally).

 

[bmoeller]

Had a Hyundai Car when going to school. Acted the same way at 55K. Fuel pump and filter fixed it.