Help Needed Work truck is down! Need help asap please!

[95bamastroked]

Hey guys, I have already read through a boat-load of the posts and have come to a couple possible solutions for my problem. I have read about the uvc harnesses getting weak and becoming disconnected or trying to become disconnected. I also read about someone making his own shims to fix this problem. I would like to find out what these shims have been made out of. I have a '97 F350 CC 7.3L that is bone stock. I have replaced the alt., starter, and 1 batt., (the other one tested 100% and was load tested as well.) I just replaced the fuel pump today and new fuel filter also. The beast still wont start! I replaced everything but the fuel pump and filter 2 days ago, and it started fine yesterday morn. for work. I drove about 18 miles and when I started slowing down, the truck started missing like it wasn't hitting on all 8. I drove about another 1 1/2 miles until I arrived at my first job. At this point she died. (Added info: I had to disconnect to gpr because it went bad and I don't have the money to replace it right now.....I plug her in every night and whenever the truck is going to sit for awhile.) I pulled the open air filter and gave a couple shots of starting fluid in the breather tube. Finally got her running again and drove another 1/4 mile until she died again. Fought it again until I managed to get her going again and drove a couple of blocks and died again. This time, for good. Well, I haven't been able to get her started ever since. That was on Sunday and I have replaced the fuel pump and filter since then.

Sorry so long, but I know that more information is better for diagnosis. I found some posts about no run/hard start/running rough scenarios and found out about the uvc harness problems. That is where I may suspect loose connections in there. Any help is greatly appreciated, and hopefully I can get this going tomorrow or Wed. at the latest. Truck being down = not making any money

Add on:No smoke when cranking or when it tried to run with shots of starting fluid, haven't checked hpop level yet since I ran out of daylight and started raining, fuel bowl is filling up when cranking, beyond all that I will have to see if it is raining again tomorrow. I don't have a garage to put her in so I will have to work around the rain.

Thanks, Daniel

 

[melmount]

replaced the 28 dollar cam sensor? They go and can cause these symptoms

 

[95bamastroked]

Thought of that also. Kind of ruled it out with other symptoms going on. I will give that one some thought, but also may have to try other options since I am out of money and used my last spare on my other truck that got totalled. By the way, where do you get one for 28 bucks? Last I knew they were like 50 at least.

Thanks, Daniel

 

[melmount]

prices have come down on them. i think mine was 28 at ford. I could be mistaken but i doubt it.

 

[DaveBen]

I think melmount is right. They are under $35.00.

Dave

 

[JLDickmon]

prices came down on them right before the recall

anyway, yeah, they're about $35

 

[95bamastroked]

Well guys, I will have to give that a try if I can come up with the money. I was hoping for info about the self-made harness shims for the uvc harnesses. I am going to check all this out when it quits raining and snowing.

Thanks, Daniel

 

[ridndirty]

I read on here somewhere that if your tach needle bounces a little when you are cranking the engine over, then your cps is OK. I made my own uvc harness wedges out of thin plastic that I had laying around in the shop. You still have to remove the valve covers to install them though.

 

[95bamastroked]

Well, I went and bought a new CPS and put it in this afternoon. It still took about 5 minutes of starting fluid and cranking but I got it running. It still has a miss in it though. I managed to get it up into the driveway on concrete and it was straining to get that far. It finally died so I quit for the day. I also noticed that the warmer it got, the worse the miss got. I am still wondering if the harnesses are loose or burnt.

Ridndirty, what kind of plastic was it that you used. I don't want to use something that might be potentially too soft and melt down or get baked and crack apart and end up in the oil. Also, do you have any pics of what you made? If so, please post a few so I can maybe make some shims if I need to. (Stealership wants 16 bucks for a bag of 3 of the retainer clips that fixes loose harnesses.)

Tomorrow I am going to check and make sure that the HPOP reservoir is full, I am going to pull the valve covers and check the harnesses, and also go through all the fuses just to make sure I didn't miss one.

This is really getting me down and not just in the wallet! I have over 600 dollars into this series of repairs and it still isn't running. I am running out of things to try that aren't going to put me in the poor-house! Keep the ideas coming guys, I really need my truck back on the road since I use it to do my job. (cable installer, contracted)

Thanks for all the help so far,
Daniel

 

[melmount]

I would take at the harness but also get the truck scanned. Look for codes, and run some tests.
Did you try to unplug the icp sensor? It will set it to a default setting but would start it if thats bad.