Question about my truck.

[Root beer]

I got a Ford Explorer. Few months ago I was going change oil my self, now I inherited this truck from my brother. I forgot which oil this truck takes (at the time I was dumb enough not to read the notice under the hood) so I called my brother and I was like "bro, what oil goes in the explorer 5w-30? or a 10w type oil?" He replied 10w 30. I was like alright whatever.

So I drained out the oil add the new 10w oil to it. Dad pulls into the driveway about this time and was like "boy, thats the wrong oil." I said "eric told me this was right oil." Then he goes "it tells you right here which oil it takes." But neverless dad goes "well, it wintertime so you dont have to worry about the motor overrheating, I've done it before long time ago and had no problems." Neverless I was convinced.

Months gone by, my motor never overrheated or blew up. Now recently I notice when I'm at a red light and my truck is ideling, it's ideling like a big semi truck. It ideling really rough.

Any idea? coil wire? maybe just need a tune up? or perhap the oil is starting to shake up my engine? Dad said it cant be the oil because my oil sensor is dead on normal. Dad just said you need a tune up no big deal.

I just thought I'd ask if you guys ever had this happen to your vehicle. It just ideling really rough. when I accelerate it kind of accelarting normal, but when it's ideling it ideling really rough and of course the check engine light blinks from time to time.

Sorry for long post with few bad punctuations.

[grimlin]

Tune up or alternator.Could even be the battery is going weak.Or worst timing like mine.

Both my car and my girl's car does it.Mine however has something to do with timing.Will cost me $600 to fix it.My answer was screw that let it blow up.My girl's car however the alternator is going,will be fixing that soon as it's not to bad.Tune up did help her car alot...not mine however.

The oil is fine,i forgot which one but one you mention runs better in winter time and the other runs better during the summer.Some people don't even change and just stick to 10w-30.We however do as it seems to help the car battle the cold here.

[Jake P]

DO NOT DRIVE IT ANYMORE! TRUST ME! this happened to me weeks ago!

It was ideling very hard like i was in a semi and the service engine soon light was on and would blink form time to time, what was the problem you ask? Well the engine got to hot which cracked both head gaskets. How much does that cost to get fixed you ask? around 1400 bucks. The problem was my water pump was out so it caused my engine to get very hot, and when it gets hot it usually ends up cracking a head gasket. You said you put in the wrong oil which can cuse you to overheat, has your truck ever got real hot? or have you ever noticed the temperature abover halfway?

[flyhatch]

rough idle remedys...

iac motor (idle air control) clean or replace

tps sensor (throttle position sensor)

clean throttle body (carb cleaner)

bad plugs or wires?

this is just if you arent overheating..which could be a water pump

hope that helps

[Root beer]

I'll asked dad about these suggestion. I swear he is really knowledgeable of these things.

Only reason why I threw oil out of the equation was because my oil sensor keep reading normal. I havn't notice any overheating.

My friend said his dad's truck used to have this problem and it was because of coil wire going bad or something.

Jake, Your problem sounded like mine. The service engine likes does blink and it rumbles like I'm in a semi truck. This cant happen to me.

But I've never notice my engine overrheating or getting near that mark. When I go to work tonight I'll watch the sensors carefully. When I rev it up it sounds normal, but when it idles it sounds horrible and rough.

[Tin]

I have a Ranger, 4.0 which is probably the same thing as your Explorer. I had the same problem, opened the hood and figured it was my intake. And of course, with the cold weather the mice got intot he airbox and had started making a nest, thus clogging up my intake. Cleaned it out and now runs fine. Also depending on what year yours is the MAF cannot be cleaned so, just check out your intake system. Could be the issue, but keep an eye on your temp guage just incase it isnt.

[slomoe]

I just got rid of my '92 explorer. The water pump on it blew as well. The whole cooling system was jacked up, along with the exhaust manifold. I was tired of putting money into it. I freakin loved it though.  

[Jake P]

KW, check your gages and make sure all of your gages are where they should be. My brother works part time with a mechanic and he said it could just need a tune up or something minor like that. But if it gets hot dont drive it becuase i made that mistake and the total cost was 1,947 dollars. I had both headgaskets fixed, a new radiator, new spark plugs, New water pump, some new wires, a full tune up and a few other things that i cant remember. Im not a mechanic by any means and im not tryin to sound like one either but it sounds so much like my problem im tryin to mention everything that was wrong with mine becuase i dont want you to have to pay 2 grand to get it fixed.Good luck with whatever you do, keep us posted about the situation.

[Micro]

bad plugs or wires?

I had a '94 Ford Explorer with the 4.0 V6. One of the spark plug wire brackets broke and one of the wires melted on the exhaust manifold. The current then arc'd to the manifold. Truck idled very rough and lost lots of power. Simple fix, though.

[Bass Smacker]

The oil has noting to do with the idle. 10-30 is fine for most cars and trucks. You can also use 20-50 in most. If its not over heating its not the cooling system. Fords have always had a problem with the throdle body gumming up check it out  

[Schaefer]

a ruff idle is pretty hard to diagnose because it can be many things:

iac motor (idle air control) clean or replace

tps sensor (throttle position sensor)

clean throttle body (carb cleaner)

bad plugs or wires?

like flyhatch mentioned.

But it can also be a vacuum leak or a dirty EGR valve (piece of carbon stuck in the EGR prevnting it from closing properly)

If your check engine light is going on and off take it to a garage who will hook up a scanner to your vehicle for a low price, but ur best bet is to do a tune-up (pretty cheap), plugs, wires, air filter, yaddy yada. Thhus elminating that issue.

Those 4.0L ford engines had issues with them. The main one is that the timing chain for the driver side of the engine is in the front, while the timing chain for the passenger side is on the friggin back of the engine :-/

and for some reason the timing components seem to wear out faster than normal. The next main issue is they had big problems with overheating. The reason for this is because the exhaust valves are close to the intake side of the heads which means that the very hot exhaust gases have to travel through the whole width of the head (exact same problems and issues with the flathead ford).

[Micro]

Here's the problem I had with my Explorer 4.0.

[Schaefer]

NICE!, love that frame twist 8-) 8-)

[Root beer]

When I reved it up it kind of sounded different. So I'll defitnley spray some intake cleaner in and clean out the exhaust. I watch all of my sensors today and not one of them went above normal. They stay dead on the middle when I first got in my car the sensor was on cold as I drove to work it never went above the middle.

So I guess it the wires or the intake or something. My dad is off wendesday so I guess he'll go get it check out.

[Guest muddy]

I had the same problem, I pulled the vacum line off the EGR, running like a kitten! I have just to go and get a new EGR valve now and get my mechanic to put it in, I am getting ping, running too rich and I don';t want to damage it.

[Jake P]

You said when you rev it it sounds different? Does it have a loud noise kinda like a clicking noise? cuz thats what mine sounded like when i blew my head gaskets

[=Matt 5.0=]

What year is the Explorer and what motor is in it? I am well versed in the Ford department...hence the screen name  

[Bankbeater]

I wouldn't drive it until it gets checked.  My wife's water pump went out in the 97 cougar and was probably the cause of the head gasket blowing.

[luckyinkentucky]

Run a couple of bottles of Sea Foam in the tank at your next fill up.  

Also, after running to empty on the tank full of Sea Foam change the plugs.  Another thing you can check while doing this is to take off the distributor cap, and see if the distributor rotor is fouled up.  If it is you should change it.  If you check all of these you won't have anymore problems.  Trust me!  

These are all cheap fixes for a problem most people are making more difficult than what it is.  You can do everything I've listed for less than $30.  Auto parts stores will tell you the worse case scenario, because they want to sell you the parts when they don't need replacing.  Do what I said, and everything will be fine afterwards.