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12-14-2008, 12:25 PM | #1 | |
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Cracked Ignition Coil
I have a 2002 Ford Taurus with the 3.0L OHV Vulcan engine. I have been experiencing a miss on and off since owning the vehicle. I have replaced the wires and plugs and it still misses. I have loaded the system down with fuel injector cleaners and it still misses. Today I pulled the ignition coil and found a crack along the side of the 3-4 coil pack. I have also had a pending code showing a misfire on cylinder 3 at one time. I suspect this is my problem. Am I correct in assuming this? I wanted to include a picture clearly showing the crack but I could not get that feature to work.
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12-14-2008, 06:20 PM | #2 | |
SHO No Mo
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
Sounds like a reasonable conclusion that he cracked coil pack is the issue. In a dark area with the hood open and the car running, can you see sparks from the viscinity of the crack?
-Rod |
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12-14-2008, 06:58 PM | #3 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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12-14-2008, 08:15 PM | #4 | |
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
You could pick up an inline spark test (they're around $3 from Harbor Freight) and see if you can see the misfire in the spark tester when the car is idling. Install the tester between the coil and plug wire. If the light drops out (indicating no spark) and with the apparent crack in the coil housing, that's probably a good indication that you have a bad coil. If you really wanted to be sure, you could find a portable 2-channel oscilloscope, watch the coil primary on one channel and use a high-voltage probe to watch the secondary of the same coil to make sure you have primary trigger even when you don't have secondary spark. That would pretty much guarantee proper diagnosis as long as you have good plug wires, good plugs, and good connections.
-Rod |
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12-15-2008, 05:33 AM | #5 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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I purchased a new set of Borg Warner plug wires and Motorcraft plugs to go in the vehicle. The connections seemed very good and secure. The car starts up easilly and idles very well. The problem only begins to occur once I have driven for a bit and warmed the engine up completely, and then it only does it intermittently. |
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12-15-2008, 05:47 AM | #6 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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12-15-2008, 06:36 AM | #7 | |
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
You need to post the image to the Internet using an image sharing service such as Photobucket or similar.
If you power brake the car, with the wheels properly chocked of course, can you get the misfire to occur? -Rod |
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12-15-2008, 06:49 AM | #8 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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12-15-2008, 07:01 AM | #9 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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12-15-2008, 07:39 AM | #10 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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12-15-2008, 01:03 PM | #11 | |
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
That does look a bit suspicious. Hopefully you didn't have any appreciable moisture in the coil when you epoxied it and that gets you by for a week or two. Just don't expect the epoxy to be a long term fix and let a replacement fall off your budget if it does get you by until payday. If the crack was the source of the misfire, there's likely more internal winding damage that is allowing the field to collapse through the crack.
-Rod |
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12-16-2008, 05:02 AM | #12 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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Thanks for your feedback. |
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12-21-2008, 05:47 AM | #13 | ||
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
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I purchased a Borg Warner coil and installed it. I also replaced the elbow on the PCV valve hose and the PCV Valve as the elbow was cracked and brittle. I have new Borg Warner plug wires and new Motorcraft platinum plugs. I am still experiencing a bad miss. It often feels like the engine while driving will just lose power (without shuddering) and then it will often miss (with a hard shudder) while the engine is at cruising speed and under slight load. I am waiting on a replacement Ford fuel line adapter for my fuel pressure gauge so I can check that. I have listened to my injectors operate with my stethescope and I can hear them all clicking at idle even while revving the engine. I have loaded the system down with fuel injector cleaners as well. I haven't done a thorough check for vacuum leaks or checked compression. Anyone else have any suggestions that I might try or maybe you have experienced before. Thanks. |
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12-21-2008, 06:37 PM | #14 | |
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
If you havent messed with the hoses I dont see why any of them would be leaking. The only time I ever had a misfire with lack of power while driving is when I had had bad valve and warped head. Do a compression test and see what it comes up with.
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12-21-2008, 10:13 PM | #15 | |
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Re: Cracked Ignition Coil
Do you still get a misfire code for cylinder #3?
-Rod |
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