problem after washing engine bay

[lx5oh]

I decided to wash my engine bay just to clean it up but soon as i finished and started it i started to have problems with it. from missing, to cat 2 not being good any more. It does seem like i'm only firing on 7 cylinders. I do have pictures of my code scanner of all the parameters as the truck was running and will put them on there if it will help anyone help me get my truck back to what it was before i washed the motor. I didn't have any problems with the car until after washing the engine bay. I'm not sure what to do . I do now that i won't be washing the engine bay ever again.

[aleekat]

all you can do is try to dry out connections, etc. Time will help. Maybe the codes will narrow down where to look.

[65comet]

You didn't say what year or engine. I'll just assume a 5.4L. You probably have one or more sparkplug tubes full of water. What you'll have to do is unbolt each coil pack and remove them. I suggest doing the whole procedure one at a time so they stay in the same order. (helps with later diagnosis if one of the packs is bad to leave it with the same cylinder, plus won't be blowing stuff from one tube into another open one) When you have the coil pack unbolted, it is a single bolt off to one side of the pack, undo the wire clip and put the pack out. Take a look with a light to see if there is water in the tube. If you have access to compressed air (compressor or canned air) then blow into the tube to see if water comes out. I have cleaned an engine at the self carwash and gotten so much water in the tubes I couldn't get home. So I got a few drinking straws from McDonald's, crimped an end on one to insert into the next, and used my lung power to blow them out. If I have a long thin screwdriver I'll stuff paper towel down in there to get the remaining drops of moisture. Just be sure you get all the paper towel back out again. Make sure to get all the moisture off the coil pack before you put it back together. Water in only one can cause big troubles, so you'll need to look in all the tubes. If you haven't changed the sparkplugs, DON'T TAKE THEM OUT. Not until you've search on the proper way to change them on the Triton engines. The original plugs love to snap off in the head. Don't take a sparkplug out in a tube that has water in it. If the water gets into the cylinder on a compression stroke, it can cause severe damage.