beaverton007

I've got at 98 1500 with a 5.0. Weeks ago, after she had sat a little, I jumped in the old fart and it started fine, drove out of the drive fine, but when I pulled on to the road it misfired so bad that it almost wouldn't move. So I pulled over and it idled fine. Went to take off and it just spit and shuttered and would not go. No code. After enough trying it would eventually pick up and move, but not well. Pulled into a gas station and sat for a while, looking under the hood etc. Decided step one would be fuel filter. So I limped down the street and picked up a filter. Well, I headed for the house and she ran fine. This made me nervous. I replaced the filter since I already paid for it. I drove it for a few days and even a long trip and it didn't come back. Well it came back once and disappeared again. I don't believe in things fixing them selves but was starting to think bad gas.
Last week I was driving and noticed a battery light and my amps were below normal... Tested the alternator and had to replace it. Truck still runs fine.
Went out of town for a week and now she won't even start. The first try gave me a little couple pops and that was it. Charged the battery and nothing. Oh I hate to mention this, but the fuel pump is just over a year old and for 10 months it has been bouncing from empty to full, but the truck has run the whole time problem free. And I can hear the pump running right now.
The Battery is new. It was a little drained after I tried to start the truck. I took the coil to the Autoparts store and we compared resistance readings to a new coil and had very little difference.
I did spray some starter fluid down the intake and I couldn't get any fire out of it. Which lead me to checking out the coil. Because the distributor, wires and module (that gizzmo that bolts to the same bracket at the coil)are only a year old. I had a nasty run in with a computer failure a year ago, as well as a fuel pump.
Well last night I did some important diagnostics. I first cleaned my grounds and snugged them up. I check fuel psi and had 59 psi starting pressure. I finally got a second hand and was able to pull a plug wire and check for spark and I had lots of spark. So much that I am a little curious. It wasn't a nice slow spark it was arching very quickly. At this point I tried a little gas down the intake and the best I could get was a back fire. I also don't get a nice solid crank when I'm cranking the starter, it appears to be backfiring while cranking and stopping the starter. I didn't get a chance to check out the distributor last night, but that is first on my list. Any possibility this is a timing chain or a cam or crank position sensor?

93caviguy

sounds like you have a bad timing problem to me that would explain the bad backfire, just a little advice watch the starter fluid that has been known to screw up some damn good motors.

93caviguy

and your best bet would be to go to the junk yard and buy you a computer first because that could verywell be your problem and probably is, if not it would be timing.</P>