Andrew Marzahl

Just picked up this reasonably cheap truck which has been sitting for at least a year. I knew it needed some love but seemed to run ok and no drips when I bought it.


Stopped off at Jiffy lube on the way home to swap out the oil/filter and serpentine. Drove home fine until I got to the door and poof, coolant flowing like crazy out of the overflow. Decided next day to just replace the cooling system - water pump, thermostat, hoses, sensor (have the sender but just now figured out where it goes) because the temp gauge wasn't working.


Now, it's not running right. It idles rough and unsteady (up and down), I'm getting some black exhaust, and under load it wants to lose power. Taking off in an intersection it wants to die. Once I'm rolling it seems to be holding steady but there's obviously a problem. It had very little fuel and I topped off with fresh. The drive home was about 70 miles so I figured all was cleaned out because the engine seemed to be ok except for the coolant issue.


Anyway, I'm going to fiddle around cleaning electrical, sensors, checking vacuum lines and maybe I'll stumble on the cause. I'm thinking I may be in over my head though...

Franchi Motorsports

iTrader: (9)

Welcome to the F150 forum! Great to have you join!

JDoak

It's probably something simple.

Idling rough may be a vacuum leak...