Peanut Gallery

I went in to have the emissions checked on my 1993, 5.0L 4x4, 112,000 miles, and it failed. Here is a copy of the report.



So where to start? Should I pull codes first? Will have to get a reader. Or should I just thought a few parts at it to see if it will help?

I did plugs, plug wires, cap, rotor and new air filter when I got the truck about 2 years ago. Would it go thought those parts that quick? I put a new O2 in it when I went shorty headers because the stock units were cracked and came it in 6 pieces.

Truck isn't running all that well, it idles really rough and the hole truck shutters while at a stop light. I did notice a lot of white smoke from the tail pipe about 6 months ago. It seamed to be a head gasket and put some stop leak in it. But I don't think that would cause the high HC levels. I did change oil after I did the head gasket repair and the oil was not discolored, and I put in some Mobile 1.

Need some guidance. Thanks.

qdeezie

Pull codes first. That'll give you a lot of insight.

Warlockk

You can pull the codes with a jumper wire. Just check the sticky post on the board. It sounds like you may have a blown gasket. Hydrocarbons are unburned fuel. A gasket or compression issue can definitely cause that. 2 years is a long life for plugs and caps. Visually inspect them. Plugs can tell you a lot. Do a good inspection, compression , timing, vacuum test and codes. You may want to check your sensors ( tps, IAC, o2 map ) all of these can be the checked with a cheap multimeter and a Hayes manual. Finally when everything looks good make sure you get your cats good and hot before inspection. They only work when hot.

sdmartin65

That truck must be running like crap. What are you getting maybe 10 miles a gallon. I do like the other guy say plugs cap and rotor. If doing that steadies up how it runs, you should pass the test fine. If the basic tune up doesn't fix it then go to plan B.

sdmartin65

On second thought, where you have shorty headers. You might also have cooked spark plug wires.

Warlockk

Good idea.

southernyankey1

Off topic..but This thread reminded me about my 89 cougar 3.8l and it's last emission test in Virginia. It failed appallingly and then when I did a basic tuneup and took it back the headgasket popped during the test! I told him to finish the test, he did just for laughs, and it passed with flying colrs!!! He gave me the stupid sticker and I limped home and changed the gasket lmao. It leaked by a water jacket and it was basically water injection so it passed.

Peanut Gallery

On the way home from doing the header install one of the plug wires came off and cooked on the headers. So I put new wires on it with some of those high temp plug wire boot things. So they shouldn't be bad and I did the water on the header at each cylinder and they all seamed light.

I got a code reader on the way so I will pull codes this weekend and look into new cap rotor and plugs, MSD maybe?

Peanut Gallery

So I pulled some codes on the truck. KOEO, no codes, but had 173,327 and 634 codes in the memory.