1996eddiebauer

Ok, I'm a little weiry on this, today I bought a very rough 1997 f150 ext cab long bed 4x4 lariat, for 800 bucks, runs ok, drives nice beside the tranny shifts weird and hard at times, it has ok tires, 4x4 does work, and the worst part is something is wrong with the motor...occasionally it cuts out and has very little power after 60, and the check engine light flashes at you while driving, now from some research I've done it's usually something to do with a cat., now the driver side cat has been cut out and a pipe welded in, also has many exhaust leaks but the mani folds arnt cracked, engine sounds ok, I believe the heat shield from the missing cat is hitting the pipe making alittle bit of noise, ok that's about all for the motor, tranny doesn't slip but has a little shudder in OD, and it shifts in and out of OD going threw town(35-50mph), also to my theory on this weird tranny issue I believe the rear brakes are dragging because I can smell something burning, also it has a pretty hard shift from 1st to 2nd, other gears are smooth, another bad thing is it has 253k miles...but if it's mechanically sound I'll fix the issues n keep it, if not it's getting sold











So can you guys give me some info on the issues?

1996eddiebauer

Sorry it's the 5.4 and auto

kjburns

The price reeks of parts truck to me. The question is whether you can get $800 value for the parts. I wouldn't want it for my DD.

1996eddiebauer

ya it was cheap and interior wise it's rough, more then likely it won't be my dd unless some how it gets 20 mpg like my ranger, but I've always liked this body style f150, I figured with an Iowa winter coming up someone will need a cheap beater 4x4 if I sell it

1996eddiebauer

If it's machanically sound I'm looking to spend around 800 to fix it up, exhuast tune up etc

JCR 56

A flashing CEL is a misfire. I would give it a tune-up first. There should be codes.

UtahGuy

So you've got exhaust leaks, a missing cat, a motor that loses power, a trans that shifts weird and "something burning"... and you want to know if it's mechanically sound?

With respect, people that don't know how to pull trouble codes shouldn't take flyers on $800 trucks. If you're really in love with the thing, get ready for a long hard pull to bring it back to reliable DD status. If not, sell it for what you can get and move on.

Jackedup00

The engine issue is probably coils

1996eddiebauer

Think it blew a plug out of the head? I'm mechanically inclined I've done motor swaps on fwd cars before, I can fix just about anything,

1996eddiebauer

Found 90% of my issues, pcv was capped off very poorly, and there's no vac line for it...also here's some codes, minus like 3 o2 sensor codes I'm guessing are from the missing cat and all the exhuast leaks,











Can a vac leak cause the miss fire and bank 1-2 lean?