On my way home today, I was turning onto a road from a traffic light. As I was driving down, something didn't feel right as the truck felt a bit underpowered. I get to a stoplight, and while at a dead stop idle, the truck starts to run real rough and is shaking a good bit, but never turned off. No lights came on, and I continued to drive for about another mile or two. I decided to pull off and come to a complete stop. The truck is now running perfectly fine with no issues whatsoever, and is fine for the rest of the ride home. This is the first time this has happened, and I'm a little concerned. Recent work to the truck was a simple oil change, but that was about a week or two ago. Any ideas what this may have been? Truck currently has about 162,500 miles on it, if it matters. Thanks for any input.

 

Check your fuel filter. That and some junk spark plugs are what caused mine to do something similar.

 

Probably the filter. I put brand new Motorcraft Platinums less than 10k miles ago. Thanks though, I'll try to look into it sometime this week if I can.

 

The filter is a great idea and I would sure change it as it is good and inexpensive preventative maintenance. You problem sounds like it could be the EGR valve got stuck for a short period of time and then got unstuck. With the miles on your truck, it would be good maintenance to remove and clean the EGR valve with a wire brush. Also make sure the EGR tube from the manifold to the EGR is not clogged. (run a wire through it to check). Dont use solvent on the valve because this can damage the diaphragm. Just knock the carbon off with the wire brush and a screw driver or similar tool. Clean the EGR surface and reinstall it after it seems like it is working freely.

 

I'll definitely look into this. I should be able to have a good chance either today or tomorrow. I've also been meaning to ask, how long and hard would it be able to clean out the throttle body? I've heard gunk from it could get into the EGR valve. I have the 4.2.

 

Wait, so don't use a carb cleaner? Sob...

 

its not hard to clean the tb.....i did it with the how to section on here and a vid from youtube......word of caution tho....if u have a throttle bottle heater hose its a bit more of a pita

 

if u change ur fuel filter and dont have the tool.....save urself 10 bucks, get a sharpie marker, cut a hollow section about 2" long and put a slit in it.....it slips over ur fuel line and slides right in to the quick disconnects with no trouble

 

Any clear way to tell? It would be real nice to know if i did or not. I'm not sure if it matters or not, but this is something I'm not real sure about. Would it matter if it were a Canadian built truck?

 

Sounds like a possible vacuum leak to me