Hi guys, and good afternoon to all the womens. I have a 1998 F-150 XL 4.2 V6 and I was having some issues with it. It was running rough after a day of moving things back and forth. The ride was rough in drive, and you could smell the cats burning. So I didn't drive it and I got a flashing cel. I replaced all the spark plugs with motorcraft platinums, spaced at 0.054, with new duralast gold plug wires, and a new coil pack. That worked great! For about 3 days. Then I got the flashing again, and I got a computer this time; misfire in cylinder 3.
Took off the intake and got to the injector. Lord behold it was plugged, so I cleaned it with carb cleaner and Shazam, put it back. When we did the process, some fuel was dripping on the cat, and it made it urn cherry red. So now I have a cat coming in on Monday 2/22/16, but the truck runs like crap still, and now I checked the coolant because it was low, and lord behold, again, there was little bit of oil. Pleas help me! I still get a code for 1507 and there's a vacuum tube that splits off with the PCV and I have no idea where that goes!!

 

If you are seeing oil in your coolant then go ahead and prepare for a head gasket. I dont know much about the 4.2s so hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

 

I was definitely afraid of that, so it might just happen. Ahh that sucks. But does that definitely mean head gasket? Or maybe just a little got in there?

 

Plan on a head gasket. A blown one may only have a little pin hole in it to be bad and leak a little oil every time you run it. However, the longer you wait to fix the worse the problem gets. Wait too long and youre looking at a new motor.

 

Could very well be just intake manifold gaskets.

 

I'll take a look at that, and see how the other injectors are doing as well

 

Just had a mechanic take a look at it, he said the intake gasket is good. Also, when I showed him the PCV valve with the other hose connected to it, and plugged it, the truck ran better. I just have no idea where it goes, and neither did he