Problems with.... Everything!

Alright, so 6 years ago, I bought a frame, and built an 01 Ranger from junk yard parts, but a bit mixed and matched. I found an engine that ran intact (01) and put it on an 02 frame, with a 99 cab, 98 doors and an 03 grill.

It ran fine until the summer of 2012, and the radiator blew, which also caused most my heads to crack. I replaced the heads and gaskets in a month in the back yard, and got all the cylinders back to 140 PSI. Apparently the salvaged gasket I put on the passenger's side was bad, and ended up making me tear it back down at the start of the summer when my engine began pushing my coolant out the exhaust (Large cloud of steam our the tail pipe.)

Since I've taken it back down, I've changed both heads, both gaskets, placed new oil pumps, fuel pumps, radiator, air filters, and a new injector on cylinder 3.

But one of the strange things about that intact engine I found is it's wired backwards... Instead of the coil pack running from slot 1 to cylinder 1, it's flipped.
EX: Coil pack spot 1 goes to cylinder 6, coil pack 2 goes to cylinder 5, coil pack 5 goes to cylinder 2. It won't run without everything being flipped backwards.

But the problem that needs fixed now, that I can't seem to figure out is on Cylinder 3.

I put a new spark plug in it, new injector, new coil pack, new spark plug wires, new head, and a new gasket, but when you run the engine for maybe a minute, the spark plug comes out pure black. You can even pull that spark plug out and it runs just as good(well badly) as it does with it in. I've got no idea how to fix it this time, but I have a hunch it has something to do with the weird way it's wired, however I have no idea how to correct that, nor do any of my mechanic friends that work at shops. I've had a total of 5 people try to figure it out, and were all clueless to that part of the systems.

Any help that might steer this repair in the right direction would be much appreciated, I need to have it running before it starts getting cold again, currently my only mode of transportation is a motorcycle, and that will freeze me going to college.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide some feed back.

Also, it's a V6, 3.0L

The plug wire setup isnt the issue. It has a paired cylinder waste spark system. Both towers on a coil fire together, so both spark plugs fire together.

Check compression on 2 & 3 and see what you get.


Postin' from teh Galaxy

Check the coil pack plug. Trace the wires. You may had a broken or a pinched wire. I had that a few weeks ago. Soldered the wire back with my remote start signal for my alarm and I have been fine since.

Sent from my Ktweaked PACmaned SGS3!

Coil pack for the 3.0l is listed this way
4 | 6 | 5
3 | 2 | 1

This is a waste spark system so cylinders 3 and 4 fire at the same time, 2 and 6 fire at the same time, 1 and 5 fire at the same time.

This also means the pistons in cylinders 1 and 5 are both at TDC at the same time, one is on compression stroke the other on exhaust stroke, same for 3 and 4, 2 and 6, as adsm08 said these are "paired" cylinders, there are 3 pairs in a V6 to balance the engine, each pair on the coil can be "reverse wired" like this:
3 | 2 | 1
4 | 6 | 5
or
4 | 6 | 1
3 | 2 | 5

As long as the "pairs" are kept the same, 3-4, 2-6, and 1-5, the cylinders will fire fine.

Yes, remove all spark plugs and compression test on the 1, 2, 3 bank would tell you if it's a ring or valve issue, also clean and check the end of the compression tester after each cylinder test, see if there is fuel or oil on the end.

Ran compression checks on all cylinders a week ago... All 6 Cylinders were at 130-140 PSI, but I'll run another one next time I can get to it (Meaning off work since my shops not at my house.) and I'll let you know what comes up exact number wise on the checks

I did notice on my truck, which seemed weird... My book over my ranger says TDC should be with the notch on the front plate at 65 (or 70) degrees left of the marker... Mines 180 from it (65/70 to the right).

Those angle specs are to vehicle left, not your left.

Postin' from teh Galaxy

http://youtu.be/wF0S0MoFWx8

http://youtu.be/ZdDQ9NMkH2Q


The first video is a bit of just listing what we've tried, second video is the engine running with it wired up like All Data Repair said to. I do realize that the sound might be a bit louder than it should be due to the fact that the Exhaust Manifold is loose (We got it on, but it wasn't sealed correctly, but we decided that it was more important to find out why the 3rd cylinder wasn't working right.) Also the first video has some miswording in it, ranging from that the reason we pulled it down the 2nd time was because the head we put in was salvaged, and ran fine for some time, before slowly deteriorating and pressurizing the radiator system. Also ignore me not knowing the correct name for when the plug fires, I know where the piston should be when it ignites, but I'm the guy who (when originally building the truck) never knew the names of the parts or the correct terms, but I would figure out how things worked and be able to describe them.

I've spoken to about 9 mechanics around here, and every time I describe this, or let them look at it, they either tell me to change spark plugs, coil, wires, etc, or they tell me that it's impossible for it to even run like that, and then they never get back to me with anything they said they'd bring to for me to use (4,000$ scanners to find the problem, still waiting for that), or they never come back by to take a look after the first.... They scratch their heads and vanish...



Edit:
Forgot to mention, we put a noid light onto EVERY injector plug... Their all working fine (To our knowledge, slower flashing at lower RPMs, faster at higher) and we pulled the 3rd cylinder's spark plug after running it in the video and it was fuel fouled again, we sand blasted it to clean it, then hooked it onto the cable and grounded it... It was sparking fine, so we believe it's not the computer or the spark plugs... Possibly timing?

You can check spark timing for #3 by removing spark plug, then rotate engine manually until compression stroke on #3 then TDC the piston and mark the crankshaft pulley(white mark) for #3 TDC.
Then use timing light to confirm spark on #3 at/near it's TDC

Because of the backfiring I would suspect valve train, pull the valve cover and check #3 valves/rockers/push rods, manually rotate engine and watch for anomalies, then disconnect coil and crank engine(no start), watch again.
Pull the rocker assembly and inspect, also pull out push rods.
Look for odd wear on the rockers for #3 where they contact the valve stem.

If you have rocker oil clips you can run the engine with valve cover off(cold engine with towel across exhaust manifold), but probably need an adjustable strobe light to see anything.
A bent or sticky valve won't always show up on compression test, crank speed is too slow and its a highest level test so won't show a low compression on 1 cycle if the other 3 or 4 are higher.



With new spark plug/wire/coil, and new injector all assumed to be working then all you have left is mechanical issues, compression tests OK so valve timing, rings and cylinder should be OK, but that 130-140psi does seem low over all, 160-170 range would be expected, but never tested a 3.0l.

Broken valve spring would be best scenario, you can change that without removing the head

From grandpa "See what they say about the lifter sticking, because we just put a new head on there that was serviced twice, to insure it was working correctly."