Slow Start - Rough Idle

[jacobg128]

I've got a problem that is killing me. I have a 97 with a 4.3 in it. Just recently, I had to replace the pickup coil inside the distributor. Before that the truck would hardly ever start. After I replaced it, I had no trouble with the truck starting, and it ran great. A couple of days ago, the truck started running a little rough, and then did not start one morning. On a whim, I changed the pickup coil again and it fired right off. That was yesterday. This morning, I got in the truck and had to crank on it for 3 minutes to get it started (not continuously. . . not that dumb). When it did start, it was missing really badly. I had to get to work so I drove it on and after about 10 or 12 miles the miss went away but the service engine soon light is still on. Any ideas? I know that the fuel pump is good, it runs about 63 psi, the plugs were replaced about 10k ago, the wires were done at the same time, and the pickup coil is brand new. . .

[neo71665]

moved to correct section

[BigTruckDrivah]

You sure you replaced the pick up coil and not the ignition module? The pick up coil is in the distributor. Ignition module is the part that your distributor wire harness plugs into. Sounds like a bad pick up coil though, mine went bad a few months ago so I just replaced the whole distributor.

[BigTruckDrivah]

Oh sorry, just re-read your post and you said you replaced the pick up coil "in the distributor". Maybe the dist. Is bad.

[jacobg128]

Starting to think that. . . is there a good way to check it?

[BigTruckDrivah]

Not that I know of. My dist. Had a ton of rust/corrosion in it from moisture. Have you tried the ignition module? Might be worth taking it to autozone so they can check it. If it's good, I'd replace the dist. .

[jacobg128]

You mentioned the corrosion, I may just need to replace the distributor cap and rotor, they are both a little corroded - but not too bad. It may be safe to assume that they are at a stage where they develop just enough corrosion overnight so that they would get a bad enough connection to cause me to have to crank it over for a while before getting a connection. That might also explain why it runs rough and misses at first until it has been driven a bit. I will get it changed out and post the results.

[BigTruckDrivah]

Ignition parts mean alot. Keep us posted.

[jacobg128]

Sorry it took me so long, I stay pretty busy. The good news is that the new distributor cap and rotor appear to have fixed the problem. Truck runs great, and hasn't missed a beat since I changed them out. Mileage went up too. . . ;-)

[BigTruckDrivah]

Good

[j894]

just so its out there the pickup coil is also known as the cam position sensor in the newer trucks.

I dont believe you can just drop/swap one in and have it work, I pretty sure your supposed to do the crank/cam position relearn procedure when you change it; at least thats what I remembering reading in the manual when I thought I was having a problem with mine & was going to change it. The pcm is supposed to go through the procedure to learn the small differences between the parts.