Hey guys, working on my 1997 ranger 4.0... I had a slight shake on warm idle before we started here. Replaced fuel filter, air filter, plugs and wires... thought may be at first the problem was the new plugs I put in, so pulled the champion platinums back out and put in some basic autolite plugs. (also autolite wires). The miss now almost makes it undriveable. When it is running (idle) and I pull the plug wire for #6 off of the coil no change in how it runs. Check engine light is on, and has intermittently been flashing. Took it to autozone to use the scan tool and it was giving me misfire #5, #6, and lean bank 2... any help here? The guy at autozone is jumping to conclusions about head gasket failure and all kinds of other stuff, I'm really hoping its something more simple than that. Possibly EGR sticking, or just a fuel problem... Let me know if anyone has any ideas. Thanks

 

Double check the wires. I mixed them up because Ford decided to mess with the coil pack. I believe on the back 3 its numbered 465 not 456. As for the lean code check all vacuum hoses.

 

yes, start by retracing the wires one by one and mark them, we had a suburban come in with the same situation, ran horribly, turns out the customer swapped out 2 wires on the right bank (i forget which 2) and after switching them back, car ran great, also autolite wires arent the best made, they tend to pull apart easily (like string cheese), so as your tracing, check for cuts or damage, especially if you have to pull off a wire again

dont ever listen to autozone, they always give worst case scenario to cover their butts and to try and sell more expensive parts

 

based on your code, and Christians post, 5 and 6 are probably crossed.

 

Put a long screwdriver on the injectors and put the end up to your ear and try to listen for it to click. An injector is a solenoid...it almost sounds like the cylinder that you took the wire off of is not getting fuel. We had the exact same problem on my buddies 98 camaro v6 but he did have a code that said cylinder misfire....just a thought that u could try.

Also, the lean condition could be from unburnt fuel in the cylinder that is giving you problems...
Also, do a compression test to give you piece of mind. If the head gasket blew you would either have low compression, coolant in the cylinders, or coolant leaking externally.
Read up on a possible EGR problem, do more investigating before you run to conclusions about what it could be. One test is worth a thousand edjucated guesses.

 

Check the insulator on the spark plugs for cracks. I bought a brand new plug from AZ and it was cracked. Are the plugs properly gapped? When you changed the wires, did you rip them all off and guess from there or did you do it one by one? You probably did what whipper said and crossed two wires. I can't get on AllData from home but I believe it's 4/6/5 (on the right side of the coil pack) if you're looking from the front of the truck. Switch those two and see if it goes away. If it's not resolved i'll print it out and scan it onto here for you tomorrow.