Hello, I am hoping to get help here in finding out what would make my truck all of a sudden start dying intermittently with no signs or warnings. It will Diedriving or at an idle. Let it sit for 0-60 seconds and it fires up and will either die in 5 sec. or 5 miles or whenever?????? One timeit started 7-8 times in 20 feet. then drove 5 miles and shut it off????? I have a 5.7l 160,000m ,3/4t ext. cab, long box, 4x4. This started Saturday and seems to be getting more frequent. I have had it for 3 yrs.with no problems.Thanks for your time, anything will help.

 

sounds like a fuel issue, possibly the fuel pump. Is it still sounding the same (fuel pump)and when it runs does it feel weak like it is starving?

 

I do not hear any noise at all? It seems to run great, sounds good ,runs very smooth. It does have a power problem when towing...mostly up hills so I put on a K&N cold air intake and a new exhaust from cat. back ,tune-up and these things seem to have helped a little. When it dies it doesn't sputter or anything and like I said wait a few seconds and it fires right up??? Thank you for your help.

 

Possibly ignition coil then. Other than that I cannot think of what it could be.

 

Clogged fuel filter more than likely, everytime the pressure builds up in the fuel line ( like when you push down suddenly on the gas or start it up ) the fuel pushes all the dirt into the filter in such a way that it clogges the filter and therefore chokes the engine. Once the pressure dies down the in the fuel line, it doesn't push as hard on the junk in the filter and lets the gas thru again.

 

That would have to be some pretty granulated dirt. Most of the time from my experiance if the fuel filter is plugged it will run sluggish and want to spit and sputter before it dies. and then not want to restart.

 

Yeah I know but I had a problem on my last truck similar to that, believe it or not I changed the filter out and it stopped. My new one got sluggish, not the same symptoms, I replaced the fule filter and it ran alot better. Could be the sending unit going bad or maybe the strainer is covered in crap.

 

OH NO WAIT! You have to get the cat off of it and get a new one! I just remembered that my 91 kept dying in the woods when I was trying to get out of a hole. I took it to the shop and the cat converter was clogged up with carbon. New cat and the thing ran great.

 

Thank you all for your help. I apologize but I meant I have a new cat as well. I am going to start with the filter and go from there as i am going to get a shop book for referanceso I can start the process of alimination. Many thanks I really appreciate the help!

 

Ahh. the elusive out of nowhere stall. Just remember that three things are needed for basic internal combustion to happen; fuel, spark, compression, a break in the chain in any of those can cause a problem that is sometimes hard to detect. Start with the easiest things, fuel filter, some very small accumulation of dirt can cause some radical changes in fuel delivery, some at different times, meaning, at idle, half throttle, or wide open. Thenlook towards ignition, I have seen sometimes coils heat up and loose voltage and cause an engine to die then just a minute later fire right back up, because the enemy of electronics isheat. As for compression, if the motor runs fine when it is running that should be good, but a check never hurts. I know i did not give a straight one item thing to look at but there are soo many variables that it would be hard to do that .