I recently purchased a 97 Fleetwood tioga with (60k) a v10 and E40d. I got a really good deal from a family friend and was aware of the problem before purchasing. Under a load or traveling uphill mostly it has some kind of minor slip or miss. It is a quick feeling so hard to identify. The tranny fluid is red and full but no idea when it was last changed. The engine has no codes and sounds good. What could this be?
1997 Fleetwood tioga issue
- Thread starter Mikevan24
- Start date
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IBTripping
Well-known member
Welcome to the forum. It may need a tuneup.
Lou Schneider
Site Team
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2005
- Posts
- 13,229
Welcome to The RV Forum! It could be a number of things, a dirty fuel filter that doesn't let enough gas through when you're climbing a hill or a questionable spark coil that breaks down under load (each spark plug has it's own coil).
Like IB said, a tuneup should cover these issues.
Like IB said, a tuneup should cover these issues.
Arch Hoagland
Well-known member
Run the engine after dark and look for arcing between the plug wires.
Isaac-1
Well-known member
That was going to be my question, I thought the 6.8L V10 did not come out until 98 in the E series
wae
Well-known member
A 97 could have the 6.8 - that was the first year for that.
It is very possible that you're getting misfires without codes. That chassis was not required to be OBDII compliant, even though it has all of the OBDII equipment on-board. The things (like a misfire) that passenger vehicles from '96 forward that are required to set a MIL for are recorded and noted by the computer in the medium-duty chassis, but the MIL stays dark and no OBDII codes are set.
The symptoms you describe sound very much like a bad coil to me. It could be a transmission issue, but given the mileage and the prevalence of CoP failures as well as the ease of diagnosis, my recommendation would be to assume you've got a misfire. You need some sort of OBDII diagnostic interface that has the capability of running test $53. You can get a Bluetooth OBDII adapter and the Torque Pro software for your phone or tablet for very little money or you can get a good adapter plus a laptop and ForScan which is el-freebo. Personally, I like Torque Pro for driving around and I wouldn't own a Ford or Mazda without also having a good ForScan setup - but either one will work for our purposes now.
Assuming that you go for Torque Pro, get everything set up and installed, plug in the adapter, get the motor running, and from the main Torque Pro screen select "test results". It's a little bit slow, but eventually you'll be able to scroll down to find test $53. $53 is your test number and that test will have several CIDs indicating the cylinders. Those numbers are hexadecimal so 0a is equal to 10. You'll see that each CID has a Max and Current number. Ignore the Max - current is showing the number of misfire events for each CID or cylinder. You want to look in that list to see if there are any CIDs that have a large number in that "current" section.
When you do, you can prove out that it is the coil that is the problem by grabbing yourself a 7mm socket and ratchet (1/4" drive is fine) and swapping the offending coil with another one that does not show a large number of misfires. Your cylinders are numbered thusly:
FRONT OF VEHICLE
6 1
7 2
8 3
9 4
10 5
---------------------
TRANSMISSION
Coils are super simple to swap. Carefully undo the clip on the wiring harness to release the connector. Do not break the tabs. If it's cold out, hit the connector with a heat gun or hair dryer to warm up the plastic and take some of the brittleness out of it. If you break the tab it will be very difficult to keep the coil plugged in in the future, so be careful. Once the wiring is disconnected, remove the 7mm bolt (lefty-loosey) and then just pull the coil up off the plug. It should come out with its boot. Those boots are separate and can crack and also cause misfires. Inspect the boot very carefully.
Pull your coil from another (non-misfiring) cylinder in the same way and then carefully swap the boots - the only thing we want to change is the coil! Again, use heat to make everything a little more pliable and less likely to tear, crack, or break. Re-install, make sure everything is connected and the coils are bolted down - don't over-tighten the coil bolt, it's just there to keep the coil from falling out.
Start the engine up, go back to Torque Pro, reset all the counters and watch test $53 for misfires again. You should see that the misfires have moved to the cylinder with the bad coil. If that's the case, grab two new coils (they usually come with new boots). I like Bosch and Motorcraft - stay away from the no-name junk at your FLAPS. Replace our tested bad coil with one of the new ones and put the other new one along with a 7mm socket and ratchet handle in the glovebox for next time. And there will be a next time. They just do that.
It is possible that when you perform the test, the coil isn't bad enough to cause misfires at idle yet. You may need to get out and drive the rig around a bit to cause it to misfire so you can find the offending cylinder. If you do the test in Torque Pro (or whatever) and even after driving it around and getting it to exhibit the behavior you don't see any misfires, then I'd dump the trans fluid and do new fluid and filter.
It is very possible that you're getting misfires without codes. That chassis was not required to be OBDII compliant, even though it has all of the OBDII equipment on-board. The things (like a misfire) that passenger vehicles from '96 forward that are required to set a MIL for are recorded and noted by the computer in the medium-duty chassis, but the MIL stays dark and no OBDII codes are set.
The symptoms you describe sound very much like a bad coil to me. It could be a transmission issue, but given the mileage and the prevalence of CoP failures as well as the ease of diagnosis, my recommendation would be to assume you've got a misfire. You need some sort of OBDII diagnostic interface that has the capability of running test $53. You can get a Bluetooth OBDII adapter and the Torque Pro software for your phone or tablet for very little money or you can get a good adapter plus a laptop and ForScan which is el-freebo. Personally, I like Torque Pro for driving around and I wouldn't own a Ford or Mazda without also having a good ForScan setup - but either one will work for our purposes now.
Assuming that you go for Torque Pro, get everything set up and installed, plug in the adapter, get the motor running, and from the main Torque Pro screen select "test results". It's a little bit slow, but eventually you'll be able to scroll down to find test $53. $53 is your test number and that test will have several CIDs indicating the cylinders. Those numbers are hexadecimal so 0a is equal to 10. You'll see that each CID has a Max and Current number. Ignore the Max - current is showing the number of misfire events for each CID or cylinder. You want to look in that list to see if there are any CIDs that have a large number in that "current" section.
When you do, you can prove out that it is the coil that is the problem by grabbing yourself a 7mm socket and ratchet (1/4" drive is fine) and swapping the offending coil with another one that does not show a large number of misfires. Your cylinders are numbered thusly:
FRONT OF VEHICLE
6 1
7 2
8 3
9 4
10 5
---------------------
TRANSMISSION
Coils are super simple to swap. Carefully undo the clip on the wiring harness to release the connector. Do not break the tabs. If it's cold out, hit the connector with a heat gun or hair dryer to warm up the plastic and take some of the brittleness out of it. If you break the tab it will be very difficult to keep the coil plugged in in the future, so be careful. Once the wiring is disconnected, remove the 7mm bolt (lefty-loosey) and then just pull the coil up off the plug. It should come out with its boot. Those boots are separate and can crack and also cause misfires. Inspect the boot very carefully.
Pull your coil from another (non-misfiring) cylinder in the same way and then carefully swap the boots - the only thing we want to change is the coil! Again, use heat to make everything a little more pliable and less likely to tear, crack, or break. Re-install, make sure everything is connected and the coils are bolted down - don't over-tighten the coil bolt, it's just there to keep the coil from falling out.
Start the engine up, go back to Torque Pro, reset all the counters and watch test $53 for misfires again. You should see that the misfires have moved to the cylinder with the bad coil. If that's the case, grab two new coils (they usually come with new boots). I like Bosch and Motorcraft - stay away from the no-name junk at your FLAPS. Replace our tested bad coil with one of the new ones and put the other new one along with a 7mm socket and ratchet handle in the glovebox for next time. And there will be a next time. They just do that.
It is possible that when you perform the test, the coil isn't bad enough to cause misfires at idle yet. You may need to get out and drive the rig around a bit to cause it to misfire so you can find the offending cylinder. If you do the test in Torque Pro (or whatever) and even after driving it around and getting it to exhibit the behavior you don't see any misfires, then I'd dump the trans fluid and do new fluid and filter.
wae
Well-known member
Arch Hoagland said:
It's COP, so no plug wires.
Gary RV_Wizard
Site Team
Sounds very much like a fuel delivery problem, so likely a dirty fuel filter. Replacing the filter would be a wise move on a '97 in any case, and it's not expensive if you can DIY. The COP problem is perhaps the 2nd most common thing I've heard of with the early V10's, and Wae has given advice on that.
