Hey Guys,
After a year of on again off again searching for the mysterious problem (lossing power, backfire, and not running after warm up) in my 95 5.2 4x4 I finally eliminated all possibilities accept the crank position sensor. So went to change out with a new one and found that when I had the brilliant guys at our local AAMCO who rebuilt my tranny managed to pinched the wire to the crank sensor between the bellhousing and tranny, figured i was this far went ahead and put in new sensor. Now I have no fire at all, is it possible new sensor is bad and is there anyway to test them. Thanks again for your help wouldn't have got this far without you.

 

I suppose there is always a chance you can get a DOA part but, my bet is on the pinched wire. I'll bet when you moved it to plug it onto the new sensor, you finished the break in the wire, now you have no connection at all. Unless, of course you took that into consideration and cut and spliced the wire, then my theory is down the toilet.

 

Na the pinched part was actually part of the sensor assembly so by putting on the new one it replaced anything that would have been damaged.

 

Not to sound like an a**, but did you plug it in?

 

No Offense taken Wood, yea its plugged in I stepped away for a day and went back with fresh eyes looking for the possible obvious solution, but no luck, gonna try splicing the wire on the old sensor that would at least let the truck fire and give it a shot, at least that would give me something to go by if it works.

 

Just wondering, where did you get the sensor? i work at car quest and I see people all the time buy bad sensors for autozone? If you did get them from autozone i would return it and try napa or car quest.

 

Bought mine from Autozone a couple of months ago. Still works fine.

 

Yea it did come from Autozone, finally got some time off so will know by the end of the day if thats it or not will let all know

 

Your right to take a day away and start fresh. As far as testing it:

A: Check for spark as it is now. No spark then proceed to B.

B: Change crank sensor and repeat spark check.

C: If no spark then check #1 plug and wire, cap for burns, rotor for wear, then coil (resistance) Although, you should do these before B.

D: If still no spark, check engine grounding (use the battery resistance method).

E: Final check is ECU (codes/pin check).

After that then I would assume that you have more than one problem. In answer to bad "new" things, yes, the manufacturing error has exponentially increased since the 70's so a faulty sensor could be defective, however, two faulty new sensors is unlikely (not impossible, but unlikely). Thanks big business for our disposable economy, not to mention the outsourcing of labor.

 

Pulled out the "new" sensor, it was obviously an 1/8 in too long, crank gave it a good smack and it broke. Sliced wires on old sensor and truck now is back to original problem, runs fine until it warms up to normal operating temp and then starts throwing its fit (missfiring and backfiring no power won't idle ) so going to try and locate another crank sensor and try it unless someone has a better solution or idea. Is it possible for the crank sensor to have a partial failure, theres obviously more than on output from it there's three wires coming from it, don't know just guessing here