Really? Huh, that's weird and it certainly explains your question on the subject! I use a plain old Sears Craftsman 5/8" spark plug socket. I won't say there was a whole lot of room for it, but it slide down into the heat shields and got the plugs changed.

 

Though your last post was difficult to decipher, and, no doubt you no longer care for my 2 cents, here they are anyway.

Your prospective buy has many issues, the chief of which is the previous owner's lack of brainpower, honesty, or both.

Since Rockauto says they will only have Cardone rebuild the ECM you ship them, and you cannot verify that the Ecm is even the correct one for your prospective vehicle, I'd walk away. If the PO handed you the original ECM it would be a different story.

Now part of you already doesn't believe his story about the ECM being for a 6 cylinder, Otherwise why would you be looking at the plugs? I see the obvious issue with a six cylinder computer expecting info from the crank sensor, and is seeing 2 more pulses per revolution and is not firing off the fuel injectors in the correct pattern. Perhaps it is filling the intake with enough gas to still allow the cylinders to pull in enough mixture to ignite. Perhaps it will run with a 6 cylinder ECM, just poorly.

As you stated, you can fix one thing, only to find out that it has another or other multiple issues. If the PO thought that he could sort them out easily enough, he would have done so. Instead he offered the vehicle up for sale for a very low price, to get rid of his problem.

The PO is eager enough to sell his problem that he is allowing you near his headache with a tool set. Perhaps he is hoping you will break off a spark plug in the head, or otherwise claim you've caused the issues with it, trying to force you to buy his headache.

While the possibility exists you can indeed get a good running vehicle out of this for a great price, I believe it is slim, and urge you to keep looking for something that you can verify is in running condition.

 

i do appreciate your input land yacht, especially the effort you went to with the video and some of the other in depth input. i do not particularly like to be called an idiot. i doubt many people do.
i got the plugs out with a different plug wrench.
the guy buys vehicles and sells them (part time dealer and yes i checked his license) this is an off lease van from a local utility (i recognize the paint scheme) one of the reasons to pull the plugs is to check compression since it doesnt "run" i wanted to check as many things as possible. i didnt just expect to pull the plugs and find an answer, it was one of many things i did, like testing the tps, battery, asd relay, etc etc etc. but one of the only things i had a question about. as time goes on i do learn a thing or two. i jumped the fuel pump straight to the battery and started right up. wont drive but once up to operating temp it will run enough to test reverse and drive with some throttle feathering. runs richer than bill gates! no smoke at the exhaust but the breather cap pushes black smoke and when i pulled the dip stick it was smoking. plugs turned dry black instantly. i dont know why things changed when i jumped the fuel pump wire but besides the rich smoke it idles and doesnt overheat (couldnt get it hot enough to open up the thermostat and temp gauge went up to around 160 and stopped).

when presented with a situation in which i am unfamiliar i think it prudent to ask. hence the original post about the computer. and yes i never trust a used car salesman. but that doesnt always mean they are out to get you.

 

I didn't mean to infer you were an idiot, sorry you took it that way. It's just a how do I remove the spark plugs? type question is humorous. I am not familiar with magnum engines or the heatshields around the plugs. My bad.

I have seen too many utility vans be driven like they were stolen. The employees simply do not care about the vehicles longevity, nor the mileage they get. I would not get one. When I was looking for junkyard axles, I went to a pull a part, and took the diff cover off a utility van and gray sludge trickled out. It had 136,000 miles.

Seeing as how the current owner does not have any real interest in anything but turning a profit, that he has no idea of the historical maintenance, that the thing has significant enough blow by to push black smoke out the breather and dipstick, should have you running from this vehicle.

 

yes i have seen some righteous driving in the commercial vehicle industry as well and have thought about that. given the actual condition of the vehicle in appearance, interior shape, shocks zero play in the steering, tire wear etc, it appears that someone did some care on the vehicle. and yes this guy is trying to make a buck that is why he has a yard full of cars that have had very little work done to them from the auction. one of those buy it and ship it home and sell it as is types. when i bought the 94 from the plumbing company it was along these same lines although as a stated earlier there were a few more things wrong than they stated but that 94 v6 drove like mad the a/c froze me out and if it wasnt for the fact that i have to move trailers around all the time to my customers (ripped out 2 rear ends) i never would have replaced it with this dead @ss 89 that is the bane of my existance. yes the black smoke kind of took me by surprise but as i said it was running rich and there is the computer problem. i guess i didnt see it as a serious thing until now that you mention it. now i have to wonder in my mind what causes exhaust to back up into an engine like that. if the exhaust or converter was plugged up would it do that? thanks for the advice.

 

The black smoke is not from exhaust gases backing up the pipe due to a clogged catcon. It is likely a result of excessively worn piston rings or cylinder walls allowing blow-by.

This can be confirmed by doing a compression check then squirting oil into the cylinder and doing the test again. Called a leak down test. The oil allows less air to get squeezed through the rings and will read higher compression. I guess an exhaust valve can be worn as well allowing exhaust gases into the block. Perhaps the PCV valve is clogged as well. It should suck these gases back into the intake.

 

It can take more than your surprise, it can take extra money out of your pocket. A poorly running, or rich running engine dumps excessive unburnt fuel into the exhaust system that in turn quickly destroys the catalytic converter. So just keep in mind that you could end up having to change the cat.

 

Alloro, he said the black smoke was not coming out the exhaust pipe, but the oil dipstick tube and the crankcase breather valve. I think he would appreciate your opinions on the likely causes of these symptoms.

 

Ooooooooh. In that case, one of the pistons is cracked or has a hole in the top of it.

 

lucy got some splaining to do..................very interesting observation. i was going to do down there one more time tomorrow and retest the comp dry/wet/running to test landyachts theory on bad valves/rings ect. and to test the fuel pressure with the pump hotwired. and the only reason being is i found what i believe to be an exact match ecm for dirt cheap as a core to have cardone rebuild. i may have gotten lucky on determining the right part number. anyway now to think of cracked anything gives me pause. been there and cracked that one time to many.