Ricky_s

(I posted this in the general forum, since anyone who has experience with engines can help me with this.)

Hey guys,

I have a 2000 Ford E350 Eco Van. it's petrol and I was thinking of putting in a diesel engine, but 360ci, helped me with this. There is too much modification involved in swapping a diesel with a gas engine. The cost of this would be more than the vehicle itself.

The problem: the spark plug came out of the head, I took it to the mechanic, He used helicoil. The plug stayed in for only about 2 months, after that the helix tap came out along with the spark-plug. So I drove the van without getting this fixed. I'm not sure what I did, but I managed to fit the spark-plug in there but it never fired. So now my van was only firing 7 cylinders.

This was a year ago. I didn't drive the van that much, but I drove it enough to make the problem worse.

Now the acceleration is really slow. the van struggles to go over 80km/h. It starts to vibrate a bit when it goes over 70km/h and when i let go of the pedal, the vibration stops.

Here is the video
The engine vibrates a lot. I thought the engine mounts were worn out, so they needed to be replaced, but the mechanic said that the vibration is because the engine is unbalanced, since one cylinder wasn't firing.

He also said, that I would need a new cylinder head, since this one can no longer be re threaded. I looked at wreck yards (online) and cheapest I could find was $200. So it will be that plus a lot of labor. He would need to dismantle the whole thing to take out the engine.

If I can't do anything about the engine, I'll use this van as storage. So I'm up to try something.

I didn't get a chance to ask him, but would it be possible to cut the fuel to the opposite cylinder to balance it?



I looked at the firing sequence, 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8.

Now is the "Front" from the front of the vehicle (engine fan) or is it referring to the flywheel?



Also I'm nowhere near being a mechanic, so my knowledge is limited in this field. Forgive me if some of the things I mentioned seem stupid