My 19 yr old son’s 1994 Ford Explorer would crank but not start. 2 months ago we had the cam shaft sensor replaced. To shorten the story, I took the air flow plastic piece off and found a pencil lead size hole on the air flow sensor end and covered it with “Duct Tape”. It still would not crank. While the son was cranking the engine, I tapped the air flow sensor lightly with a screw driver and it started and has run just fine for two days. Question, does the air flow sensor need to be replaced or should we continue to occasionally tap it?
It sounds like there is a problem with the mass airflow sensor. I would definitely remove the duct tape since it can only make matters worse, especially if it gets sucked into the engine. Fords usually won’t run with a bad mass airflow sensor, so by tapping on that part and getting it to start, you pretty well narrowed the problem down to that part. Eventually, tapping it won’t work, so you definitely need to replace it soon.
Thanks for the quick post. I will order and replace the Mass air flow sensor soon. I plan to also replace the plastic air flow “tube” between the mass air flow sensor and the inlet to the throttle position sensor. The son travels quite far so it would be best to replace it before going 200 miles to tow it home.
maxfrench