Well whtie in some places, orange and purple others, so its going bad internally. Cylinders are either being flooded or too lean maybe at this point. Cant know which of your suggestions is true or false till i try fluid.
Just to start I donāt know anything and would have said what is the harm in just replacing the coil? Donāt know if I got the right engine or not but did some YouTubing and one guy showing how just taking the balancer bolt out can screw the timing up. Big procedure timing it again. With piston at tic, holding rod on camshaft and bolt indicating flat spot on crank.
So I just fear the timing is off and would check the book again for the procedure. Myself Iād probably try the coil then tow it to a shop for timing. Sorry. The only other thing mentioned was to clean the negative terminal and connections and check the fuses.
I hope Iām all wet. I did a chain before and it was just lining up the gears so this engine is different. The bent ring has me a little curious too.
Just saying is all:
The model duratec 2.5 in the cougar I have doesnt have the balancer out of position issue. Its crank has a normal single keyway. Its just some of the gears have 2 keyway slots (like mine) and some dont. Luck of the production line. I appreciate the help though!
edit: money is tight atm with the baby coming and so Im diagnosing as cheap as possible. I can get a new coil after it at least fires.
a very bad practiceā¦causing damage to pistons ā¦eventually blowing the top
s off them
So, I undid the bellows, (fuel relay still pulled) and opened the throttle blade. I sprayed starting fluid into the intake for 3 seconds (per instructions) and it started, ran like dog crap for 2 seconds then shut off. When I cranked it up again twice it backfired out the exhaust both times. Sooo timing?
Here is a pic of a wheel just like mine. Up until a good look a minute ago I thought both keyways were in a straight line to each other. Butt one is offset from the other. It hurts my brain to mentally rotate the wheel to see where the gap would then be.
Thee gap liined up with TDC when the piston was pretty much at full up stroke, so I dunno.
Donāt look at me. What do I know? Wouldnāt be the first time a guy has to go back in again and re-do oneās work. Just gotta look at experience gained and always faster the second or third time.
Fuel pump disconnected so may have continued to run lousy with fuel? Spark is at least good enough to fire the starting fluid, but backfires usually say timing?
See what tester, Keith,ok440 though have to say. Most everyone has been there and itās frustrating. Some of us were lucky enough to have someone come help, but now there is the internet.
Story: about 1968 I put new points in my vw. Crank crank no start. Couldnāt figure it out and had to have the dang thing running to get the 200 miles back to school. Friend of dads came up and in two minutes oh youāve got the washer on the wire to the distrib wrong and itās grounding out. Started right up. A for effort.
Ive been plug testing exhausted so first im checking firing order. Might have cylinders swapped, but somehow I doubt it. Not that lucky! At this point a load of circumstantial evidence points to the wheel being off, otherwise iām stumped yet again. I thiink ill fab up a cardboard wheel as a visual aid until the others give 2 cents.
Theres also this 
:Backfiring when attempt to start with starting fluid | Toyota Nation Forum
And from the crow eaters mouth, yours truly, this:
Spacecataz
Well you have to remove a lot of components to change the cover but yeah just gaskets and the wheel. Its possible but that would mean 180 out on the wheel and hella backfiring when cranking id think?
Had a similar problem on my truck one time. In that case engine ran, but poorly. The clue: I noticed the dash-board amp-meter was showing severe current drain.
Story gets more funny if interested. As soon as I noticed the current drain guage, the engine stalled out completely, truck in middle of busy intersection. Bicycle rider happened along, saw I was having problems, got off his bike and he & I pushed truck into nearby church parking lot. I thanked him before realizing truck was now blocking church parking lot entrance. Truck has to be pushed slightly uphill about 10 feet to get it into parking spot. Too steep, I canāt do it by myself. Church goer comes along, I ask if heād help me push truck 10 feet to the parking spot, he say āno!ā Iām thinking this isnāt what I expect to hear from a church goer ā¦lol ā¦ eventually he rescinded his ānoā and helped me push, but wasnāt happy about it.
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Heh heh. You can lead a horse to water but canāt make him drink. In college we read th book the comfortable pew.
Could the backfire and turd run be from the fluid too? can said 3 secs max, maybe a puff with weak spark was instead the right amount? Ive seen cars run rich that backfired as the car was turning off.
If youāre completely ignorant and empty the can into the intake before starting, you are going to do some damage. Fortunately, the vast majority of people read and understand instructions or are just not that ignorant in the first place. Present company excepted apparently.
Unsurprisingly, the OP has managed to do it without your world ending prediction as have many thousands of people over the years.
Yes, the backfire could have been the result of the fluid. I would concentrate on the weak spark issue at this point. A good ignition system with the starter fluid will usually result in a brief run of the engine without stumble or back fire. From your results, I would resume looking at the ignition.
Every instinct in me says the reluctor is the problem.
Where is the reluctor mounted? The video above is a 4 cylinder engine, yours should be the duratec V6.
The reluctor looks like it only goes on one way, unless you put it on upside down.
It should have three coil packs so it is a lost spark ignition which means it cannot fire 180 out because it fires on every TDC, not just the compression stroke.
Edit: Looks like you subscribe to the Red Green philosophy of automotive technology. If it aināt broke, keep fixing it until it is.
I just ordered a coil last night. If nothing else, should remove it as the problem. I also need a better multimeter with more ohm selections. Mine is decent, but the auto ranging isā¦ wonky. The new wires when measured for resistance measured .595 ohms.
The spark plug wires should measure about 4-6 kohms. The resistance of the wires helps shape the pulse of the spark to yield the maximum energy. Very low resistance wires are for racing engines that use a different ignition system designed for that low resistance.
The wheel sits on a flat spot on the crank end. its held in position by 2 key ways, one askew from the other (one the balancer also uses) and is held in when the balancer is pressed in against it.
I whipped this up. The left is the way I have it with the gap lining up with the star (crank sensor) at tdc and the keyways where they are irl. The right, how it would look if you swapped keyways. If you could swap them at all with the one askew. Either way the right the gap position at tdc would be anyones guess.
I disagree im a parts changer or w/e slight that was. the coil has weak windings and is 23 years old.
im aware. not my first rodeo but it is my first ford!
edit: low resistance wires arent just for racing engines. In fact most modern 8mm wires can have hundreds of ohms a foot resistance and are sold as stock wires. Wires have come a long way since yellow accels in the early 90ās.
That wasnāt a slight. If you ever lived in the Northern tier of the country, there was a popular show on Canadian PBS called the Red Green Show. It was kinda funny. He had other sayings like āIf it aināt broke, fix it some moreā and āIf women donāt find you handsome, then they should find you handyā.
I did not mean to offend you. If I wanted to offend you, it wouldnāt be slight.
But back to your problem, do you have the V-6 or the 4 cylinder engine. From what I have gathered, the 4 cylinder has the reluctor on the back of the crank pulley. The V-6 must have it else where because I watched video on replacing the belt on the V-6 and it did not have a reluctor on the back side of the crank pulley.
I know red green. (the skit where he uses aluminum sheet to make tank treads is my favorite) I also know salt. Regardless, as stated in the thread a few places I have the v6 with the internal wheel. Why do you ask? I gave a pretty good post about its design above. You might have missed it, its a hectic thread. Its post #36
And to add to that, here is an oem diagram from ford.
I tried swapping the keyways in photoshop, and it cant be swapped. Its not the wheel, shew!
Butā¦ remember when i said I was exhausted (18 hour shifts man I tell ya) when checking spark? Well I just checked and I had a 2 swapped. Explains the missfire and backfire with the last test I thinkā¦