Stymied By Stall in 1st Gear/Down Hill - 1999 E350/7.3L

[arctictraveller]

Originally Posted by JWA

Twoxentricx's point is perfect timing for me to suggest everyone with any sort of "adventure van" should frequently check under their hood for issues as he describes. During oil changes etc remove the dog house and any other part of the factory build in order to do a thorough inspection of anything critical to the engine's proper operation or affects reliability.) I myself will remove the dog house and all the air intake ducting (gasoline 5.4) back to the throttle body. I'm looking for chafed, melted, cut or other wiring maladies.

Great advice, had I done that after having the plugs replaced, I might have noticed that the mechanic left the PCV valve out of the valve cover, causing a vacuum leak and a check engine light that halted my trip for a couple days. Going one step further, my next big preventative maintenance work will be to replace almost all the sensors. They all work fine now, but with 180K miles, they are well beyond their recommended replacement interval (100K miles) Like JWA, I really don't want to be broken down somewhere far off the pavement when a sensor gives up the ghost.

[RLC85]

Check your transmission speed signal converter, I had these issues right after my conversion. The speed signal from the new transfer case sensor is converted to the original van signal and controls the lockup on the transmission torque converter. If your torque converter locks at too low of a speed it will stall the engine

[Vanzila]

Originally Posted by Gardner

I was wondering if anyone has experienced a problem that I have run into about three or four times with my 1999 E350, 7.3L. When driving a steep downhill in low/1st gear (in 2wheel or 4wheel drive), without any pressure on the accelerator, the engine stalls. It's happened often enough to make me gun shy about taking it off-road until I figure it out.

I have checked it out with our mechanic but they can't reproduce the conditions to assess the stall. I was wondering if anyone had experienced this and/or have any insights? Thanks!

This has happened to my 96. 5.8L It was a Vacuum leak. Check everything. Good luck