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This is a 2005 base T & C. I bought it about a year ago, and did the fuel injector cleaning at that time with no bad effects. I also installed a bottle of Sea Foam on the way home Sunday.

 

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I poured the bottle of Techron in, and immediately filled the fuel tank up. BTW, these minivans have a plastic fuel tank...And now I'm down to less than 1/2 of a tank and it's still running like a dog crapping razor blades..I am going to the North American International Auto Show in downtown Detroit tomorrow, so working on the van will have to wait till Thursday. Thanks for all your responses. I've been watching youtube videos on replacing the rear spark plugs (which the PO said he never did) and on fuel injector replacement. On my previous van, removal of the air cleaner box made it easier to get to the #1 and #3 spark plugs. I had a 2003 T & C. It committed suicide on a deer.

 

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The injectors you suggested from Ebay are for a 3.8. I have a 3.3. Thanks, anyway.

 

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The ones I removed did not look new. There was a buildup of hardened grease on the porcelain that the plug boot did not cover, and on the wrench flats which I removed with a hand wire brush, and brushed the threads before applying the anti seize. The center electrode looked OK, and the side electrode did not look too worn. The plugs were Autolite Iridiums. It is also possible I got a bad tank of fuel, too. A lot of possible variables here...

 

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Today I am going to fill the van up with (I hope) fresh fuel. And run it for a while, then disconnect battery cable for 5 min or so, and see what that does. If it's no better, remove the fuel injectors and take them over to a service in Jackson, MI that renovates injectors for $20 each. The weather is going to be very nice today, (sunny and 53F).

 

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Well, I filled it up with fresh Marathon fuel, and after 7-8 miles it's not running any better. I'm going to disconnect the battery momentarily and see if that works. If not, I'm removing the injectors.

 

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So yesterday I removed my injectors and 2 of the rear spark plugs. The plugs had the center electrodes burned down below the porcelain. They were Champions, maybe original? I could not get the center rear plug out then because the metal clip from the plug boot had pulled out of the boot and left itself attached to the tip of the plug, and a plug socket would not fit down over it where the plug would come out. Today I had to use a pair of small vice grips to clamp on to the metal clip, and yanked it off the end of the plug. The plug that came out was horrible. The side electrode was burned down about 1/4 of its length. I have never seen plugs so worn out as these! And it still got 25 mpg going down the highway. I have ordered 3 new Autolite Iridiums to match the plugs in the front cylinders, they will be arriving Monday afternoon. I also bought a new set of plug wires, a new PCV valve. and gaskets for the EGR tube ends that sits on top of the upper manifold. I vacuumed out the valley on the engine, and cleaned the fuel injector holes in the manifold with q wire brush, with the vacuum running, then swabbed the holes down with some carb cleaner and Q tips. The PO had been too lazy to remove the old coil when it died, so he just laid the new coil on top of it, and put a big tywrap around both to hold it. Apparently he did not know about the 10MM nut under the power steering reservoir that can just be loosened and allows the reservoir to be slid up and out of the way. My rebuilt injectors are supposed to arrive Thursday Feb 1. I guess it'll just sit till then.

 

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I took pics of the spark plugs, and since I have never posted pics on this site, being a technoboob, I can't see how to do that...

 

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Today I picked up he parts that came in, the 3 new Autolite Iridium spark plugs, the gaskets for the upper intake manifold, and a PCV valve. I put anti seize on the plugs and installed them, along with the 3 remaining plug wires. I swabbed dielectric grease inside the plug boots, and the coil boots before attaching them. Now I'm battling the PCV valve. It doesen't want to come out. I watched a couple of Youtube videos, but no one had an effective way to remove it. It seems the rubber it seats into hardens up, and it's hard to get enough leverage to pull it up and out. I'm thinking of heating the area up with my heat gun, and see how that works. It is pretty cold now, but it's supposed to be around 40F tomorrow.

 

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Yesterday I spent working on extracting the PCV valve. I sprayed it with some Silikroil, and let it sit for a while. Then I set my heat gun to where it was blowing on the tube that holds the PCV and tried to leverage it up with a variety of pliers. As I was destroying the tube on top of the valve, I finally got my Vicegrips out, and added some more Silikroil, and after a while it popped out. But when it did, it left 1/2 the rubber collar down inside the tube. I pried at it with a small screwdriver, and succeeded in having the collar drop down the tube into the top of the rocker arm cover. AAAARRRRGGGGHHH! Now what? Well, I strolled down to the pole barn (for about the thousandth time) and got my grabber, a tool that looks like a speedometer cable with a push button (spring loaded) in one end, and grabber claws on the other end that open up when you push the button. I stuck it down the hole and fished around, and on the first try, I grabbed the piece and pulled it right up out of there! I was fortunate! The new PCV valve just pushed right in, no problem. Then, later on, the fuel injectors arrived, and I installed them, first squirting some Silikroil down each injector hole, and putting some on each upper O ring. The one fun part is tightening the 10MM nut on the bottom of the power steering reservoir. It would help if I had 3 hands for this job as I had to hold the mirror to see the nut, then push the socket back over the nut. I finally got that done. Then I remembered I had snapped a vacuum line that goes to the right end of the upper intake manifold, so I have to get another one today. Also when I went to reinstall the metal tube for the EGR valve to the upper intake manifold I discovered the parts store had given me the wrong gaskets. I have to take them back and see if I can get the right ones, also. I did get most of the project back together, I just have to install the throttle cables, EGR tube, and the vacuum line, positive battery cable, and I'm good to go. I'm glad the injectors came yesterday as it's getting really cold today.

 

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Well, long story short, after spending many hours and over $150 on her, when I fired her up, she ran exactly like she did before I did a thing. It's now 9F outside and I need to think about my next move. I had Autozone put the OBD2 sensor on it, and showed I forgot to plug in the IATS, which I immediately corrected (easy), and shows a "miss". Obviously something else happened unrelated to the fuel injection cleaner being added. AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

 

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Any thoughts???

 

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The miss is steady from idle all up the RPM range. 1 or 2 cylinders are not doing their thing.

 

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Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. Air filter element looks clean. I checked yesterday the plug wire routing and seated all the coil terminals. I had installed a complete set of 6 rebuilt fuel injectors. I think I remember one of the front spark plugs looking a little damp compared to all the rest, maybe #2 or #4. It's not too hard to pull those 2 and look at them again. Looking at some Youtube videos, it seems a broken wire in the fuel injection system happens sometimes. My cousin has an automotive stethoscope I think I could borrow. (You can hear the pintle in the injector clicking when the engine is idling and the injector is working.) Or maybe it could be the coil? Coil is $25 on Ebay, or $45-50 locally. Plus, this van does not have a Schrader valve on or near the fuel rail, so I don't know how you would monitor fuel pressure. I had to remove an injector over a pan to relieve fuel pressure. Another thing I did while it was apart was to clean the throttle body backside.

 

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4 more bits of info. This is a base model Town and Country (shorty). And I tried the key off and on trick and nothing but the mileage displayed on the odometer. And when I put the anti seize on the plug threads, I used a very small amount, so none could get where it shouldn't be. The code from Autozone was PO138.

 

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It misses from an idle up to any speed...

 

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OK, did the key dance, and it kicked out a PO113, then donE.

 

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I had the wife run the engine while I watched. Pulled the #6 plug wire off the coil and it seemed to make no difference, no spark jumping off the coil post. But when I pulled the #2 and #4 plug wires off the coil, 1 at a time. The engine ran worse and a large spark jumped off the coil to ground each time. I also put a wood handle to each front injector and by putting it to my ear was able to hear each injector clicking (triggering). It does not seem #6 is getting spark from the coil, could a coil fail like this?

 

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So, atoman, you're saying with this waste spark system, 2 cylinders are getting spark each time one of them is firing? If that's so, then maybe both of the coil terminals on the right side of the coil are not firing. It really seems like it's running on 4. It is gutless and vibrates a lot. It would seem that #3 and #6 might share spark? When I pulled the plug wire off the coil terminal on #6, there was no spark jumping anywhere. When I did the same to #s 2 & 4, each had a large spark arcing to ground