I broke my 4.0 ... Its in the shop now.. I was playing with my headlights for too long and ran my batt to low to start, so i hooked it up to a battery jump starter... It didn't work very good so it was just cranking.. I think it flooded... Let it sit over night bc It wouldn't start a half hour later.. battery was charged.. then the next day it started.. but it was... Really rough.. I drove it around for like an hour but everytime I came to a stop I could feel the motor shaking violently and stroking slow and out of order... Almost brings tears to the eye...

 

Any guesses to what happened.

 

Its a 99

 

I read somewhere that when the battery runs down on these that the engine runs rough and won't idle for a while and I guess 'Magically' works itself out. I just had to recharge my battery due to a bad switch killing the battery, sure enough it was hell getting it started, I had to resort to some old school Carburated tricks of tapping the gas pedal while cranking, it eventually started, but then I had to keep tapping the gas to keep it running.

Anyway after I drove it around for a while, it seemed to work out it's problems and idles fine now.

-bob

 

It was having quite a bit of smoke out the tailpipe and reeked of gas. I'm assiming I flooded it out and damaged something in that process. Or damaged a computer module with the engine start mode on the batt charger? And sound likely?

 

In my non-expert opinion either one is possible, but I would think if you left the charger in jump mode too long it would harm your battery but shouldn't impact motor operability.

If it flooded and is running rough, I would give it a day or two, but maybe a quick check of the spark plugs may be worthwhile.

 

Running the battery that low will kill an old lead acid. They undergo an irreversible chemical change at that point. Try another battery