I have a 1992 E350 with a 351 Windsor engine in an RV. Leaving the campground, went over a large speed bump, engine died. My question is, when an Inertia Switch triggers do your dash lights come on like a regular engine stall? Because no lights came on in my RV. I'm a woman alone in this RV and I'm old and a little bit hesitant to take it back on the highway until I can figure this problem out.

Any opinions would be welcome. Thanks

 

Welcome to the site..

The inertia will only interrupt the fuel pump and shut the engine down from lack of fuel delivery. All other lamps etc would be as normal. Generally to trip the inertia it takes a fairly substantial impact. The inertia would also need to be manually reset if it tripped. So,, it restated after some sit time? Panel indicators came back on? It sounds like a power distribution interruption...

 

Okay a power distribution problem, I can work with that, I got an ammeter coming on Monday and I'll start testing everything. Thank you very much for your input.

 

So,, when it died, did you ‘cycle’ the ignition key off/on and it restarted immediately? Depending on how you answer questions may help us give you some direction.

 

yes I turned off the ignition tried to restart it cranked for about 15 seconds, no start, tried that about three times and then decided to wait about 5 or 10 minutes. after about 10 minutes it would start again and I would put it in drive it would drive about 50 to 100 feet and then died again. Using this method I finally got it into an empty parking lot. I then test drove it around and around backing up going over bumps all sorts of things and it seemed to run fine. So I held my breath and drove the eight miles back to the campground and parked it.

 

Some of the tests are a little difficult to do with only one person especially if you are not sure where to go.
When we get a NO START condition we usually try to eliminate if it is a fuel supply problem or an electrical problem, which can affect fuel supply.
We remove one of the spark plug wires from the easiest plug to reach , place a screwdriver in the plug end and place the driver close (1/4 in away) to an engine ground. Then jump the starter relay with the key on and see if any spark is present when the engine is cranking over. If so , we know it should not be an ign problem..Then we try to see if fuel is getting to the cyls. The best way to do that is to remove one of the spark plugs and look at the end to see if it is wet. If wet , engine could be flooded and if dry no fuel is getting to cyls and now we need to check further to determine why.
The present problem appears to be intermittent and whatever checks you do now, will reveal nothing because the engine started and you were able to drive it home.
What you can do is; look for any connections going to the ign coil and see if any are loose.There are other tests you might do , but you will need to wait until it won't start to perform them. I'm sure someone will offer addl checks you might try and that is fine. Do you have any questions relating to what was suggested so far?

 

I think I've got it. The ignition switch fuse was not seated properly it was kind of cocked. And that makes logical sense because if it disconnected intermittently none of the dash lights would come on and the engine would die.

I will however pack everything up in my RV tomorrow and drive around the park for about an hour just to check and see.

Thanks everyone for all your input it helped me narrow it down and gave me ideas to check.