Dryer Vent Tubing for Intake Tubing
I avoided a near disaster on my most recent trip to Lake Tahoe climbing over the pass on highway 50 that I thought I would share with you all...
To start, I purchased my 7.3 F350 about two years ago from a guy who used it to pull a race car in a 32ft gooseneck trailer. He was the engine builder of the car and he also invested lots of time into the truck adding various after market parts and "tweaks". This being my first truck, looking under the hood revealed nothing special to me other than a somewhat dusty engine bay. I've driven approximately 15,000 miles since the purchase with no major problems.
When coming over the pass to Lake Tahoe, I noticed that the truck sounded strangely different than I was used to. It wasn't a huge difference but something just enough to make me wonder. I safely made it to camp and didn't think about it again until we decided to drive into town and I noticed the same odd sound. I opened the hood and found that the intake tubing going from the air filter to the turbo housing had come part.
What I realized is that the previous owner had attempted to move the air filter farther forward to get some "fresher" air and used what appears to be a vinyl dryer vent tubing (with the spiral wire running through it) to do the job. The glue that kept the vinyl wrapped had come apart in the heat and the thing had completely opened up. Where I got lucky is that a portion of the vinyl had actually started being sucked into the turbo. When I pulled it out, there were frayed edges where it appears the turbo had been nicking it. When I realized what was going on, I removed all of the tubing and had to jerry rig the air filter directly to the turbo housing (to be fixed later with proper tubing).
I was fortunate this time that the previous owner's cheap trick didn't cost me an engine.
To start, I purchased my 7.3 F350 about two years ago from a guy who used it to pull a race car in a 32ft gooseneck trailer. He was the engine builder of the car and he also invested lots of time into the truck adding various after market parts and "tweaks". This being my first truck, looking under the hood revealed nothing special to me other than a somewhat dusty engine bay. I've driven approximately 15,000 miles since the purchase with no major problems.
When coming over the pass to Lake Tahoe, I noticed that the truck sounded strangely different than I was used to. It wasn't a huge difference but something just enough to make me wonder. I safely made it to camp and didn't think about it again until we decided to drive into town and I noticed the same odd sound. I opened the hood and found that the intake tubing going from the air filter to the turbo housing had come part.
What I realized is that the previous owner had attempted to move the air filter farther forward to get some "fresher" air and used what appears to be a vinyl dryer vent tubing (with the spiral wire running through it) to do the job. The glue that kept the vinyl wrapped had come apart in the heat and the thing had completely opened up. Where I got lucky is that a portion of the vinyl had actually started being sucked into the turbo. When I pulled it out, there were frayed edges where it appears the turbo had been nicking it. When I realized what was going on, I removed all of the tubing and had to jerry rig the air filter directly to the turbo housing (to be fixed later with proper tubing).
I was fortunate this time that the previous owner's cheap trick didn't cost me an engine.
