EGR Valve and TPS Replacement 7th Week On The Road
The Trip That's Needed The Most Repairs.
We're in our seventh week of travel and will be home soon. This trip has required constant repair to the truck and camper. Let's review the list. For starters, the new tire I bought from Discount tire still leaks 5 pounds air pressure daily, meaning I have to refil the tire every day or two. Next was the water pump going out causing a boil over of the engine. That event I'm sure caused some head gasket failure but I'll address that when I get home. We had #2 fuel injector fail, recall I had just installed all new Delphi injectors and NGK Ignition coils before leaving. We had the left side of the TC cabover blow out while driving I15 near Amarillo. Roadside repairs got that back together. All those tools and spare parts I carry paid off fixing that. The truck began running rough and gave me codes for the O2 sensors and MAF Sensor. I replaced.those in a NAPA parking lot in Albuquerque. The truck ran great for a while and shockingly, we got 12.6 MPG for 1 tank of fuel. It has since dropped back down to 8.5 which is still better than it was. After leaving Albuquerque, driving throygh the Navaho reservation, we developed a coolant leakout of the right rear intake manifold gasket. It did not stop with tightening the bolts. At this point, I said heck with it, and poured in a bottle of Bars Leak copper leak stop and it seemed tyo work, the leak has stopped. So now we find ourselves in the Boise area of Idaho getting codes of failure of the new O2 sensors and the O2 sensor heating elements. I decided it must be something else so I decided to change the EGR Valve and Throttle Position sensor. I also put hose clamps on the EGR hose since it fit losely and was likely leaking air which could possibly contribute to erroneous measurement signals to the computer. I also noticed fins in the throttlebody gadket. I researched the fins and found others had removed them to increase airflow into the engine. I decide to perform this modification to the gasket and I find a slight performance improvement. The only other thing was others noticed hearing a slight air sound when accelerating which I noticed and am not bothered with. So we are now on the last leg of the trip, let's see if we can make it home with no further events.
