When it comes to old cars, one has to pretty much accept the idea that they will be constantly working on them. It don't matter if its an old school/classic muscle car or other collector car or just a late model POS modern car with beau coup miles, work will need to be done. After playing around with the old Monte Carlo's brakes, now its time to revisit an ongoing issue with the ole lady's Chevy Tracker that she uses for doing her GrubHub food delivery.
This vehicle has had some issues that have plagued us since we had the car/truck. Since one of the catalytic converters was known to be shitty the thing has tripped a couple of codes pertaining to "catalyst efficiency" or some shit like that, and the system running lean, which is triggering the ECU to fire the fuel injectors more to compensate, even though it really isn't necessary, which is really creating a rich condition now. Well with the excess driving that is being done with this vehicle, what was an otherwise innocuous problem is now becoming more pronounced. At times the vehicle will be hard to start, especially when warm and when it does start it'll idle shitty for a minute, sometimes stalling, and requiring restarting and playing with the throttle to get things to level off to a point where it can be driven. Anyhoo, I had to look at that problem, plus the problem with a leaky coolant tube that runs along the driver's side of the cylinder head. The tube enters into a port on the back of the engine where an O-ring separates the tube from the engine. This O-ring is what's leaking. Also, prior to this, I had to change out the camshaft sensor again since the truck was doing the shit where it would be hard to start when warm. In the past we would find ourselves either letting the engine cool a few minutes prior to trying to start again, or even pouring water over the cam sensor to cool it down rapidly. A preventative measure we would use was to open the hood every time the vehicle is stopped to let the heat escape from the engine bay. It worked, for the most part. We did change the cam sensor sometimes later in the summer but as a preventative measure, we invoked the warranty and just got another cam sensor to see if that would help remedy the problem. It really didn't. At the same time we got the cam sensor we went ahead and matched up a replacement O-ring using a spare coolant tube that I had in storage from a junkyard Tracker. The next day I pulled the coolant tube from the truck and replaced the O-ring, no sweat, I wasn't really worried about this shit. In the meantime I decided to do a few little things to see if I can fix this problem. The first thing was pull the mass air flow sensor and clean it out using some leftover spray cleaner I had. The second thing I did was use some leftover throttle body cleaner and spray that out and wipe some of the carbon buildup I noticed. I also had to tie the battery to the side as its excessive movement caused the wire I had plugged to a relay for the cooling fan to keep getting pulled out. I also did a test with the fuel pressure regulator. In order to test this component the only thing I could do was pull the vacuum line from the regulator itself and see what kind of reaction the engine gave. When I did this, the only reaction I got was a slight change from the vacuum leak that I created from pulling the line. Of course I managed to work a technique where I immediately covered the vacuum line right after pulling it from the regulator. When I did this, I didn't get any change to the engine RPM or any other effects. This pretty much tells me the regulator is non functional. Now I really don't know whether its failed open or closed. If its failed open it would explain the hard starts with regard to the fuel system being depressurized and needing to build up pressure from the fuel pump prior to starting. This would be done by turning the key on a few seconds before cranking. If the regulator is failed closed then that would mean that the pressure in the fuel rails will be able to reach higher than normal levels which can cause a rich condition in the system, which does not seem to be the case. Either way the regulator needs to be replaced. Unfortunately the damned thing is expensive at auto zone, over $100. Back to the good ole standby, ebay. They have one for around $15, which I will be getting soon enough. In the meantime I found one more thing I wanted to look at, the idle air solenoid. I pulled this thing off and cleaned it out due to the carbon that was on the surface of the plunger. I oiled it up as well just to hopefully help it along in its movements so hopefully any symptoms may be lessened. On a final note I did decide to pull the heat shield that was over the exhaust manifold with the intent on allowing the exhaust pipes to dissipate their heat a lot faster during shut down. Even when the engine is running, hopefully with the shield off the heat that is built up will be able to vent off a lot faster than with it on. Hopefully this simple step will help things out under the hood when it comes to excess heat in general. Another thing that I wanted to vent about was the lack of a shrader valve on the fuel rail for allowing the hook up of a pressure testing gauge to test fuel rail pressure, another dumbass engineering design on this powerplant? Makes no damned sense. Only thing I can say is if there is a possibility of a greater fuel system issue rearing its ugly head, we won't know about it until it fully happens, fuel pumps, injectors, etc, until the shit fails we won't know since we can't hook up a pressure gauge to test operating pressures to make a more educated guess on how this system is operating. There were some online suggestions talking about drilling and tapping out a fitting to allow for the addition of a shrader valve for pressure testing. This idea doesn't appeal to me since I don't feel like removing what amounts to a vital component of a vital system and damaging it where I can't even operate the vehicle since the fuel system is out of play. I guess we'll just have to see what happens next with this truck.
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