Wednesday, June 06, 2007
My hero John Hamlin
My car started having loss of power problems and throwing tons of black smoke. I thought I was done for. My mechanic Dan didn’t know how to fix it and I dreaded going to the dealership. But then the universe blessed me with a diesel genius at Diesel Performance Shops. I dropped the car off and a day later he knew exactly the problem. Here’s what he found.
The vacuum pump nipple was bad.
Apparently these things are not designed well and they will crack and start spinning around and around making the vacuum pump loose pressure. This caused my turbo to only have 2psi.
My N75 switch/value thing was broken.
These things go out but usually not at 40k. Over time, having low vacuum pressure, maybe it could cause them to go bad early.
My EGR and Intake
John said it was “the worst carbon build up” he'd ever seen. "Carbon build up that you only see with 150k plus miles on them." More interestingly, the carbon build up he saw was of a SUBSTANCE he had NEVER SEEN. He called it “gummy carbon” Normally, carbon is super hard. But this stuff was like “sticky liquid paste.” John cleaned all of it. Most definitely from the veggi oil.
Number 4 Glow plug and why I’m burning oil.
John said that my #4 glow plug was bad. So I asked him to replace it. When he pulled it out the tip didn’t come out. It was fused to a bunch of carbon. John thinks some of the one inch tip broke off inside the cylinder and bounced around scrapping up the cylinder so the guides don’t seal right and oil now leaks in. I asked him why he doesn’t drill or tap it out. He said he’s never seen anyone successfully do it without getting stuff into the cylinder which causes damage and blow by. Well guess what? Dan replaced another glow plug a while back and had to tap and vacuum it out. And that’s probably about the same time I started really noticing the burning oil problem. But I didn’t get the connection at the time.
So now the car is running better then when I got it.
The vacuum pump nipple was bad.
Apparently these things are not designed well and they will crack and start spinning around and around making the vacuum pump loose pressure. This caused my turbo to only have 2psi.
My N75 switch/value thing was broken.
These things go out but usually not at 40k. Over time, having low vacuum pressure, maybe it could cause them to go bad early.
My EGR and Intake
John said it was “the worst carbon build up” he'd ever seen. "Carbon build up that you only see with 150k plus miles on them." More interestingly, the carbon build up he saw was of a SUBSTANCE he had NEVER SEEN. He called it “gummy carbon” Normally, carbon is super hard. But this stuff was like “sticky liquid paste.” John cleaned all of it. Most definitely from the veggi oil.
Number 4 Glow plug and why I’m burning oil.
John said that my #4 glow plug was bad. So I asked him to replace it. When he pulled it out the tip didn’t come out. It was fused to a bunch of carbon. John thinks some of the one inch tip broke off inside the cylinder and bounced around scrapping up the cylinder so the guides don’t seal right and oil now leaks in. I asked him why he doesn’t drill or tap it out. He said he’s never seen anyone successfully do it without getting stuff into the cylinder which causes damage and blow by. Well guess what? Dan replaced another glow plug a while back and had to tap and vacuum it out. And that’s probably about the same time I started really noticing the burning oil problem. But I didn’t get the connection at the time.
So now the car is running better then when I got it.
