Okay, this has been pissing me off for two weeks now.

My 7 has an air leak, and I've sorta isolated the location, but now I'm baffled. I can't use the remote starter until I find and fix this cuz the car won't run for more than a few seconds when cold before she stalls. Plus she's struggling a little through all revs and often struggles to idle.

First off, all of the vacuum hoses around the manifolds have been replaced with spiffy new silicone ones. So it's not a leaking hose.

When I take a slow-flowing garden hose and let it run over the joint where the molded-rubber thingy meets the TB (held together by two nuts/bolts) after about 5 - 10 seconds the motor will start to bog. At first I figured it was a vac hose somewhere right on top of the housings, and so did the vac hose replacement a little earlier than planned (was going to do it this weekend, instead hit it Thursday night.)

There was -no- change afterwards. So I thought maybe it was a leak at that joint itself. Popped the moulded thingy off, cleaned everything up, RTV'ed everything and slapped it back together. Started the car a few hours later and... -no- change.

I have not checked for error codes (although it looks like I'll be doing that tomorrow...) It's such a shame that I can't see through steel.

So here's the summary:

- no bogging when watering all visible vac hoses.

- bogging when watering 'front' of the TB. I find myself assuming that this means that the water is running off of the face and down to where the leak is. Except that everything looked fine when the manifolds were off.

Any suggestions on where to look? I've avoided using propane but I'd certainly turn to it to try to further localize the leak.

 

 

sounds like you're sucking in unmetered air. Pop off the throttle body and inspect it. perhaps the gasket (or the plastic doohickey) is cracked or damaged.

Good luck!
-Ross

 

You need to check your primary fuel injector grommets. I had a vacuum leak that I couldn't find for weeks, and sure enough, my injectors grommets were hard and dried. Take a piece of hose and put it under the throttle body near the primary injectors and listen for vacuum. Let us know.

 

Fingers, I agree. It's *finding* the damn leak that's the problem.

I've cracked the TB and cleaned and RTV'ed all joints. Problem continues.

My mechanic spent half an hour on it tonight and here's what came of that:

- when water is poured on the TB joints, after about 5-8 seconds she bogs (this happened b4 and after RTV'ing the joints.) I had thought (pre-RTV) that the TB was sucking in water at one of the joints. That no longer seems likely. So now I'm believing that the water is running off somewhere where it is pooling until it is deep enough to reach the vac leak site.

- car stalls when TPS is unplugged. He was puzzled by this cuz she should continue to run regardless, and I've seen posts from people who have driven for months with a TPS they didn't know was dead. We installed a different TPS to compare and got the same result when it was unplugged - the motor stalled.

- compression is A-OKAY.

- T2 plug was not snug. Didn't have to break it loose when taking it out for compression test and all the anti-seize I had put in the threads had been blown out. Plug was snugged up properly when re-installed.

- mechanic suggested ripping the manifolds off again and looking for pinched or damaged wires (especially the primary injector wires.) He also suggested installing new injector insulators - are these the 'grommets' you are referring to, walterh? I'm going to replace the injector o-rings at the same time.


When I first started the car after all this, she continued to misbehave (blip revs to 3k and she'd try to stall when the revs came back down.) However, during the drive home she wasn't acting up. When I finally reached my parking spot I blipped the throttle a couple of times and she wouldn't try to stall. The idle is set for 800 and she did drop to about 600 but then she'd find 800 and all was well. I shut her down and set the TPS, which after all that monkeying around was at 1.4.

I don't expect to drive her again tonight (to do much to do b4 bed.) So we'll see how she behaves when I hit the remote starter 2morrow morning...

Wish me luck!

 

Just talked to my mechanic (he's gutting a GX and I remembered a part I need.)

grommets = insulators !

Calling the dealership tomorrow for sure.

 

so is it fixed?

 

Won't know until the new insulators go in...

 

Its definitely those rubber o-rings for the primary injectors, same problem. By da way it took me 5 minutes to fix that problem.Just do it yourself.

 

Hope it solves your problem.

 

I hope you put a neutral safety switch in with your remote start. The guy who owned my n/a before I did installed one without a safety switch. My front spoiler fell off in the parkinglot at work and I almost ran myself over when I was putting it back on, my key hit the button when I kneeled.

 

Called the dealership. $13 for all the parts I'll need. I hope to hit it 2morrow night.

Nope, no neutral switch. The unit is for AT. So far my 7 has attacked a wooden fence and an Intrepid (no witnesses to either brawl ) and driven herself out of the shop she was in when I was working on her one night (I was in the other bay and thank god the bay door was open. ) But that was all just after the unit was installed. I've trained myself to leave her out of gear, plus there's a kill switch for the unit in the glove compartment as well as a kill switch for when the hood is raised.

 

got an "accessory" button on your remote? you should set it up as a starter kill button.. THAT would be handy..

but thats getting off topic - when are you attacking the insulators? this weekend or sooner?

 

Doing it tonight. Maybe. Been getting 4 hours sleep each night so far this week. Suxors. Might go to bed early tonight...

 

Let us know if the grommets fixes your problem.

 

I will.

Work ran late again. Dealership closed long b4 I could get there. Maybe 2morrow...

 

i have this friday off, ill have you know.. keep that in mind, eh?

 

Okay, got it done Friday night.

ALL BETTER! No bogging any more when I do the hose test, either. She's watertight once more.

The insulators on the primaries were so baked they were brittle. I broke two of those insulators taking them off. I dipped all of the new ones in oil and slapped them in and voila! She's had 3 or 4 cold starts since then and they've all been perfect.

I'm gonna do the ones on the secondaries when I get a chance. They're probably stewed, too.

 

Cool man, glad you got it fixed. (I told you it was the grommets.)