Search the Community

I was going to revive an old thread on my issues but it seems ther are more than one. So I will give the Readers Digest version. About 4years ago I started having engine surging problems. It would surge about 3% to 5% and was annoying and would set a couple of apps codes. But the problem got worse and would surge upwards of 14%. When it would go this far it would soon trip an apps code and would dead pedal. Always recovered, though it would take a few minutes. So I broke down and made my electrically challenged arse do some diagnostics on the apps and everything pointed to the sensor being bad. I bought a cheap one off of EBay installed and sure enough no surging. Ran that one a week or so and ordered a new Timbo. Installed it and bam right to surging again. Reinstalled the cheap no surging but now I have a p0222 code that won't go away. Cleared multiple times and it always came back immediately. And every so often I would get a MAP sensor code. I was not sure if the cheap apps was hurting anything so I put the Timbo back in Fast forward some and I decided to swap the MAP sensor with the spare I had to see if that was part of the problem. Well i broke that one and just had to stick the old one back in. I had to hit the road to go back to work and no surging and it has yet to surge since. The only I messed with was the MAP wiring harness, though I did have my hand shoved in around the ECM wiring harness at the ECM. Now on the trip back to Maryland I pick up another issue. CEL comes on with a p237 code and the engine is defuled and I can only accelerate at about 40 maybe 50%. Stayed that way for several miles then went back to normal. But it kept doing this on and off sporadically. This did morph itself into bouncing in and out of the defuel mode when ever I put much more than 40% throttle to the engine. No more codes either. I also noticed that whenever this happens the Scan Gauge is loosing the MAP signal. Fast forward to this week and I have the no start issue. I have messed with that for 3 days and after swapping the fuses around it has worked fine. One thing I did while messing with it Tuesday was grab the engine wiring harness near the ECM. I gave it good squeeze and moved back and forth what little it would move. Drove back to the motel and it ran like a scalded dog. No jumping in and out of the defuel mode and for now she is back to normal. My conclusion is that the grounds in the engine wiring harness that @W-T wrote about are most likely the cause of the multiple issues I have experienced over the past years. So i am going to take an extra day this weekend and see how many of them I can redo.

I originally was going to start this thread asking for help, but I seem to have fixed the issues inadvertently. Here is the issues. My cruise control had been acting up of late. At first the cruise would act like it was backing off and then re accelerating. Very much like lightly lifting the throttle and easing it back on. Seemed to be doing it after about an hour of it being turned on. As time passed it got much worse and was actually cutting out in in harshly. So much so I just shut it off. Then out of the blue it would work just fine. The throttle itself worked fine thru all of this. Also during this time the idle up feature when releasing the clutch seemed to not function and I was choking the engine out like a freaking rookie first time stick driver. This to was kind off hit and miss as to when it would happen. One thing that I had noticed prior to these issues showing up was the negative cable end on the passenger battery was cracked on one side where the bolt passes thru. The connection was tight and I could not move it. I figured it was fine for a while until I could fix it. I went home last weekend and still had the issues, but figured it was at least time to fix the cable end. It was still tight and clean(used motor oil works great for that, thanks Mikey). So I took the cable off and sawed off the offending end. Replaced the clamp with a military style clamp and soldered new ends on the battery cable and the 2 ground wires that were also present at the cable end. I made my return trip last Sunday and no issues with the cruise and so far no issue with the idle up feature. I didn't have a wiring diagram to tell me what the grounds controlled, but so far that seems to have fixed the problem.

I am working on my brothers 1999 Dodge doollie, 3500 extended cab with the 24 valve Cummins Turbo Diesel. When you turn the headlights on it kills the engine. The problem is sporadic and will come and go. I pull the ASD relay and the engine will run with the headlights on, after a while, maybe five minutes it will kill the engine, when you turn the headlights back on. I have replaced both the ASD and Fuel pump relays. I also have .5 amp discharge from the battery, which I tried to track down by pulling circuit fuses, one at a time. I did not find it. I believe I have a bad ground somewhere but can't find the link between killing the fuel pump (engine dies) and the headlights being turned on. Any help!