I didn’t even get out of bed to finish watching the Baku Grand Prix, I just leant over to the side and grabbed my laptop while Dan snoozed beside me. I could barely contain my excitement with all the drama of the race. With Ricciardo the triumphant winner, a Hamilton-Vettel drama and a teenage rookie on the podium is was the race of the season, maybe even the last few seasons. Dan woke up towards the end when he told me he’d known about Ricciardo’s win all along since he’d seen it when he searched Youtube for me. He’d done well to contain it, I was ecstatic! What a brilliant win and that smile on the podium was priceless.
The excitement of the morning over, we started our day. It was nearly noon by the time we ate breakfast. Dan’s smoothies were getting better every time it would be hard to get used to starting a day without them.
Armed with my notes from yesterday’s study, there was no more delays, time to go out to the car and figure some shit out. I started with the vacuum and emissions system. I wanted to check every single vacuum hose for damage or looseness. Thanks to the info in the Haynes manual that covers twenty Astro model years, I went around in circles awhile regarding my EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) system, but eventually discovered it is purely electronically controlled, no vacuum as the book suggests. I also found out about a carbon capture system that stores noxious gases from the engine when it is running at load so that they can be dumped back into the combustion chamber when specific conditions are met. On top of that, I also learned about the PCV (Positive Crankcase Valve) which I still don’t really understand but when pulling off the vacuum hose that connects to it, I managed to confirm it was fine but cracked one of the joints when putting it back on.
Next was to check a couple of sensors. Did I mention it was still 40*C plus in the garage? Not that I’m complaining, I was happy to be working in a garage at all. I pulled out the IAC (Idle Air Control) valve to inspect that. Dave at Rabbitbrush Repairs in Hanksville suggested that might be my problem and so I was looking. It seemed a possibility because the engine seemed to go into idle mode when it lost power. When I initially pulled it out, I thought I’d struck gold because the valve didn’t move easily within the housing. A stuck valve could easily be the cause of my problem! Further reading and playing around with the thing told me that it was a solenoid-operated valve and the threaded shaft made it obvious the thing wasn’t supposed to move as a result of pressure. So I kept looking.
The MAP (Manifold Absolute Presure) sensor sits below the air filter with a vacuum hose going into it from the throttle body. The hose looked and felt fine (I didn’t take this one off because I didn’t want to risk another breakage). The connector and wires looked ok to me as well and on back probing a couple of them while referring to my Haynes manual, the sensor was receiving all the correct voltages from the PCM (Power Control Module).
It was around this time I started to get disheartened. During my inspections of the IAC valve and MAP sensor, I’d broken off the locking clasp of the plastic connector housings because they were so old and brittle. I felt like I hadn’t achieved much today, except for breaking a bunch of stuff. I felt like I was going in circles and not likely to find anything when the car wasn’t exhibiting the issue I’d been having. I retired to the chair in the garage, flicking through my notes and doing some research on the internet for a magic solution. It didn’t appear, but Dan’s Mum did. She brought some stuff into the garage and thought me quite a sight covered in dirt, phone in hand trying to discover something. Moments later she returned with an ice cream cone to lift my spirits. Awww, just what I needed actually!
Dan came home a while later. He’d been out running errands and brought back some lunch for me. He could see my mood was deflated. A bit more faffing around with the car and I was ready to give it away. Dan was outside working on his van, installing a new ceiling so I helped him with that, being the stand holding the panel of wood above my head while he screwed it in. For a $10 panel of wood, it looked pretty bloody good if you ask me!
We had a very late lunch of salad sandwiches at around 4pm and hopped in the pool to cool off. We stayed in a while, but I couldn’t bear the idea of a lazy night, thinking I was wasting time that I could use to work on the car so I resolved to get back out into the garage, put things back together and go for a test drive to try and reproduce the issue. At least if I got the car to lose power again I could try a few things and see if they made the problem go away. Dan was keen for a road trip so he kitted himself up with an esky full of beer and ice and got himself comfortable in the backwards passenger seat.
Despite the sunset hour, it was still bloody hot and with the engine not fully sealed (the cover was just sitting on top), my foot suffered. But I didn’t care, it would all be worth it if the car failed again and I could make some progress. Dan directed me to the 101 loop highway that runs around Phoenix. Unfortunately there weren’t any hills on the route but it was the best we had short of driving halfway to Flagstaff. I drove aggressively and as much like a raging idiot as possible. I wanted to heat the car up and put it under excessive load to recreate the Flagstaff hill conditions. After half an hour, I finally felt a loss of power. It was just as I was getting off the highway to put a splash of petrol in the tank. From the exit to the servo, she struggled as she had before.
I only put a little petrol in the tank (fearing I might have to drop the tank again) and Dan read the trouble codes that had popped up at the exit. There was a big list this time, more than I’d seen before but they all disappeared when I drove away. So did the issue. We head home thinking it would happen again between the servo and Paradise Valley but it never did. My fuel gauge was on empty so it was entirely likely that I was just running out of fuel?!?!
On the way back, we stopped in at O’Reillys. So far on this journey, we’d visited a Napa Auto Parts and Autozone, so it was time to involve my favourites. I wanted to get a replacement vacuum hose for the PCV one that I’d broken. Good thing these guys are open so late, it was past 8pm. I spoke to Jameson about the vacuum hose and he didn’t have one that fit so I just got talking to him about my issue. He suspected I got shit fuel pump. This was becoming an increasing trend… He told me how he got the same sort of problems with his older car and it was just a result of the intense heat and load on his tired old engine. Since he had a pump in stock and it was only $40, I decided to concede and just buy it. I didn’t have any better ideas and there was no other way to know if I’d been so unlucky to get a shitty new fuel pump.
We drove the short way back home and that was our night done. We watched a bit of TV in bed with some ice cream and called it a day.