If you decide to throw parts at it and hope to hit the right one keep in mind you only have to replace ½ the o2 sensors only the bank that is showing faulty .what year van and motor do you have?
Gauge goes crazy
- Thread starter Bryce C
- Start date
Bryce C
DFW
Good call Dwain, that would save some bucks and time. It is a 2013 express 2500 with a 4.8L V8.
I found a broken ground wire early this morning and fixed it before we got on the road. The tm ran fine for our whole job this morning, whereas it has been getting worse all week. Hopefully that was the culprit! I am going to change the engine oil and clean the MAF sensor this evening, I just picked up some MAF sensor cleaner. I'll hold off on doing anything else until I see how it runs on Monday. I'd prefer to not throw any more time and parts at it right now. But I will if the problem persists.
Bryce C
DFW
Interesting. Is your machine a pto style with a throttle controller? I'd of spent a lot of money this past month having things fixed if I didn't do it all myself. Parts alone were like $1500. I imagine the labor would have been much more. Learning as I go.
I discovered a broken ground wire to the throttle controller this morning and fixed it before we got on the road. The machine ran fine for a few hours this morning with zero interruptions, hopefully it is good for now. I'll see on Monday when we have our next jobs. If we get through each of them without a shut down then I'll consider it fixed
. Maybe then I'll get at least a few weeks of solid use before the next trial 
Was the wire connected to a dedicated body ground or just screwed into the sheet metal? If it was did you connect up to a proper ground?
It doesn't pay to buy cheap fuel. About the only cheap gas i would trust is Costco. I got a chevron cc and only use their gas i don't have fuel problems and save .13 per gallon at the pump with their card (i assume others do the same) from the information I get in emails i could save alot more if im willing to jump thru a few hoops to get it. But to quote homie the clown from in living color "homie don't play that"
Bryce C
DFW
I read you say that before and sure enough it was connected to sheet metal. I had little time before we hit the road so I just reconnected it where it already was for now. Not sure where proper ground is and was going to read about it tonight. I suppose any factory accessory ground wire would run back to proper vehicle ground, so maybe I can just look for one of those and follow it.
Curious though, I've seen some factory ground wires running off the battery directly to the sheet metal in the engine compartment. If the sheet metal is bare, why wouldn't it make proper ground?
If you remove the side plastic panel along side your park brake pedal youll find a proper body ground. Theres probably several more under the dashboard but i know where that one is. What your looking for when looking for a proper body ground is manufacturers wires already grounded to a bolt not a screw most likely 10mm socket required
The sheet metal can and will make a good ground if done properly. Heavy emphasis on properly sheet metal screw doesn't qualify . When you find a manufacturer ground youll find a threded bolt not a screw and will have a nut welded on the backing so the ground gets a good solid connection sheet metal screws are notorious for vibrating loose and causing interrupted connection and possible damage to sensitive Electronics ( like a throttle controller ) heres another thought. Now that youve found and positively identified a problem with the controllers wiring, is your old controller really defective?
Bryce C
DFW
Great tips Dwain. It helps me to understand why something should be done. Knowing the sheet metal just doesn't hold typical screws very well over time with vibration makes a lot of sense. I'll do it right.
Yea good question about the old controller. It was behaving different, only 1 rpm mode would work, but then at the end nothing worked as this new one now did. Also even at the end it would rev up to 1100 rpm at first then slowly fall down to van idle at 600rpm. So I don't know, maybe it was fine. But it had some weird issus. The previous owner also told me he couldn't figure out how to get low, medium, and high settings to work. For the last year of its use it would only run on high.
