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So I did some more checks, and apparently whatever controls vacuum in the hvac control unit isnt always releasing the vacuum to the solenoid. There are some times where i can cycle it and it works perfectly 20 times in a row.. then i can try it again and it stays on recirc. Its no longer supplying vacuum, but it isnt releasing it either. So that leads me to believe that somewhere in between the control unit and the solenoid, it is holding vacuum.
I noticed a check valve in between there, but its quite hard to access without pulling the passenger side airbag. Would a defective check valve cause it to sometimes not bleed the vacuum?
So I did some more checks, and apparently whatever controls vacuum in the hvac control unit isnt always releasing the vacuum to the solenoid. There are some times where i can cycle it and it works perfectly 20 times in a row.. then i can try it again and it stays on recirc. Its no longer supplying vacuum, but it isnt releasing it either. So that leads me to believe that somewhere in between the control unit and the solenoid, it is holding vacuum.
I noticed a check valve in between there, but its quite hard to access without pulling the passenger side airbag. Would a defective check valve cause it to sometimes not bleed the vacuum?
[quote=”college man” post=85280]If you remove the vac line at the selector/control
and it releases.sounds like the selector/control is
not switching or releasing.[/quote]I was thinking the same thing too.. but the weird thing is, when I pull the vaccum line from the vacuum control solenoid and turn on recirc. i can feel vacuum at the line. When I turn off recirc. and put my finger over the vacuum line, there is no vacuum present. It’s almost like something is not releasing the vacuum from inside the chamber of the vacuum control solenoid when the line is still connected.
Here is a vacuum diagram, if it helps.
[quote=”college man” post=85280]If you remove the vac line at the selector/control
and it releases.sounds like the selector/control is
not switching or releasing.[/quote]I was thinking the same thing too.. but the weird thing is, when I pull the vaccum line from the vacuum control solenoid and turn on recirc. i can feel vacuum at the line. When I turn off recirc. and put my finger over the vacuum line, there is no vacuum present. It’s almost like something is not releasing the vacuum from inside the chamber of the vacuum control solenoid when the line is still connected.
Here is a vacuum diagram, if it helps.
[quote=”AnthonyB” post=78913]Thanks again to everyone’s advice and ideas! Over the weekend I’m going to swap the valve and hope everything gets squared away cause that noise is driving me nuts.
But yes I made sure to clean it with throttle body/intake cleaner and not to be too generous with it, a little spray and a Q-tip is what I used to clean it out. But I’ll bite the bullet and invest in a new one 😳 lol[/quote]
Just wondering if you ever got around to changing out the valve?
[quote=”AnthonyB” post=78913]Thanks again to everyone’s advice and ideas! Over the weekend I’m going to swap the valve and hope everything gets squared away cause that noise is driving me nuts.
But yes I made sure to clean it with throttle body/intake cleaner and not to be too generous with it, a little spray and a Q-tip is what I used to clean it out. But I’ll bite the bullet and invest in a new one 😳 lol[/quote]
Just wondering if you ever got around to changing out the valve?
Check belt tension again for sure. Did you replace the tensioner with the pump? the belt is tensioned from a spring loaded tab built into the water pump. Im fairly certain the pump does NOT come with the new pulley/bearing assembly. SO if you do have the old one still, change it as well!
You can run the car with the cover off, however you need to remove the crankshaft pulley to get the cover off completely without breaking it after removing the two 10mm nuts. You may or may not have to remove the motor mount to take the cover off easily. (going from memory here.) This will allow you to see exactly what is causing this screeching. Obviously, make sure the tensioner is not frozen, as im guessing this, or a defective water pump bearing is the culprit (also unlikely on a reman unit, but anything is possible.)
The water pump will not be frozen, as the ‘pulley’ that drives it, is actually a gear and if it were frozen it would shear all of the rubber teeth off of the belt, which in turn would cause the car not to run due to the camshaft not spinning.
Also, coming from experience. I once had a customer who did their own timing belt on the same engine. He had a similar symptom, He installed everything correctly, proper tension on the belt, but had installed the lower crank gear backwards causing it to bind itself into the oil pump housing! And when the engine was started (At first i did a amp draw on it because it was very slow to start and it was pulling 600 amps of current from the battery!!) And when it did start it was squealing in the worst possible way.
Keep us updated and post a video if possible. I have a lot of experience with these engines and would be glad to help you out.
Here is a picture of an engine i rebuilt outside the car with the timing belt/waterpump/pulleys installed and correctly tensioned if it helps any with your repair/diagnosis.
Check belt tension again for sure. Did you replace the tensioner with the pump? the belt is tensioned from a spring loaded tab built into the water pump. Im fairly certain the pump does NOT come with the new pulley/bearing assembly. SO if you do have the old one still, change it as well!
You can run the car with the cover off, however you need to remove the crankshaft pulley to get the cover off completely without breaking it after removing the two 10mm nuts. You may or may not have to remove the motor mount to take the cover off easily. (going from memory here.) This will allow you to see exactly what is causing this screeching. Obviously, make sure the tensioner is not frozen, as im guessing this, or a defective water pump bearing is the culprit (also unlikely on a reman unit, but anything is possible.)
The water pump will not be frozen, as the ‘pulley’ that drives it, is actually a gear and if it were frozen it would shear all of the rubber teeth off of the belt, which in turn would cause the car not to run due to the camshaft not spinning.
Also, coming from experience. I once had a customer who did their own timing belt on the same engine. He had a similar symptom, He installed everything correctly, proper tension on the belt, but had installed the lower crank gear backwards causing it to bind itself into the oil pump housing! And when the engine was started (At first i did a amp draw on it because it was very slow to start and it was pulling 600 amps of current from the battery!!) And when it did start it was squealing in the worst possible way.
Keep us updated and post a video if possible. I have a lot of experience with these engines and would be glad to help you out.
Here is a picture of an engine i rebuilt outside the car with the timing belt/waterpump/pulleys installed and correctly tensioned if it helps any with your repair/diagnosis.
[quote=”dudeman9″ post=82606]i forgot to mention that i had the ECM changed. the engine light came on before i had the ECM changed. That’s why i took it in and that is when the dealership did the replacement. They ran a diagnostics and at that time it came up as the coolant sensor. i changed that. Did the spark plugs, checked the ignition coils. ran another diagnostic and come up as p0037 and nothing else.[/quote]
P0037 is an Oxygen sensor heater control circuit failure code. Bank 1 Sensor 2. (downstream)
While I dont have alldata access at the moment, I can tell you from experience that a large majority of the time, a code of this nature means that the heater circuit inside of the o2 sensor has died and will set this code.
The easiest test for this is to check for 12v and/or ground at the connector for the oxygen sensor with KOEO (key on, engine off) (again, i dont have alldata wiring diagram in front of me, so im not sure which wire this is.)
And also a simple resistance check between the heater circuit and ground. If you have infinite resistance, then the heater circuit has failed and replacement of the oxygen sensor is your solution.
[quote=”dudeman9″ post=82606]i forgot to mention that i had the ECM changed. the engine light came on before i had the ECM changed. That’s why i took it in and that is when the dealership did the replacement. They ran a diagnostics and at that time it came up as the coolant sensor. i changed that. Did the spark plugs, checked the ignition coils. ran another diagnostic and come up as p0037 and nothing else.[/quote]
P0037 is an Oxygen sensor heater control circuit failure code. Bank 1 Sensor 2. (downstream)
While I dont have alldata access at the moment, I can tell you from experience that a large majority of the time, a code of this nature means that the heater circuit inside of the o2 sensor has died and will set this code.
The easiest test for this is to check for 12v and/or ground at the connector for the oxygen sensor with KOEO (key on, engine off) (again, i dont have alldata wiring diagram in front of me, so im not sure which wire this is.)
And also a simple resistance check between the heater circuit and ground. If you have infinite resistance, then the heater circuit has failed and replacement of the oxygen sensor is your solution.
Ok, this is going to be a little long.. but this is my experience with flat rate personally…
I’ve been a technician for 5 years now. I’ve worked at two different shops in that time and both were flat-rate. The first one was an absolutely terrible flat rate experience, the second one was a wonderful experience! And i realize 5 years is nothing compared to what all of you have in, but it completely changed the outlook i had on flat rate. The first job made me *HATE* it, the second made me love it… And it all came down to one thing.. shop politics. Also the kind of work ethics each had. I dont want to make too long of a post here, but ill explain a little below what i mean.
The first job i worked (and where i started) was a national chain service/tire/repair center. I wont list names here, but im sure you have heard of them. I started as a mechanic at $14.50/hr flat rate. (but you only made that rate if you booked hours over 1/2 your time there.. 40 hours every 2 weeks. Otherwise you made $7.25/hr)
I had a lot of knowledge, but no experience. (As anyone who starts out, they think they know it all.. i had no idea how little i knew.. but even the best techs get stumped.. you never stop learning!) anyways, it started alright.. or so i thought. Having no previous shop history, i was new to everything around me. My first mistake was starting off as flat rate (mechanic) instead of ‘installer’ (or EST as they call them now.) which are hourly. Basically a lube tech/tire install person. So i was working off flat rate pay and doing .25 tire rotations, .3 LOF, .8/1hr for 4 tire mount/balance. long story short, i started off making very little money in the beginning. I remember during the slow time making $425/2wk. but i also chalked it up to being the ‘new guy’ and needing to cut my teeth on the easy stuff before they would let me jump into the bigger jobs. I then found out they used their own labor guide written by the company, and not mitchell. And they could “adjust times as they saw fit in case there was no labor time for a specific operation” which meant “pay the tech less, charge the customer more.”
On top of that, this place had terrible, dishonest management, favoritism like you wouldnt believe, and if you werent a master tech: you were cleaning bathrooms, putting tires away, cleaning the shop because management was coming..etc On top of that, i had numerous arguments with not getting paid for additional work (broken wheel studs that stripped out due to a previous person cross threading them, not getting paid additional labor for captive brake rotors, never adding additional labor time because they didnt want to call the customer back and tell them… just countless countless “just do it and get it out” mentality.
The worst experience i ever had when i started, was one with a customer with a lifted F250. He had 5 new 35×12.50R20LT (75lb) tires, 4 new rims, and 4 old rims with tires, and 4 other loose tires. He wanted the new tires mounted/balanced on the new rims (1hr bill time), the old rims dismounted (.5), and the other loose tires installed on the old rims that were previously on his truck (.5), and the spare swapped out with a new tire. (.2) (which also had a frozen spare tire winch i fixed.) (.7) The service manager was insistent on paying me no more than 1hr to complete this whole job, as thats what he quoted the customer, (boy i bet he was happy!) and boy was i pissed! I dont know how i didnt quit that day.. And this was no 185/70/14 honda civic tires that you could pick up with one hand and do a set of 4 in 20 minutes… these were 75 lb mud tire w/t assemblies. Oh, and to finish off the story the guy came back 2 days later on my day off and wanted them taken off because they were too big for the truck and they scraped at full-lock.. and said he’d be back to have a rack limiter installed… (he never came back).
Of course the service writers were making their money (+ commission on parts) and being dishonest in doing so.. I had a very stern incident with a service writer where one sold an alignment against a customers intent with swaybar bushings I was replacing, saying it needed to be done, just to sell it! (they got extra money out of alignments too). And while 80% of alignments are gravy money for techs, when i confronted the service writer about it.. i said “what if this guy goes to his mechanic friend someday and says “yeah, i got swaybar bushings done the other day, and they told me i needed an alignment done with it too” and his friend is going to say ‘boy, they ripped you off.. you dont need an alignment for swaybar bushing replacement’. And then he looks at his copy of the WO with my name clearly stated on it… and it make ME look like the bad guy.
Long story, i know.. I have so many others… but its situations like these that make anyone cringe at being a technician. There is so much greed i saw at the service advisor/manager level. You cant enjoy a job if you dont have a good relationship with these people. Then they pick favorites and everything goes south from there (techs taking them out to lunch so they can get more work was another example i constantly experienced.) In my opinion, a lot of the downfall to flat rate pay is the honesty level as to what everyone adheres too, and sadly the truly honest ones are the ones that end up getting burned.
On the plus side, the second job i worked for was a reputable nationwide used car dealership. I started at $15/hr flat rate there, but the atmosphere was extremely professional. While i was labeled as a technician, i was more of a ‘refurbisher’ We bought cars from auction or trade-in and did a 125 point inspection on them. Interior/exterior/mechanical/frame..etc And everything was done at your own pace, all work orders were computer controlled, and you entered your own labor times and submitted them and they were approved or denied on the spot. The service manager had enough trust in you (and the experience) to know if you needed .6 to ‘remove dash trim to replace broken vent clip’ or .8 to ‘access and drill out broken shock bolt’ The inspections paid 2 hours with test drive and we were expected to do 2 cars a day with repairs (unless parts needed ordered). I worked 10 hour days, 4 days a week and had 4 days in a row off once a month, and worked one saturday a month. (every sunday off). You could work days off if you wanted and still flag hours. There was a guy that would practically live there flagging 80/100 hours a week. So much so, that HR came in to investigate that he truly was working that many hours. Myself, i was happy with 45-50 and it was also a heated/air conditioned shop.. no pressure or time constraints (as you were only hurting your own pocket if you weren’t working hard), and so many benefits. Only reason i left there was because I moved. It just goes to show that flat rate isnt inherently “evil” per say. Although i still agree it is a flawed system, but the atmosphere in which it plays its role has a direct connection to how happy and productive you can be with it.
Ok, this is going to be a little long.. but this is my experience with flat rate personally…
I’ve been a technician for 5 years now. I’ve worked at two different shops in that time and both were flat-rate. The first one was an absolutely terrible flat rate experience, the second one was a wonderful experience! And i realize 5 years is nothing compared to what all of you have in, but it completely changed the outlook i had on flat rate. The first job made me *HATE* it, the second made me love it… And it all came down to one thing.. shop politics. Also the kind of work ethics each had. I dont want to make too long of a post here, but ill explain a little below what i mean.
The first job i worked (and where i started) was a national chain service/tire/repair center. I wont list names here, but im sure you have heard of them. I started as a mechanic at $14.50/hr flat rate. (but you only made that rate if you booked hours over 1/2 your time there.. 40 hours every 2 weeks. Otherwise you made $7.25/hr)
I had a lot of knowledge, but no experience. (As anyone who starts out, they think they know it all.. i had no idea how little i knew.. but even the best techs get stumped.. you never stop learning!) anyways, it started alright.. or so i thought. Having no previous shop history, i was new to everything around me. My first mistake was starting off as flat rate (mechanic) instead of ‘installer’ (or EST as they call them now.) which are hourly. Basically a lube tech/tire install person. So i was working off flat rate pay and doing .25 tire rotations, .3 LOF, .8/1hr for 4 tire mount/balance. long story short, i started off making very little money in the beginning. I remember during the slow time making $425/2wk. but i also chalked it up to being the ‘new guy’ and needing to cut my teeth on the easy stuff before they would let me jump into the bigger jobs. I then found out they used their own labor guide written by the company, and not mitchell. And they could “adjust times as they saw fit in case there was no labor time for a specific operation” which meant “pay the tech less, charge the customer more.”
On top of that, this place had terrible, dishonest management, favoritism like you wouldnt believe, and if you werent a master tech: you were cleaning bathrooms, putting tires away, cleaning the shop because management was coming..etc On top of that, i had numerous arguments with not getting paid for additional work (broken wheel studs that stripped out due to a previous person cross threading them, not getting paid additional labor for captive brake rotors, never adding additional labor time because they didnt want to call the customer back and tell them… just countless countless “just do it and get it out” mentality.
The worst experience i ever had when i started, was one with a customer with a lifted F250. He had 5 new 35×12.50R20LT (75lb) tires, 4 new rims, and 4 old rims with tires, and 4 other loose tires. He wanted the new tires mounted/balanced on the new rims (1hr bill time), the old rims dismounted (.5), and the other loose tires installed on the old rims that were previously on his truck (.5), and the spare swapped out with a new tire. (.2) (which also had a frozen spare tire winch i fixed.) (.7) The service manager was insistent on paying me no more than 1hr to complete this whole job, as thats what he quoted the customer, (boy i bet he was happy!) and boy was i pissed! I dont know how i didnt quit that day.. And this was no 185/70/14 honda civic tires that you could pick up with one hand and do a set of 4 in 20 minutes… these were 75 lb mud tire w/t assemblies. Oh, and to finish off the story the guy came back 2 days later on my day off and wanted them taken off because they were too big for the truck and they scraped at full-lock.. and said he’d be back to have a rack limiter installed… (he never came back).
Of course the service writers were making their money (+ commission on parts) and being dishonest in doing so.. I had a very stern incident with a service writer where one sold an alignment against a customers intent with swaybar bushings I was replacing, saying it needed to be done, just to sell it! (they got extra money out of alignments too). And while 80% of alignments are gravy money for techs, when i confronted the service writer about it.. i said “what if this guy goes to his mechanic friend someday and says “yeah, i got swaybar bushings done the other day, and they told me i needed an alignment done with it too” and his friend is going to say ‘boy, they ripped you off.. you dont need an alignment for swaybar bushing replacement’. And then he looks at his copy of the WO with my name clearly stated on it… and it make ME look like the bad guy.
Long story, i know.. I have so many others… but its situations like these that make anyone cringe at being a technician. There is so much greed i saw at the service advisor/manager level. You cant enjoy a job if you dont have a good relationship with these people. Then they pick favorites and everything goes south from there (techs taking them out to lunch so they can get more work was another example i constantly experienced.) In my opinion, a lot of the downfall to flat rate pay is the honesty level as to what everyone adheres too, and sadly the truly honest ones are the ones that end up getting burned.
On the plus side, the second job i worked for was a reputable nationwide used car dealership. I started at $15/hr flat rate there, but the atmosphere was extremely professional. While i was labeled as a technician, i was more of a ‘refurbisher’ We bought cars from auction or trade-in and did a 125 point inspection on them. Interior/exterior/mechanical/frame..etc And everything was done at your own pace, all work orders were computer controlled, and you entered your own labor times and submitted them and they were approved or denied on the spot. The service manager had enough trust in you (and the experience) to know if you needed .6 to ‘remove dash trim to replace broken vent clip’ or .8 to ‘access and drill out broken shock bolt’ The inspections paid 2 hours with test drive and we were expected to do 2 cars a day with repairs (unless parts needed ordered). I worked 10 hour days, 4 days a week and had 4 days in a row off once a month, and worked one saturday a month. (every sunday off). You could work days off if you wanted and still flag hours. There was a guy that would practically live there flagging 80/100 hours a week. So much so, that HR came in to investigate that he truly was working that many hours. Myself, i was happy with 45-50 and it was also a heated/air conditioned shop.. no pressure or time constraints (as you were only hurting your own pocket if you weren’t working hard), and so many benefits. Only reason i left there was because I moved. It just goes to show that flat rate isnt inherently “evil” per say. Although i still agree it is a flawed system, but the atmosphere in which it plays its role has a direct connection to how happy and productive you can be with it.
Definitely sounds like an idle air control motor issue to me as well, although faulty IAC normally has idle control issues. Your car seems to be fairly stable at idle. However the cycling of a failed IAC valve seal does not.
The first thing i would have tried was pulling the electrical harness to the IAC. It will most likely set a p0505 (iac system malfunction) (so dont pay that any mind.) And this will in turn completely close the valve. The car (especially if cold) will try to immediately stall, but you can pull on the throttle cable right next to the throttle body to keep it at idle. As your doing that, see if that cycling sound your experiencing goes away. If it does, you’ll know its a fault with a seal or solenoid in the IAC valve. However if the seal is worn badly enough to where engine vacuum is leaking passed a fully closed seal inside, its still going to make that noise.
Another test would be to completely remove the IAC, and carefully plug the 2 holes where it bolts with clear packing tape (careful enough to make it thick enough where engine vacuum wont suck it inside) and this will bypass the IAC system completely. If your sound goes away completely after that, you will know it is a failed valve.
Sorry for the long reply, but im just throwing some ideas out there for future reference.
And on a small side note.. i had a customer once with a 94 mustang GT that attempted to clean his own IAC with brake clean, and in turn it ate away the rubber seals inside and caused a loping idle from 800-1400. Took the old valve apart and the seals were disintegrated. Installed a new IAC and everything was perfect. Be very careful what you clean them with.
Please let us know if the new IAC fixes your issue.
Definitely sounds like an idle air control motor issue to me as well, although faulty IAC normally has idle control issues. Your car seems to be fairly stable at idle. However the cycling of a failed IAC valve seal does not.
The first thing i would have tried was pulling the electrical harness to the IAC. It will most likely set a p0505 (iac system malfunction) (so dont pay that any mind.) And this will in turn completely close the valve. The car (especially if cold) will try to immediately stall, but you can pull on the throttle cable right next to the throttle body to keep it at idle. As your doing that, see if that cycling sound your experiencing goes away. If it does, you’ll know its a fault with a seal or solenoid in the IAC valve. However if the seal is worn badly enough to where engine vacuum is leaking passed a fully closed seal inside, its still going to make that noise.
Another test would be to completely remove the IAC, and carefully plug the 2 holes where it bolts with clear packing tape (careful enough to make it thick enough where engine vacuum wont suck it inside) and this will bypass the IAC system completely. If your sound goes away completely after that, you will know it is a failed valve.
Sorry for the long reply, but im just throwing some ideas out there for future reference.
And on a small side note.. i had a customer once with a 94 mustang GT that attempted to clean his own IAC with brake clean, and in turn it ate away the rubber seals inside and caused a loping idle from 800-1400. Took the old valve apart and the seals were disintegrated. Installed a new IAC and everything was perfect. Be very careful what you clean them with.
Please let us know if the new IAC fixes your issue.
