A Day of Troubleshooting

Well we were up and headed over to Pinks Automotive in Lancaster WI for our 10:30 appointment.  It was about a 30 minute drive and as long as I kept the Ponderosa's RPMs up to 1700 or so it seemed to run not bad.  It was definitely lacking power and smoked really bad when we were going up a hill.  It is the surging that really has me baffled.

When we got to Pinks, our mechanic Roger brought out the code reader and got to work.  With a code reader, you have a series of problems show up and you have to eliminate them one at a time.  First things first was the fuel filters.  So he got us parked up in the shop while he started figuring out what our problem is.

When we removed them we found a bunch of foam like chunks in the bottom of the primary filter.

Now like I said, it is a process of elimination, so after the filters were changed we fired it up.  No change.  Code said fuel restriction.  So we are thinking where did the stuff come from.  I had read that these MH's are famous for the fuel lines breaking down.  The lines are braided hydralic hose and are not made to fully withstand diesel fuel.  They didn't have any fuel line here big enough, so I told him the last ones lasted 20 years, lets just replace them with the same, so he reluctantly did.  We probably won't have the MH for another 20 years so I think we are safe.  There is about 40 feet of fuel line to replace.

After that change out we fired it up again.  Still no real changed except we can rev it up better now.  Still lots of smoke and surging.  So next code was to test all of the relays and solenoids in the fuel system.  By the time this was all done it was quitting time so they let us go outside for the night in the parking lot.  We spent a quiet evening watching TV and we hope that they can get our problem solved tomorrow.  Now if you know me, you know that our problems are never a simple fix so I am expecting nothing less from this situation.  I hope I am surprised!!

This was our view all day from our living room window.  Not much of a view but it was warm in here while the outside temps were falling and the wind was blowing outside.