In the February 8, 2025 episode of "The Car Doctor," host Ron Ananian discusses several automotive topics:
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The Federal Government's directive to states to halt the expansion of electric vehicle infrastructure.
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A 2004 Ford Focus experiencing an intermittent lean code.
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A 2003 Toyota Tacoma facing issues with its Engine Control Module (ECM).
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A 1997 Oldsmobile 88 that won't shift into gear using the shifter lever but can be manually shifted at the transmission.
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A 1993 Chevrolet Silverado that developed a ticking noise with the ignition on after a fan motor replacement.
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An email inquiry about a 1999 Chevrolet Trailblazer with an engine tap.
Listeners can find more information at www.cardoctorshow.com, follow Ron on Instagram at @ronananian, and access auto repair tips and videos on the show's YouTube channel. The Car Doctor Hotline is available 24/7 at (855) 560-9900, and the live call-in show airs Saturdays from 2-4 PM Eastern Time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ron an Adian reasons for replacing an automotive battery natural
wear and tear. Most batteries last three to five years.
They point out performance declines due to aging and chemical depletion.
And I think that the reason that we're seeing is
rapid decline in batteries. Again, is the electronics shock.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Battery?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The car Doctor, the whole car just say so.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I would think somebody thinks something's funny going on if
I had.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Like a van, So why can't it be that we've
got warped break roaders.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I've had them taken care of before and that wasn't
the problem. It feels like it's something engine wise to me.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Really, Okay, Welcome to the radio home of ron Anian,
the Car Doctor. Since nineteen ninety one, this is where
car owners the world overturned to for their definitive opinion
on automotive repair. If your mechanics giving you busy signal,
pick up the phone and call in.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
The garage doors are opening, but I am here to
take your calls at eight five five five six ninety
nine hundred and now pee running, you know, I just
I just have to start here. And I didn't even
tell Tom I was going to do this, so Tom
may take me off the air when I do this,
so just be prepared to hear dead sound. But and
(01:23):
you know, I promised I would stop talking about EV's
and the folly that that is. Well, not if it's
a folly, but it just wasn't going to happen the
way we were being told it was going to happen.
Did anybody look at the news today? Did anybody see?
And I kept I kept telling you guys. You know,
I hate to say I told you so, So I
won't say I told you so because I was right.
I'm not right that often. Well, no, actually I'm right
(01:45):
a lot so. But in any event, the federal government
decided today that they're going to they're going to uh,
They've told the states to stop pursuing building out the
EV infrastructure. Remember a couple of years ago, everybody was
in a panic saying, oh my god, we're gonna stop
selling gas car and everything's going to be electric and
blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Who was that
voice in the darkness that kept saying it ain't gonna
(02:07):
happen and bingo, it ain't gonna happen. You know, why
because it can't be done. The laws of physics don't work.
Not anti EV folks, just not in the capacity they
were telling us what was gonna happen if you turned
off your radio. I'm sorry, I'm just sort of stating
the obvious that there is a future with both EV
and gas vehicles, at least for the next I think
(02:28):
ten to fifteen years. I don't think it's gonna happen
sooner than that, because I don't think the technology is present.
I still say evs are okay. They do a job.
But I think they've developed electric vehicles to take us
to the stars, because that's how we're going to get
around on Mars and the planets, you know, in the
next generation one hundred years from now, when they're driving
around up there. But I just thought that was an
(02:48):
interesting article to lead off the hour with probably annoy
a few people. I'm sorry, that's not my intention. I'll
go back to being just being the guy that answers
Carr questions, which is okay too. Let's go to Billy.
Look at that. I talk about Billy in Colorado and bang,
he calls, Billy, were you listening to the show or
is this just circumstance.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I was not. I okay, sorry, I let's.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Show off with that email earlier heads up on what
I'm looking at.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, I just you know what, I'm always glad to
talk to you. I told that to everybody too. Uh
so talk to me, tell us, tell everybody that maybe
he's knew this hour about this four focus on what's
going on?
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Yeah, So my friend's four focus two point three liter
it gets its intermittent p O one seven to one
lean code. So when I take the car, I started cold. Uh,
fuel trims look great. I run it all the way
up to full operating temperature. The fuel trims look great
the whole way up. I can't reproduce the problem. I
(03:49):
give it back to her, and a week later it
popped again.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I look at a freeze frame from the from the code,
and all the numbers look normal that I can tell,
except for the fuel trip which is maxed out.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Right, So you never see to get the car back,
it's fine.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, you never see this car run lean.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Never.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay. So you have a propane.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Bottle, Uh yeah, I got a smoke machine, got propaine?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Can we can we can we propane around the PCV
if you done all that?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
How many miles on the car?
Speaker 5 (04:26):
I think like one hundred and forty something in.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Aball I probably, I probably do. Wudn't take manifold dough rings, Billy, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I'm still thinking. I just didn't want to throw parts
at a problem.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
No, I get it, Yeah, I get it. Listen, if
you can't reproduce it, See, that's the problem. You can't
reproduce it, you know, because and I listened for full
disclosure to everybody. I don't know Billy personally, but I've
talked to him enough times on the phone. He's he's
a smart dude, and he knows what he's doing. By now,
we would have disconnected breakbooster, hose and PCV and you know,
gone through the drill. There's not much else here that's
(04:59):
going to make intermittent that's easily diagnosed. If we've got
a random lean fault and it's not engine mechanical, engine intake, manifold,
a leaking hose, leaking PCV, et cetera, we've got a
you know, we've got a computer that's confused. How you
going to prove that? I'd be willing to bet you
take that intake manifold off and those round O rings
are square all right, you know that they're no longer
(05:22):
and it doesn't take much for this thing to leak.
It really doesn't. You know, temperature of the day, how
the plastic manifold sits, how it expands, how it contracts.
I've seen this more times than I can count. And
at that mileage, it's twenty one years old, it's got
higher mileage on it. It's not a hard job. I
would be looking at intake manifold O rings just as
(05:44):
a start, and while it's a part, I would go
very carefully over that PCV. I'd probably at this point
put a new pcvvalve in it, all right, because it's
under the intake. It's kind of hard to get to
with the intake on, and you know, maybe a fresh
PCV hose because I've also seen that pc VE hos collapse.
If I had to put a priority, if we had
three hundred cases of a lean fault code on a
(06:06):
focus bill, I bet you two hundred of them are
going to be PCV hos. One hundred of them are
going to be intake or vice versa. It's it's usually
a combination of those two things, you know, provided provided
you know, fuel trims are good. You know, fuel pump
is good. You know, we don't see it, we don't
have it. But you know, it's rare to see a
(06:28):
bad fuel pump cause a lean fault on an inconsistent basis.
By now it would have failed. And then the only
other thing I'm gonna mention, because I'm kind of on
this kick because I've seen a lot of this at
the shop of late is I would, you know, I
would do an ethanol test. I would just check for
ethanol content of the fuel. And you know, is she
(06:50):
you know, is she going to this one gas station
on Monday and it sets, it sets the p zero
one seven winn And then on Friday she fills up
with the station on the other side of town and
the fault goes away. And then Billy that's it on
Saturday and he doesn't see the problem, you know, goofy
things like that. You know, you've got to think about
all that too, because sometimes to diagnose accurately, the customer
(07:10):
needs to be consistent. So, you know, but that's where
I'm going. Have you done an ethanol test?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
I have not, all right, I don't have a tester,
but I can get one.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, you know what Amazon, If you go on Amazon
and just type in ethanol test kit twenty bucks, it's
it's it's it's four plastic vials, all right, and you
just you know, it's a lifetime supply, right, you know,
and it just it's it's you get in the habit
of testing good, right, what do I always tell you?
(07:42):
You know, let's let's let's test known good, so we
know what known bad looks like. And and let's look
at the ethanol content. And one of these days you're
gonna find it. One of these days, you're gonna have
a car that you're gonna do an ethanol test for
a low power complaint or a hard start or a
lean fuel FOULT code, and all of a sudden, you're
gonna recognize what bad fuel looks like. And you're gonna
recognize a high ethanol or an incorrect ethanol content, and
(08:02):
you're gonna be like wow, and you know, and that's
that's that's where it comes from. So all right, all right,
does this.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Car have a like a straight report on the on
the fuel rail that I can pull fuel from.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I'm trying to remember if not I'm just going to
just do a disconnect and you know, just have somebody
and you don't need much fuel if somebody were to
if you did a disconnect on the fuel line and
just we For example, the other day we had to
take a fuel sample from a newer a Lexus.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We didn't even bother looking for a test port. We
just went to the disconnect of the fuel lines. We
just disconnected the line. Danny cycled the key and I
just took a hose, put it on the end of
the line, cycled it into the bottle. It took two
cycles of the key and the bottle was filled. It
doesn't have to be that complicated. By the same token.
You know what, you want to check? Fuel pressure? Known good.
(08:53):
I don't know what you'll see, you know, you well,
you'll see accurate pressure. I don't think you'll see a
a fuel pressure problem with this. But at the same time,
you can get your ethanol out of the way and
say that you did a fuel pressure test. So listen,
you're a tested kind of guy, right, Agreed?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Bill?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Did Bill go? I think Bill disappeared? Look at that.
I guess Bill's off testing.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Bill.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Are you there up? Billy's gone, look at that phone technology.
I was going to say, Bill's a tested kind of guy.
Check fuel pressure this way. You know what the speck is,
you know what the number is. The other day I
gave Danny something to work on and he wasn't sure
of a number, and I told him what the number was,
and he says, how do you know that? And I said,
because I've done fifty of them, you know, because I've
seen fifty good ones, and now I know what a
bad one looks like. And that's really what diagnosis is
(09:41):
all about. That's how doctors get good. I hate to
say it, but I think that's you know, listen, they
don't you know, when they're sending doctors to medical school
and their interns, they do all those cases, and I
think they learned to look at the numbers and they're
always evaluating numbers. And I think that's the same thing
with auto repair. You're always evaluating numbers, good, bad, or indifferent.
So anyway, eighty five to five six zero nine nine
zero zero again eight five five five six zero nine
(10:04):
nine zero zero the car doctor's twenty four to seven number,
you can call that number. By the way, we're not
we're not on the air. We're live on the network
Saturdays two to four pm Eastern Time. You can call
eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero
and leave a message anytime day or night, and we
will call you back and put you in queue for
the next live broadcast and you know, get it from there.
You can also, by the way, find us, you know,
(10:24):
car doctorshow dot com. The merchandise button is there if
you want some car doctor merch coffee cup, hat, whatever.
But you can also get to the podcast. Just Google
search Ron and Inian and it'll come up, you know,
and pulls from all the various and assorted podcast platforms
because we're trying to be here for you guys in
all forms of media so we can answer all your
questions and help you out with your car problems. Anyway.
Eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
(10:46):
I did that well, I can do it again. I
own the place. I'll be back right after this. O. God,
that's right.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
If you call and we're not live, you can leave
a message and we'll call you back to get you
on the air with Ron eight five six zero nine
nine zero zero. Speaking of Ron, therey is Hey.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Let's wander over and go talk to Sam and Illinois.
Sam oh three Toyota Tacoma. How are you Sam?
Speaker 6 (11:18):
Welcome, sir, I'm good, Thanks for having taking my call.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
You're welcome. What's going on?
Speaker 6 (11:24):
I have I have a three Tacoma four x four
V six and uh it has a problem with the ECM.
And here's the situation. I got to doing a little research.
The VEN number corresponds to a five speed one hundred
and fifty horse so and there's no ODB two, has
(11:48):
no codes coming out. The check engine light is on
and the SRS light is on. The problem is that
I have the truck in South America and they have
a uh you got to have a tested routinely whatever
to drive it, and I can't pass it because the
emission control is keeps is a problem?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Right, it's broken?
Speaker 6 (12:13):
So right the ECM. Right, So my question is how
do I find an ECM. Do I look for the
VEN number that corresponds with the engine that was in
there before, because that's the infrastructure that the wiring harness,
or do I look for the ECM that's the engine
that's in here now, which is the V six.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Okay, so all right, so back back up. We've talked
about this truck. I kind of remember this truck, so
refresh my memory. This has this has an engine different
than the what engine is in the truck?
Speaker 6 (12:48):
The five five f F E V six three point
four later?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, and it's from what year is it from? No,
it's not from an O three. They didn't put three
fours in the O three's did they did that? I'm
trying to remember.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
I don't know you have?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So this is so this is a V six? Well,
what fault code's in there? Sam? It's got to have
a fault code.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
If the light's on, nothing nothing comes out of the ob.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
D two zero?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Where was the vehicle produced.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Us?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
All right? And how long has it been in cus?
How long has it been in South America?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Probably a while?
Speaker 5 (13:31):
And this is where I picked it up?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And where's the you know? And and the light's been on?
How long? A while?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Right? Yes?
Speaker 6 (13:41):
The car the truck runs.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, No, I get it, I get it. I'm just
trying to I'm just you know, so what would happen
if we just went to Here's what I want to know?
All right, let's let me let me regroup and think
about this. You know, is this the correct engine. Forget transmission?
Is this a correct engine for the vehicle? All right?
Did they put a three point four?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Okay, yeah, they make it in yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
So it's just that it's a it's a five speed,
not an automatic.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
No, it's the other way around. It's an automatic. Now
it was a five speed.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Before, but it wasn't.
Speaker 6 (14:16):
It wasn't a V six. That It's all I know.
It's one hundred and fifty horse pow. That's all I
can come up with with the VEN number.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, forget the computer that's in there. What was the
truck originally? If you look at the VIN. If you
look at the VIN that's on the truck, what does
that decode to?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
What does that decode to?
Speaker 6 (14:33):
A five speed? One hundred and fifty horse Okay? That's
all I can find.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I mean, well, you should be able to go into
all data, Mitchell, any one of the multiple places and
just say here's the VIN, and they could decode and
tell you what it was. Chances are it was a
V six. Okay, you know what, Email me the VIN.
Ronic cardoctorshow dot com? All right, okay, Ronic card doctorshow
dot Com? I want the VIN of the vehicle. Right,
(15:01):
that's what we're just just so recruiter. I want the
VIN of the vehicle, all right, and then you've got
but you've got an e CM that is what for what?
It's got a different VIN in it?
Speaker 6 (15:16):
Well, it's all it's scratched off, so I don't I
have no idea who who it belongs to.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So you've got to you're looking, you're looking at the
part number on the outside of the computer case. That's
not there. It's scratched off, right, What if you look?
What if you look? What if you look at it
electronically with a scan tool.
Speaker 6 (15:39):
I haven't done that yet.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
I will.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well that would be my next step, you know, forget
the part number. Okay, does you know in O three?
Speaker 6 (15:48):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No, it has to be in the vehicle, has to
be in the vehicle. All right, you know what what
I'm getting at is. But I don't think by three.
I don't think we were that yet. That's twenty two
years ago. I don't think we were that smart. I
don't think we were. Maybe we were independent. I think
that was right, or that was the early stages of
where everything was vin vin encoded. But the vent in
(16:12):
the computer has to match the vent on the truck
and match all the other computers in the sense. Right,
So if the vent on every other computer in the
truck is ABCD, the vent on the computer can't be
ef y. It has to be ABCD, and that computer
has to be capable of being written as abc D.
All right. So the problem you may run into is
(16:35):
that an three computer may not allow by basis of technology.
Once it's used, it's used unless and this is the
conversation I get into. There are guys out there that
have figured out which chips can be removed from the
motherboard and now it can you know, rewrite the chip
to as new and then allow you to write the chip.
(16:57):
The problem you're getting into, you're in a gray air
here is the reason they don't allow a lot of
PCMs to be rewritten is because of THEFT, a lot
of odometers were stored and kept in PCMs, so you
could you could take a computer, modify the odometer and
it would display, you know, that two hundred thousand mile
(17:19):
vehicle would display is eighty five thousand miles. Right, So
you're you're you're into does this have an electronic odometer readout?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, see that's that's why you're running into a PCM issue.
There's the glitch there. But let's take the vin let's
let's decode it and then I can tell you what
it's supposed to be. And then I would just wonder
if you went to Toyota, can you still buy an
OE original Toyota computer. The wiring harness wasn't changed, right,
(17:50):
I don't think so.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
So if you know, I mean, you know, I would
well go.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
If it's just the engine that was changed, then a
factory UH computers should bolt in. The problem is you
have to find somebody in South America that can code
it to North American software as the vehicle was built.
So send me the vent first, Sam. Let me help
you that way, and then we can talk further. I'm
runnin eighty in the car doctor. I'll be back right
after this another hour, just kind of flying by a
(18:43):
five five, five, six zero nine nine zero zero, run
eighty in the card doctor. Let's go over to Ben
in Wisconsin, nineteen ninety seven. Oldsmobile boy, it's a old
card day here on the car doctor. That's cool. What's
going on?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Ben? We have a ninety seven olds eighty eight and
the car does not want to shift into gear, it
will start. You can take the shift the cable off
underneath the hood, you know, the part going right to
the transmission itself. Right, and of course somebody steps on
the brake and somebody can put her into gear and
show move forward. We can't get that shift cable to release.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Okay, do you have brake lights? Yes, sir, you have
brake lights, do you Does the car have cruise control?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:27):
If you were to drive it and try the cruise control,
if you tap the brake pedal, does the yes, you
could you could try that. So so there's two connectors
at the brake pedal switch, all right, there's C one
and C two, all right. You know, if the brake
lights work and the crewise disengages, that tells me that
(19:50):
the outputs from the switch are correct, all right, right,
you know so because there's there's actually two sides of
that of that which all right, see one connector one connector.
One feeds out to a dark green it's a it's
a dark green, or it's a green white. It's a
green white wire. I think it's a dark green white wire.
(20:12):
Does a car have a console or is it? Is
it on the column, sifters on the column on the column. Okay,
so that means that the shift interlocks solenoise at the
bottom of the steering column. All right, so that dark
green white and it just goes to ground. Now ground
two hundred, which is a G two hundred. Yeah, G
(20:33):
two hundred was the ground if I remember, right bottom
left kick panel. Any moisture down around the bottom left
kick panel where your foot goes.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, the customer did say the windshield was leaking, so
you know that's what it came in here before we
sealed it up. Yeah, and you have to be determined
has been in the building since. I believe that's taken
care of, but nonetheless, you know that could be there's
no telltale signs of moisture, right or anything like that.
I get what you're saying. Yeah, I'm not by the
(21:03):
car right now. I just kind of got informed that,
you know, you might be calling the gentleman set this up.
Much appreciated at her and by the way, so you know,
I'm just going off with memory now, no, you know,
because I spent about a half an hour or so
an hour whatever looking at this and then I was
going to kind of get back to it a little
bit over the weekend as I did some more reading
(21:23):
on the wirings from addicts, and you know, also.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I think go ahead, no, go ahead, I'm sorry we did.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We did put a different break light switch in just
you know, to try it start doing the same thing.
And then I was looking for a shift locks selenoid
the parts house that we dealt with on that. You know,
maybe somebody reboxed who knows, you know, there's a bunch
of stuff that goes on sometimes, but that that selenoid
is not correct. The part number shows it should be
it according to the person. But anyways, nonetheless they've not
(21:53):
got that part to try another one, you know, just
kind of doing trial and error thing on that end
without getting but to leave. We looked at the wires
and you know, all the all the everything was doing
what was supposed to do as far as which ones
are getting voltage and which ones are getting ground.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, well, how about this, how about how about this,
ben What if we just take a you got any
one ninety four side marker bulbs and sockets in the
shop floating around? Yes, sir, why don't we disconnect the
shift interlock solenoid okay, and plug, you know, just just
you know, strip to wire ends off stick those in
each end of the shift solenoid, hit the brake pedal.
(22:28):
The light bulb's got a light, right, If the light
bulb don't light then and we've got power there, which
is easy enough to figure out, then we right the
ground's bed. You know, if it wasn't leak, was it
leaking water out of the windshield by the eight pillar
on the driver's side.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I never saw it, but according to the customer, yes.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, so it kind of makes sense, right it ran
down into the kick panel area. The other thing is
that's probably a typical as you as you well know,
that's probably a typical you know, eighteen to twenty homes solenoid.
So if it omes correctly, you know, you got a
power probe in the shop.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, we got pretty much all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, so why don't we just you know, hook hook
up the power probe, ground and power and the solenoids
got a click. If it clicks and you don't hear
a click in the car, then you know it's it's
it sure sounds like it's those shifts soloids. They get
lazy as you will again I'm telling you something you
already know. I didn't realize you were a shot. My apologies,
you know, it's it's, you know, maybe a little shot
(23:29):
at w D. If the thing's been how old is
it ninety seven? Let's do the math. Ninety seven oh seven, seventeen,
it's coming up on? Is that forty years ago? It's
thirty five if it's a day, well.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, yeah graduated. I have graduated ninety three and they
just have my thirtieth night longo. So yeah, this is
going on. Wow this time fly Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Thirty years Yeah, it's thirty something years ago. So uh yeah,
this this this is old baby. Um uh so let's
start looking at it from that perspective. But I bet
you it's the ground. It was G two hundred or
G two oh one if I remember, I think it
was G two hundred. But you can look at a
wiring diagram, break out your copy of all Dad, and
(24:10):
it'll tell you I don't keep everything in my head. Yeah,
so all right, sir.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Oh that's that's amazing man.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You got all that.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Just you guys know what you're doing over there? Where
are you out of New York.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
New Jersey? Don't tell it that's okay. Don't tell anybody,
you know, it's uh. I had somebody come into the
shop the other day and they explained to me how
they listened to the show and they love the show
and blah blah blah blah blah, they'd know me anywhere.
And I went, really, uh so sometimes it's fun to
hunt anyway. All right, I gotta go, Ben, all right,
(24:43):
good luck to you, kiddo. Let me know if you.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Shirt huh and your time. I appreciate everything, I say.
I value your knowledge and your time. I really appreciate everything.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And listen, I say, I say this in all humility
and honesty. I appreciate you and you guys out there
in the field.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I'm always happy to talk to anybody because we're all
sharing knowledge and we're all just trying to learn and
fixed cars, and I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You're very welcome, sir. You'd be well thanks for carrying
on the cause. Yeah, listen, it's hard, you know, I
can't tell you. Uh, you know, I wonder. My wife says,
I talk in my sleep a lot, and it's probably
you know. Ground two hundred dark green white wire goes
to the Solinoyd twenty Holmes resistance. What'd you say? Nothing?
You know, go back to sleep. So, uh, you know
(25:30):
I have nightmares about wiring. Everybody else has normal nightmares. Anyway,
let's pull over and take a pause. Eight five five
five six zero Not well, I do nine nine zero zero.
I'm running any in the car doctor. I'll be back
right after this second. Oh yeah, it's a beach boy.
(26:00):
Remember one Honda was just a groovy little motorbike, Tom
does I'm not that old. Let's go over and talk
to Steve in South Carolina. Steve, Welcome to the car doctor, sir,
how can I help?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Hey? Ron? How are you talking about the Beats boys?
Remember to four o nine?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
So right, she's real fine my four Yeah. Nobody's ever
gonna say she's real fine. My Toyota Prius so trust me, nobody, nobody,
nobody's gonna care. So what's going on? Brother?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I had an I got a nineteen ninety three Chevrolet
Silverado and the fan motor was not working. So bought
a brand new and put it in and you turned
the key and something that's tapping up under where the
Fano motory is. Great truck up driving around the noise,
the noise goes away. Okay, fan motor works great, partner truck,
(26:50):
turn the key off, the tapping starts with no With
the key totally off, the tapping still goes okay.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
So if you if you were to do you disconnect
the fan motor. I don't think it's a fan motor.
I just want to backtrack a little bit. If you
were to disconnect the fan motor, the noise is still there, right,
I'm sure yes, Okay, let's assume it is. You know,
try that after the call, but let's assume it is. So,
you know, the only other thing that comes to mind
(27:19):
is were you near or did you somehow throw out
of adjustment one of the temp doors or the air
door reserc motors to the doors need to be calibrated.
It sounds like because everything here is you know, there's
no more cables under the dish, even in ninety three,
so everything was done by little servo motors. So it
sounds like one of the servos has lost its direction.
(27:42):
You know, it's it's it's lost its base setting. Think
of the front door to your house, all right, how
do you know your front door is closed when it's closed.
That's a question.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Well, well you see that it's closed right right.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
So when you go from hot to cold in a car,
how does the computer know where hot is and how
does it know where cold is? It can't feel temperature,
right right, So so zero the front door is closed,
all right. It does it by binary counting. A zero
position on the motor is closed one hundred and fifty
(28:18):
five for example. If that's what this is a zero
to one to fifty five motor. Zero is closed, one
fifty five is open. So it's programming tells it when
Steve wants to go mid temperature, it puts it to
seventy seven degrees, all right. But if it loses count,
if it doesn't know where zero is, or it doesn't
(28:39):
know where you know, one fifty five where top is,
it'll run it up against one way or the other
and just bang bang bang bang bang bang bang, and
it's looking for that final stop. It's lost. It's confused.
So you would have to go in simplest thing would
be go take a scan tool, and I believe there
will be in ninety three a blend door actuation or
(29:01):
a temp control door calibration where everything will get reset
to zero ninety three is a little early. You know, again,
I'm dealing with a lot of old cars today, but
I think it was still there. If not, then the
door itself, the motor itself has an issue. We've just
got to figure out which one it is. And it'll
be simply a matter of you know, if you go
(29:22):
back and look at where the blower is, was there
a blend door or a recirc door motor calibration I'm sorry,
a recerc door actuator close by the blower that maybe
somehow you brushed up against it, pushed on a changed position,
or did you have to take it out to do
the blower.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, the way that you do this one is you
actually have to take a right kick panel out and
the silver box that's in the glove box to get
to the top boat and it slides through the bottom
and the only thing you pull out is just.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
A motive that silver box. What was that silver box?
Was that the BCM?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
It is? It is?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, And I bet the BCM lost its calibration. I'd
be I'd be looking at it. I'd be looking at
a calibration. But you get my point. If you don't
know where you're front. If you don't know where the
front door in your house is supposed to close, you know,
try closing your front Try try opening and closing your
front door in the dark.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
You know, you as it's.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Got to be that because I pulled the motor back out,
turn power to it. Uh, it works fine on all
the different speeds right, highow, medium, Yeah, I don't think
it's that. It's the motor. It's not the motor.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, I don't think it's that. By the way, when
you did the motor was anything that anything looked melted
or like it was getting hot. Just be aware. They
have blower motor resistor problems too, so the you know,
what will happen is the blower motor will draw too
high and the blower motor goes bad, but it'll melt
the resistor. So just while you're down there doing all this,
(30:58):
if you have a clamp on AMK, you might as
well just you know, do current draw. You know, if
the blower motor typical blower motors on a thirty AM fuse,
you'll see a typical blower on high pull somewhere between
twelve and fifteen amps. It shouldn't pull higher than fifteen
good rule of thumb. Most automotive circuits, if the fuse
is a thirty, the max's expecting to see is half
that fifteen. You know, just it's and even a third
(31:22):
I've seen. I've seen the third rule, the third between
a third and a half. I've never seen a blower
go higher than fifteen amps on a high amp pull.
If I do, I usually have a problem with either
either the circuit or the motor itself. So just just
be aware. You may also need a resistor which will
shorten the life of that of that motor. All right, kiddo,
but go look at that, Go look at go look
at blend or calibration, Go look at the BCM. You'll
(31:45):
need not an OBD two scan tool but a year
making model version to do that, and I think that
will solve your problem, sir. And by the way, if
depending on the scan tool you're using, Stevie, you can
go in and look at the step or the position
of that app sctuator zero ten, twenty thirty forty so
on up and down the scale. You might find the
one that's sticking by looking at the steps that it's
(32:08):
on as well. Thanks, I appreciate the call I'm running ending,
and the car doctor coming back to finish it up.
Right after this, I'll know you much better and got
done and welcome back. I can't believe how fast an
(32:31):
hour two hours is the second hour. I can't believe
how fast two hours of talking about cars goes by
on a weekend. It's like, Holy cow, light speed man,
light speed. Our last call today, it's actually not a call.
It's an email from Ray down in South Carolina. Ray writes,
and hey, Royn, can you help me with a problem.
I've inherited my dad's ninety nine Chevy trail Blazer. I
love my dad to death. He's still around, but he
(32:52):
makes me crazy because he bought this truck new in
ninety nine. He was sixty five years old. It was
the car of his dreams. Now I've got it twenty
some odd years later, and he wasn't really good about
oil changes and it's developed an engine tap. What can
you tell me to solve it? I want to keep
it going in his memory, even though we still here.
I just want to make sure that he enjoys it
more in his later years. Ray, you know what, Ray?
This sounds like my ninety seven Ranger. All right, this
(33:13):
has an engine tap. My ninety seven Ranger, which just
turned two hundred and twenty eight thousand miles I think
it was, has had a valve tap a little bit
of a tick in it for for quite a while.
I'm not gonna lie, probably the better part of twelve
or fifteen years, and we can never get rid of it.
We tried transfluid, we tried every sludging agent, removable, blah
blah blah that we could think of. We've recently run
(33:35):
into Hotshot Secret, all right. Not to make this sound
like an ad, it's not. I'm telling you something that
really worked in the shop, and we came across hot
Shot Secret and their sticktion eliminator. All right. You can
get out to their website and read about it hotshotsecret
dot com. Now there's something in this stuff. Because I'm
telling you right now, you come by the shop, I'll
let you drive the truck. Not only is it quiet,
(33:56):
it got rid of a valve tap that on a
scale of one to ten, wasn't eleven. All Right, it's
got a little bit of a tick to it. It's
probably down around to two now where it sounds sort
of like an exhaust leak, and it's not it's not
a leaking manifold. It's an actual valve tap. But Sticktion
eliminator did what it was supposed to do. It it
actually runs better. The valve tap is. I'm gonna say
(34:18):
eighty five ninety percent gone. The truck never ran so good.
And the truck ran good before, it runs better now.
So Ray, I'm gonna tell you to get yourself a
bottle of that stition eliminator. It's a big green bottle.
It's really kind of a it's a funky green you know,
it looks weird, and you know what, it works. Just
follow the directions on the bottle and I bet that
solves your valvetop problem. It's solved ours. Danny and I
(34:41):
are looking at each other like, well, like if you
can't go buy a new truck yet, We're just gonna
keep driving this one another two hundred thousand miles because
it just runs that good. Hotshotsecret dot com till the
next time. Been a pleasure, an absolute pleasure. It flew by.
It's an honor to be here for each and every
one of you every weekend and on the podcast and stream.
However you're listening to this radio show. We haveppreciate your
love and support until the next time. Good mechanics aren't expensive,
(35:03):
they're priceless. See yup
Ron an Adian reasons for replacing an automotive battery natural
wear and tear. Most batteries last three to five years.
They point out performance declines due to aging and chemical depletion.
And I think that the reason that we're seeing is
rapid decline in batteries. Again, is the electronics shock.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Battery?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The car Doctor, the whole car just say so.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I would think somebody thinks something's funny going on if
I had.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Like a van, So why can't it be that we've
got warped break roaders.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I've had them taken care of before and that wasn't
the problem. It feels like it's something engine wise to me.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Really, Okay, Welcome to the radio home of ron Anian,
the Car Doctor. Since nineteen ninety one, this is where
car owners the world overturned to for their definitive opinion
on automotive repair. If your mechanics giving you busy signal,
pick up the phone and call in.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
The garage doors are opening, but I am here to
take your calls at eight five five five six ninety
nine hundred and now pee running, you know, I just
I just have to start here. And I didn't even
tell Tom I was going to do this, so Tom
may take me off the air when I do this,
so just be prepared to hear dead sound. But and
(01:23):
you know, I promised I would stop talking about EV's
and the folly that that is. Well, not if it's
a folly, but it just wasn't going to happen the
way we were being told it was going to happen.
Did anybody look at the news today? Did anybody see?
And I kept I kept telling you guys. You know,
I hate to say I told you so, So I
won't say I told you so because I was right.
I'm not right that often. Well, no, actually I'm right
(01:45):
a lot so. But in any event, the federal government
decided today that they're going to they're going to uh,
They've told the states to stop pursuing building out the
EV infrastructure. Remember a couple of years ago, everybody was
in a panic saying, oh my god, we're gonna stop
selling gas car and everything's going to be electric and
blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Who was that
voice in the darkness that kept saying it ain't gonna
(02:07):
happen and bingo, it ain't gonna happen. You know, why
because it can't be done. The laws of physics don't work.
Not anti EV folks, just not in the capacity they
were telling us what was gonna happen if you turned
off your radio. I'm sorry, I'm just sort of stating
the obvious that there is a future with both EV
and gas vehicles, at least for the next I think
(02:28):
ten to fifteen years. I don't think it's gonna happen
sooner than that, because I don't think the technology is present.
I still say evs are okay. They do a job.
But I think they've developed electric vehicles to take us
to the stars, because that's how we're going to get
around on Mars and the planets, you know, in the
next generation one hundred years from now, when they're driving
around up there. But I just thought that was an
(02:48):
interesting article to lead off the hour with probably annoy
a few people. I'm sorry, that's not my intention. I'll
go back to being just being the guy that answers
Carr questions, which is okay too. Let's go to Billy.
Look at that. I talk about Billy in Colorado and bang,
he calls, Billy, were you listening to the show or
is this just circumstance.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I was not. I okay, sorry, I let's.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Show off with that email earlier heads up on what
I'm looking at.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, I just you know what, I'm always glad to
talk to you. I told that to everybody too. Uh
so talk to me, tell us, tell everybody that maybe
he's knew this hour about this four focus on what's
going on?
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Yeah, So my friend's four focus two point three liter
it gets its intermittent p O one seven to one
lean code. So when I take the car, I started cold. Uh,
fuel trims look great. I run it all the way
up to full operating temperature. The fuel trims look great
the whole way up. I can't reproduce the problem. I
(03:49):
give it back to her, and a week later it
popped again.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I look at a freeze frame from the from the code,
and all the numbers look normal that I can tell,
except for the fuel trip which is maxed out.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Right, So you never see to get the car back,
it's fine.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, you never see this car run lean.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Never.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay. So you have a propane.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Bottle, Uh yeah, I got a smoke machine, got propaine?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Can we can we can we propane around the PCV
if you done all that?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
How many miles on the car?
Speaker 5 (04:26):
I think like one hundred and forty something in.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Aball I probably, I probably do. Wudn't take manifold dough rings, Billy, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I'm still thinking. I just didn't want to throw parts
at a problem.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
No, I get it, Yeah, I get it. Listen, if
you can't reproduce it, See, that's the problem. You can't
reproduce it, you know, because and I listened for full
disclosure to everybody. I don't know Billy personally, but I've
talked to him enough times on the phone. He's he's
a smart dude, and he knows what he's doing. By now,
we would have disconnected breakbooster, hose and PCV and you know,
gone through the drill. There's not much else here that's
(04:59):
going to make intermittent that's easily diagnosed. If we've got
a random lean fault and it's not engine mechanical, engine intake, manifold,
a leaking hose, leaking PCV, et cetera, we've got a
you know, we've got a computer that's confused. How you
going to prove that? I'd be willing to bet you
take that intake manifold off and those round O rings
are square all right, you know that they're no longer
(05:22):
and it doesn't take much for this thing to leak.
It really doesn't. You know, temperature of the day, how
the plastic manifold sits, how it expands, how it contracts.
I've seen this more times than I can count. And
at that mileage, it's twenty one years old, it's got
higher mileage on it. It's not a hard job. I
would be looking at intake manifold O rings just as
(05:44):
a start, and while it's a part, I would go
very carefully over that PCV. I'd probably at this point
put a new pcvvalve in it, all right, because it's
under the intake. It's kind of hard to get to
with the intake on, and you know, maybe a fresh
PCV hose because I've also seen that pc VE hos collapse.
If I had to put a priority, if we had
three hundred cases of a lean fault code on a
(06:06):
focus bill, I bet you two hundred of them are
going to be PCV hos. One hundred of them are
going to be intake or vice versa. It's it's usually
a combination of those two things, you know, provided provided
you know, fuel trims are good. You know, fuel pump
is good. You know, we don't see it, we don't
have it. But you know, it's rare to see a
(06:28):
bad fuel pump cause a lean fault on an inconsistent basis.
By now it would have failed. And then the only
other thing I'm gonna mention, because I'm kind of on
this kick because I've seen a lot of this at
the shop of late is I would, you know, I
would do an ethanol test. I would just check for
ethanol content of the fuel. And you know, is she
(06:50):
you know, is she going to this one gas station
on Monday and it sets, it sets the p zero
one seven winn And then on Friday she fills up
with the station on the other side of town and
the fault goes away. And then Billy that's it on
Saturday and he doesn't see the problem, you know, goofy
things like that. You know, you've got to think about
all that too, because sometimes to diagnose accurately, the customer
(07:10):
needs to be consistent. So, you know, but that's where
I'm going. Have you done an ethanol test?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
I have not, all right, I don't have a tester,
but I can get one.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, you know what Amazon, If you go on Amazon
and just type in ethanol test kit twenty bucks, it's
it's it's it's four plastic vials, all right, and you
just you know, it's a lifetime supply, right, you know,
and it just it's it's you get in the habit
of testing good, right, what do I always tell you?
(07:42):
You know, let's let's let's test known good, so we
know what known bad looks like. And and let's look
at the ethanol content. And one of these days you're
gonna find it. One of these days, you're gonna have
a car that you're gonna do an ethanol test for
a low power complaint or a hard start or a
lean fuel FOULT code, and all of a sudden, you're
gonna recognize what bad fuel looks like. And you're gonna
recognize a high ethanol or an incorrect ethanol content, and
(08:02):
you're gonna be like wow, and you know, and that's
that's that's where it comes from. So all right, all right,
does this.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Car have a like a straight report on the on
the fuel rail that I can pull fuel from.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I'm trying to remember if not I'm just going to
just do a disconnect and you know, just have somebody
and you don't need much fuel if somebody were to
if you did a disconnect on the fuel line and
just we For example, the other day we had to
take a fuel sample from a newer a Lexus.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We didn't even bother looking for a test port. We
just went to the disconnect of the fuel lines. We
just disconnected the line. Danny cycled the key and I
just took a hose, put it on the end of
the line, cycled it into the bottle. It took two
cycles of the key and the bottle was filled. It
doesn't have to be that complicated. By the same token.
You know what, you want to check? Fuel pressure? Known good.
(08:53):
I don't know what you'll see, you know, you well,
you'll see accurate pressure. I don't think you'll see a
a fuel pressure problem with this. But at the same time,
you can get your ethanol out of the way and
say that you did a fuel pressure test. So listen,
you're a tested kind of guy, right, Agreed?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Bill?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Did Bill go? I think Bill disappeared? Look at that.
I guess Bill's off testing.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Bill.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Are you there up? Billy's gone, look at that phone technology.
I was going to say, Bill's a tested kind of guy.
Check fuel pressure this way. You know what the speck is,
you know what the number is. The other day I
gave Danny something to work on and he wasn't sure
of a number, and I told him what the number was,
and he says, how do you know that? And I said,
because I've done fifty of them, you know, because I've
seen fifty good ones, and now I know what a
bad one looks like. And that's really what diagnosis is
(09:41):
all about. That's how doctors get good. I hate to
say it, but I think that's you know, listen, they
don't you know, when they're sending doctors to medical school
and their interns, they do all those cases, and I
think they learned to look at the numbers and they're
always evaluating numbers. And I think that's the same thing
with auto repair. You're always evaluating numbers, good, bad, or indifferent.
So anyway, eighty five to five six zero nine nine
zero zero again eight five five five six zero nine
(10:04):
nine zero zero the car doctor's twenty four to seven number,
you can call that number. By the way, we're not
we're not on the air. We're live on the network
Saturdays two to four pm Eastern Time. You can call
eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero
and leave a message anytime day or night, and we
will call you back and put you in queue for
the next live broadcast and you know, get it from there.
You can also, by the way, find us, you know,
(10:24):
car doctorshow dot com. The merchandise button is there if
you want some car doctor merch coffee cup, hat, whatever.
But you can also get to the podcast. Just Google
search Ron and Inian and it'll come up, you know,
and pulls from all the various and assorted podcast platforms
because we're trying to be here for you guys in
all forms of media so we can answer all your
questions and help you out with your car problems. Anyway.
Eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
(10:46):
I did that well, I can do it again. I
own the place. I'll be back right after this. O. God,
that's right.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
If you call and we're not live, you can leave
a message and we'll call you back to get you
on the air with Ron eight five six zero nine
nine zero zero. Speaking of Ron, therey is Hey.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Let's wander over and go talk to Sam and Illinois.
Sam oh three Toyota Tacoma. How are you Sam?
Speaker 6 (11:18):
Welcome, sir, I'm good, Thanks for having taking my call.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
You're welcome. What's going on?
Speaker 6 (11:24):
I have I have a three Tacoma four x four
V six and uh it has a problem with the ECM.
And here's the situation. I got to doing a little research.
The VEN number corresponds to a five speed one hundred
and fifty horse so and there's no ODB two, has
(11:48):
no codes coming out. The check engine light is on
and the SRS light is on. The problem is that
I have the truck in South America and they have
a uh you got to have a tested routinely whatever
to drive it, and I can't pass it because the
emission control is keeps is a problem?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Right, it's broken?
Speaker 6 (12:13):
So right the ECM. Right, So my question is how
do I find an ECM. Do I look for the
VEN number that corresponds with the engine that was in
there before, because that's the infrastructure that the wiring harness,
or do I look for the ECM that's the engine
that's in here now, which is the V six.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Okay, so all right, so back back up. We've talked
about this truck. I kind of remember this truck, so
refresh my memory. This has this has an engine different
than the what engine is in the truck?
Speaker 6 (12:48):
The five five f F E V six three point
four later?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, and it's from what year is it from? No,
it's not from an O three. They didn't put three
fours in the O three's did they did that? I'm
trying to remember.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
I don't know you have?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So this is so this is a V six? Well,
what fault code's in there? Sam? It's got to have
a fault code.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
If the light's on, nothing nothing comes out of the ob.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
D two zero?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Where was the vehicle produced.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Us?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
All right? And how long has it been in cus?
How long has it been in South America?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Probably a while?
Speaker 5 (13:31):
And this is where I picked it up?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And where's the you know? And and the light's been on?
How long? A while?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Right? Yes?
Speaker 6 (13:41):
The car the truck runs.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, No, I get it, I get it. I'm just
trying to I'm just you know, so what would happen
if we just went to Here's what I want to know?
All right, let's let me let me regroup and think
about this. You know, is this the correct engine. Forget transmission?
Is this a correct engine for the vehicle? All right?
Did they put a three point four?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Okay, yeah, they make it in yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
So it's just that it's a it's a five speed,
not an automatic.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
No, it's the other way around. It's an automatic. Now
it was a five speed.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Before, but it wasn't.
Speaker 6 (14:16):
It wasn't a V six. That It's all I know.
It's one hundred and fifty horse pow. That's all I
can come up with with the VEN number.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, forget the computer that's in there. What was the
truck originally? If you look at the VIN. If you
look at the VIN that's on the truck, what does
that decode to?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
What does that decode to?
Speaker 6 (14:33):
A five speed? One hundred and fifty horse Okay? That's
all I can find.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I mean, well, you should be able to go into
all data, Mitchell, any one of the multiple places and
just say here's the VIN, and they could decode and
tell you what it was. Chances are it was a
V six. Okay, you know what, Email me the VIN.
Ronic cardoctorshow dot com? All right, okay, Ronic card doctorshow
dot Com? I want the VIN of the vehicle. Right,
(15:01):
that's what we're just just so recruiter. I want the
VIN of the vehicle, all right, and then you've got
but you've got an e CM that is what for what?
It's got a different VIN in it?
Speaker 6 (15:16):
Well, it's all it's scratched off, so I don't I
have no idea who who it belongs to.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So you've got to you're looking, you're looking at the
part number on the outside of the computer case. That's
not there. It's scratched off, right, What if you look?
What if you look? What if you look at it
electronically with a scan tool.
Speaker 6 (15:39):
I haven't done that yet.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
I will.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well that would be my next step, you know, forget
the part number. Okay, does you know in O three?
Speaker 6 (15:48):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No, it has to be in the vehicle, has to
be in the vehicle. All right, you know what what
I'm getting at is. But I don't think by three.
I don't think we were that yet. That's twenty two
years ago. I don't think we were that smart. I
don't think we were. Maybe we were independent. I think
that was right, or that was the early stages of
where everything was vin vin encoded. But the vent in
(16:12):
the computer has to match the vent on the truck
and match all the other computers in the sense. Right,
So if the vent on every other computer in the
truck is ABCD, the vent on the computer can't be
ef y. It has to be ABCD, and that computer
has to be capable of being written as abc D.
All right. So the problem you may run into is
(16:35):
that an three computer may not allow by basis of technology.
Once it's used, it's used unless and this is the
conversation I get into. There are guys out there that
have figured out which chips can be removed from the
motherboard and now it can you know, rewrite the chip
to as new and then allow you to write the chip.
(16:57):
The problem you're getting into, you're in a gray air
here is the reason they don't allow a lot of
PCMs to be rewritten is because of THEFT, a lot
of odometers were stored and kept in PCMs, so you
could you could take a computer, modify the odometer and
it would display, you know, that two hundred thousand mile
(17:19):
vehicle would display is eighty five thousand miles. Right, So
you're you're you're into does this have an electronic odometer readout?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, see that's that's why you're running into a PCM issue.
There's the glitch there. But let's take the vin let's
let's decode it and then I can tell you what
it's supposed to be. And then I would just wonder
if you went to Toyota, can you still buy an
OE original Toyota computer. The wiring harness wasn't changed, right,
(17:50):
I don't think so.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
So if you know, I mean, you know, I would
well go.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
If it's just the engine that was changed, then a
factory UH computers should bolt in. The problem is you
have to find somebody in South America that can code
it to North American software as the vehicle was built.
So send me the vent first, Sam. Let me help
you that way, and then we can talk further. I'm
runnin eighty in the car doctor. I'll be back right
after this another hour, just kind of flying by a
(18:43):
five five, five, six zero nine nine zero zero, run
eighty in the card doctor. Let's go over to Ben
in Wisconsin, nineteen ninety seven. Oldsmobile boy, it's a old
card day here on the car doctor. That's cool. What's
going on?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Ben? We have a ninety seven olds eighty eight and
the car does not want to shift into gear, it
will start. You can take the shift the cable off
underneath the hood, you know, the part going right to
the transmission itself. Right, and of course somebody steps on
the brake and somebody can put her into gear and
show move forward. We can't get that shift cable to release.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Okay, do you have brake lights? Yes, sir, you have
brake lights, do you Does the car have cruise control?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:27):
If you were to drive it and try the cruise control,
if you tap the brake pedal, does the yes, you
could you could try that. So so there's two connectors
at the brake pedal switch, all right, there's C one
and C two, all right. You know, if the brake
lights work and the crewise disengages, that tells me that
(19:50):
the outputs from the switch are correct, all right, right,
you know so because there's there's actually two sides of
that of that which all right, see one connector one connector.
One feeds out to a dark green it's a it's
a dark green, or it's a green white. It's a
green white wire. I think it's a dark green white wire.
(20:12):
Does a car have a console or is it? Is
it on the column, sifters on the column on the column. Okay,
so that means that the shift interlocks solenoise at the
bottom of the steering column. All right, so that dark
green white and it just goes to ground. Now ground
two hundred, which is a G two hundred. Yeah, G
(20:33):
two hundred was the ground if I remember, right bottom
left kick panel. Any moisture down around the bottom left
kick panel where your foot goes.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, the customer did say the windshield was leaking, so
you know that's what it came in here before we
sealed it up. Yeah, and you have to be determined
has been in the building since. I believe that's taken
care of, but nonetheless, you know that could be there's
no telltale signs of moisture, right or anything like that.
I get what you're saying. Yeah, I'm not by the
(21:03):
car right now. I just kind of got informed that,
you know, you might be calling the gentleman set this up.
Much appreciated at her and by the way, so you know,
I'm just going off with memory now, no, you know,
because I spent about a half an hour or so
an hour whatever looking at this and then I was
going to kind of get back to it a little
bit over the weekend as I did some more reading
(21:23):
on the wirings from addicts, and you know, also.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I think go ahead, no, go ahead, I'm sorry we did.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We did put a different break light switch in just
you know, to try it start doing the same thing.
And then I was looking for a shift locks selenoid
the parts house that we dealt with on that. You know,
maybe somebody reboxed who knows, you know, there's a bunch
of stuff that goes on sometimes, but that that selenoid
is not correct. The part number shows it should be
it according to the person. But anyways, nonetheless they've not
(21:53):
got that part to try another one, you know, just
kind of doing trial and error thing on that end
without getting but to leave. We looked at the wires
and you know, all the all the everything was doing
what was supposed to do as far as which ones
are getting voltage and which ones are getting ground.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, well, how about this, how about how about this,
ben What if we just take a you got any
one ninety four side marker bulbs and sockets in the
shop floating around? Yes, sir, why don't we disconnect the
shift interlock solenoid okay, and plug, you know, just just
you know, strip to wire ends off stick those in
each end of the shift solenoid, hit the brake pedal.
(22:28):
The light bulb's got a light, right, If the light
bulb don't light then and we've got power there, which
is easy enough to figure out, then we right the
ground's bed. You know, if it wasn't leak, was it
leaking water out of the windshield by the eight pillar
on the driver's side.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I never saw it, but according to the customer, yes.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, so it kind of makes sense, right it ran
down into the kick panel area. The other thing is
that's probably a typical as you as you well know,
that's probably a typical you know, eighteen to twenty homes solenoid.
So if it omes correctly, you know, you got a
power probe in the shop.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, we got pretty much all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, so why don't we just you know, hook hook
up the power probe, ground and power and the solenoids
got a click. If it clicks and you don't hear
a click in the car, then you know it's it's
it sure sounds like it's those shifts soloids. They get
lazy as you will again I'm telling you something you
already know. I didn't realize you were a shot. My apologies,
you know, it's it's, you know, maybe a little shot
(23:29):
at w D. If the thing's been how old is
it ninety seven? Let's do the math. Ninety seven oh seven, seventeen,
it's coming up on? Is that forty years ago? It's
thirty five if it's a day, well.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, yeah graduated. I have graduated ninety three and they
just have my thirtieth night longo. So yeah, this is
going on. Wow this time fly Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Thirty years Yeah, it's thirty something years ago. So uh yeah,
this this this is old baby. Um uh so let's
start looking at it from that perspective. But I bet
you it's the ground. It was G two hundred or
G two oh one if I remember, I think it
was G two hundred. But you can look at a
wiring diagram, break out your copy of all Dad, and
(24:10):
it'll tell you I don't keep everything in my head. Yeah,
so all right, sir.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Oh that's that's amazing man.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You got all that.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Just you guys know what you're doing over there? Where
are you out of New York.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
New Jersey? Don't tell it that's okay. Don't tell anybody,
you know, it's uh. I had somebody come into the
shop the other day and they explained to me how
they listened to the show and they love the show
and blah blah blah blah blah, they'd know me anywhere.
And I went, really, uh so sometimes it's fun to
hunt anyway. All right, I gotta go, Ben, all right,
(24:43):
good luck to you, kiddo. Let me know if you.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Shirt huh and your time. I appreciate everything, I say.
I value your knowledge and your time. I really appreciate everything.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And listen, I say, I say this in all humility
and honesty. I appreciate you and you guys out there
in the field.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I'm always happy to talk to anybody because we're all
sharing knowledge and we're all just trying to learn and
fixed cars, and I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You're very welcome, sir. You'd be well thanks for carrying
on the cause. Yeah, listen, it's hard, you know, I
can't tell you. Uh, you know, I wonder. My wife says,
I talk in my sleep a lot, and it's probably
you know. Ground two hundred dark green white wire goes
to the Solinoyd twenty Holmes resistance. What'd you say? Nothing?
You know, go back to sleep. So, uh, you know
(25:30):
I have nightmares about wiring. Everybody else has normal nightmares. Anyway,
let's pull over and take a pause. Eight five five
five six zero Not well, I do nine nine zero zero.
I'm running any in the car doctor. I'll be back
right after this second. Oh yeah, it's a beach boy.
(26:00):
Remember one Honda was just a groovy little motorbike, Tom
does I'm not that old. Let's go over and talk
to Steve in South Carolina. Steve, Welcome to the car doctor, sir,
how can I help?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Hey? Ron? How are you talking about the Beats boys?
Remember to four o nine?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
So right, she's real fine my four Yeah. Nobody's ever
gonna say she's real fine. My Toyota Prius so trust me, nobody, nobody,
nobody's gonna care. So what's going on? Brother?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I had an I got a nineteen ninety three Chevrolet
Silverado and the fan motor was not working. So bought
a brand new and put it in and you turned
the key and something that's tapping up under where the
Fano motory is. Great truck up driving around the noise,
the noise goes away. Okay, fan motor works great, partner truck,
(26:50):
turn the key off, the tapping starts with no With
the key totally off, the tapping still goes okay.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
So if you if you were to do you disconnect
the fan motor. I don't think it's a fan motor.
I just want to backtrack a little bit. If you
were to disconnect the fan motor, the noise is still there, right,
I'm sure yes, Okay, let's assume it is. You know,
try that after the call, but let's assume it is. So,
you know, the only other thing that comes to mind
(27:19):
is were you near or did you somehow throw out
of adjustment one of the temp doors or the air
door reserc motors to the doors need to be calibrated.
It sounds like because everything here is you know, there's
no more cables under the dish, even in ninety three,
so everything was done by little servo motors. So it
sounds like one of the servos has lost its direction.
(27:42):
You know, it's it's it's lost its base setting. Think
of the front door to your house, all right, how
do you know your front door is closed when it's closed.
That's a question.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Well, well you see that it's closed right right.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
So when you go from hot to cold in a car,
how does the computer know where hot is and how
does it know where cold is? It can't feel temperature,
right right, So so zero the front door is closed,
all right. It does it by binary counting. A zero
position on the motor is closed one hundred and fifty
(28:18):
five for example. If that's what this is a zero
to one to fifty five motor. Zero is closed, one
fifty five is open. So it's programming tells it when
Steve wants to go mid temperature, it puts it to
seventy seven degrees, all right. But if it loses count,
if it doesn't know where zero is, or it doesn't
(28:39):
know where you know, one fifty five where top is,
it'll run it up against one way or the other
and just bang bang bang bang bang bang bang, and
it's looking for that final stop. It's lost. It's confused.
So you would have to go in simplest thing would
be go take a scan tool, and I believe there
will be in ninety three a blend door actuation or
(29:01):
a temp control door calibration where everything will get reset
to zero ninety three is a little early. You know, again,
I'm dealing with a lot of old cars today, but
I think it was still there. If not, then the
door itself, the motor itself has an issue. We've just
got to figure out which one it is. And it'll
be simply a matter of you know, if you go
(29:22):
back and look at where the blower is, was there
a blend door or a recirc door motor calibration I'm sorry,
a recerc door actuator close by the blower that maybe
somehow you brushed up against it, pushed on a changed position,
or did you have to take it out to do
the blower.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, the way that you do this one is you
actually have to take a right kick panel out and
the silver box that's in the glove box to get
to the top boat and it slides through the bottom
and the only thing you pull out is just.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
A motive that silver box. What was that silver box?
Was that the BCM?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
It is? It is?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, And I bet the BCM lost its calibration. I'd
be I'd be looking at it. I'd be looking at
a calibration. But you get my point. If you don't
know where you're front. If you don't know where the
front door in your house is supposed to close, you know,
try closing your front Try try opening and closing your
front door in the dark.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
You know, you as it's.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Got to be that because I pulled the motor back out,
turn power to it. Uh, it works fine on all
the different speeds right, highow, medium, Yeah, I don't think
it's that. It's the motor. It's not the motor.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, I don't think it's that. By the way, when
you did the motor was anything that anything looked melted
or like it was getting hot. Just be aware. They
have blower motor resistor problems too, so the you know,
what will happen is the blower motor will draw too
high and the blower motor goes bad, but it'll melt
the resistor. So just while you're down there doing all this,
(30:58):
if you have a clamp on AMK, you might as
well just you know, do current draw. You know, if
the blower motor typical blower motors on a thirty AM fuse,
you'll see a typical blower on high pull somewhere between
twelve and fifteen amps. It shouldn't pull higher than fifteen
good rule of thumb. Most automotive circuits, if the fuse
is a thirty, the max's expecting to see is half
that fifteen. You know, just it's and even a third
(31:22):
I've seen. I've seen the third rule, the third between
a third and a half. I've never seen a blower
go higher than fifteen amps on a high amp pull.
If I do, I usually have a problem with either
either the circuit or the motor itself. So just just
be aware. You may also need a resistor which will
shorten the life of that of that motor. All right, kiddo,
but go look at that, Go look at go look
at blend or calibration, Go look at the BCM. You'll
(31:45):
need not an OBD two scan tool but a year
making model version to do that, and I think that
will solve your problem, sir. And by the way, if
depending on the scan tool you're using, Stevie, you can
go in and look at the step or the position
of that app sctuator zero ten, twenty thirty forty so
on up and down the scale. You might find the
one that's sticking by looking at the steps that it's
(32:08):
on as well. Thanks, I appreciate the call I'm running ending,
and the car doctor coming back to finish it up.
Right after this, I'll know you much better and got
done and welcome back. I can't believe how fast an
(32:31):
hour two hours is the second hour. I can't believe
how fast two hours of talking about cars goes by
on a weekend. It's like, Holy cow, light speed man,
light speed. Our last call today, it's actually not a call.
It's an email from Ray down in South Carolina. Ray writes,
and hey, Royn, can you help me with a problem.
I've inherited my dad's ninety nine Chevy trail Blazer. I
love my dad to death. He's still around, but he
(32:52):
makes me crazy because he bought this truck new in
ninety nine. He was sixty five years old. It was
the car of his dreams. Now I've got it twenty
some odd years later, and he wasn't really good about
oil changes and it's developed an engine tap. What can
you tell me to solve it? I want to keep
it going in his memory, even though we still here.
I just want to make sure that he enjoys it
more in his later years. Ray, you know what, Ray?
This sounds like my ninety seven Ranger. All right, this
(33:13):
has an engine tap. My ninety seven Ranger, which just
turned two hundred and twenty eight thousand miles I think
it was, has had a valve tap a little bit
of a tick in it for for quite a while.
I'm not gonna lie, probably the better part of twelve
or fifteen years, and we can never get rid of it.
We tried transfluid, we tried every sludging agent, removable, blah
blah blah that we could think of. We've recently run
(33:35):
into Hotshot Secret, all right. Not to make this sound
like an ad, it's not. I'm telling you something that
really worked in the shop, and we came across hot
Shot Secret and their sticktion eliminator. All right. You can
get out to their website and read about it hotshotsecret
dot com. Now there's something in this stuff. Because I'm
telling you right now, you come by the shop, I'll
let you drive the truck. Not only is it quiet,
(33:56):
it got rid of a valve tap that on a
scale of one to ten, wasn't eleven. All Right, it's
got a little bit of a tick to it. It's
probably down around to two now where it sounds sort
of like an exhaust leak, and it's not it's not
a leaking manifold. It's an actual valve tap. But Sticktion
eliminator did what it was supposed to do. It it
actually runs better. The valve tap is. I'm gonna say
(34:18):
eighty five ninety percent gone. The truck never ran so good.
And the truck ran good before, it runs better now.
So Ray, I'm gonna tell you to get yourself a
bottle of that stition eliminator. It's a big green bottle.
It's really kind of a it's a funky green you know,
it looks weird, and you know what, it works. Just
follow the directions on the bottle and I bet that
solves your valvetop problem. It's solved ours. Danny and I
(34:41):
are looking at each other like, well, like if you
can't go buy a new truck yet, We're just gonna
keep driving this one another two hundred thousand miles because
it just runs that good. Hotshotsecret dot com till the
next time. Been a pleasure, an absolute pleasure. It flew by.
It's an honor to be here for each and every
one of you every weekend and on the podcast and stream.
However you're listening to this radio show. We haveppreciate your
love and support until the next time. Good mechanics aren't expensive,
(35:03):
they're priceless. See yup
Host
Ron Ananian
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