New E-350 Project: VANdiana Jones!

[24HOURSOFNEVADA]

That looks like your truck in the first picture of the van.

[bknudtsen]

Nope. The Avalanche was traded in, but it is not in any of the pics.

[bknudtsen]

So, there I was on my way to Harbor Freight to buy some cheap moving dollies to roll my 2 project axles around the garage, when out of the blue, the van stutters for a moment and then goes back to normal. I thought I saw some white smoke come out of the exhaust right then. I arrived at HF with no further incident. On my way back, the van bogged real bad when I was accelerating from a stop, then went right back to normal. I then noticed that the check engine light was lit.

Got home with no other events. After freaking out for a while, I remembered that I had my fancy new SCT tuner sitting in a box in the garage. I hooked it up. Nothing. No power to the tuner. Instructions said to check the cigarette lighter/dtc fuse. Blown, of course! Do I have a spare? Of course not. Oh, but there is a Ford Crown Vic parked right next to me... Dang, it's battery is totally flat from two weeks off, but that will have to wait. VANdiana needs a fuse!

New fuse in, SCT fired right up. DTC is P0404. EGR Valve issue. Whew! OK, not that big of a deal since I have the EGR delete kit in my garage as well. Now I am starting to wonder if I should replace the oil cooler while I am in there just to be safe. Decisions...

[ujoint]

Replace it or just give it a good cleaning & replace the screen under it.

[bknudtsen]

Replace it or just give it a good cleaning & replace the screen under it.

Thx for the advice... I'm just going to replace it. Might as well, since I will be digging everything else out of there... With the delete and new filter systems, hopefully, I won't have to do it again for a while.

[mobydick]

Almost done with the egr delete in my 05 6.0l. What a pain in the ***. It was my first time working on any engine. All I have to do is put the turbo back in. Just wondering what will happen if i dont put the plate over the egr sensor thing and just leave it in there. Also is the egr valve the black rubber looking circle right to the right of the sensor ( if your looking in to the hood).

[ujoint]

You can leave the EGR valve in place & connected. I assume that you're shutting it down via a programmer?

[bknudtsen]

Almost done with the egr delete in my 05 6.0l. What a pain in the ***. It was my first time working on any engine. All I have to do is put the turbo back in. Just wondering what will happen if i dont put the plate over the egr sensor thing and just leave it in there. Also is the egr valve the black rubber looking circle right to the right of the sensor ( if your looking in to the hood).

You're not kidding! I spent a few hours working on it today as well. Most of that time was spent trying to figure out in what order things should be removed. My arms look like I had a fight with a wicked ground squirrel (or other equally wicked rodent with claws). I will post some pics after I eat some stew.

**EDIT** Oh, and you are very brave for taking on this project as your "first."

[bknudtsen]

So, we had a very nice spring day here, and it motivated me to start my big EGR Delete, Oil Cooler, Coolant Filter, Exhaust Project. First things first, I needed to clean up and clear out my garage to facilitate all the parts coming out and going into the van. Disclaimer: Crappy cell phone pics. Still need money for UJOR kit. Sorry!

Better! Now I have a nice 8 foot table to lay out all the parts.



I removed the passenger front seat and here's what we have. Doesn't matter how many times I see it, I am still amazed at how jammed packed everything is inside this compartment.







I sprayed all the exhaust and turbo bolts with PB Blaster and developed a game plan. I gotta admit that during this phase I experienced a couple of "WTF did I get myself into?" moments. So, rather than get bogged down by the perceivied enormity of it all, I just started doing what I do best in these situations... No, not start drinking... I started turning wrenches.



Gotta pull the mounting screws out of this wiring harness conduit along the cowl to get any room to work.



I removed the bolts that held the power steering reservoir as well. This gave me room to start on the various intake and intercooler pipes. I also removed the oil fill tube and transmission dipstick tube to make more room to work. Then the alternator came out. "Note to self. Find dropped socket in engine compartment!"

Here's the table at the end of a few hours. Sorry, my hands were too greasy to get shots of each step.



I hit the turbo mounting bolts with some more PB Blaster and will let them soak over night. Any advice on getting these suckas out? Not much room on the forward most bolt. I can tell that I will need some leverage to get it loose. Hmmm... Maybe a fresh look at it tomorrow will inspire some ideas.

What did I get myself into??!!

[mobydick]

I was assuming if you just leave the sensor in then you dont have to get a tuner to shut down the sensor.