Chris, it’s always a crap shoot, but clearly, it’s best to have self recovery equipment along, especially when you get far from civilization, and not have to depend as much on others to get you out. It’s also good to know something about the way your rig works. Being a recovering rock crawler, I HAD to know a lot about my Jeep just to make it to the end of the trail.
Case in point is what transpired the last few days. We have had virtually no trouble with our 2001.5 Dodge 2500 HO Cummins 6 speed manual. Therein lies the problem. Jeanie and I were on our way to the Black Hills and environs in our Dodge with a new Northstar Laredo SC camper on the back when up jumped the devil and the engine went into a coughing, surging pattern and the check engine light came on. We stopped and I plugged in my code reader and found we popped code PO 102. The code was for the diesel equivalent of a TPS. We were 6 miles from a RAM truck dealer; called them and they said, “bring it on in”. $!!00 and one hotel room later later we had a new part and an oil change. A couple hours down the road the Cummins went into what’s called, “dead pedal” where the engine drops down to idle with no throttle response. So I pushed in the clutch and rolled onto the shoulder. I tried starting again, and it would start but the pedal would not bring it up off idle. We called around and got Auto club to send a truck out (the wrong one, as it was a flat bed, which i told the AC operator we could not use it as it made our TC on the flat bed about 6 inches taller than the overpass clearance on the interstate. Yes, we measured it. We were ready to have the rig towed 100 miles, when I started it again and had pedal. The ECM had healed itself. Meanwhile, Jeanie found a RAM dealer 25 miles down the road and we called off the tow company. The new dealer put some dielectric grease on the small plug on the new part and we drove another 900 miles to get to this mountain rest stop from which I’m typing this. I’m convinced there is a short in the cruise control circuit which is ganged with the TPS where two low voltage wires must have the same value else go into dead pedal. Never having any woes with the rig, i had no knowledge about what to do. That was not a good feel.
jefe
2020 Ford F-350 XLT FX4 4WD SRW SB SC 7.3L Godzilla Gas TorqShift 10R140 397 amps dual Alt dual batts Frnt Dana 60; Rr Dana M275 E-locker 4.30's 4580/4320/4066# payload 7243# curb wt. 11,300# GVWR 5-er prepped. 2020 Northstar Laredo SC, 12v compressor fridge, cassette, 320w Solar sub zero insulation.
