I Think It Is Time For a New Actuator

[AmericanWolver]

On 4/13 driving home I got a wonderful P003A (current fault) and a P00AF (pending fault.)

Cleared the codes hoping it was a fluke.

Then today (4/21) I got the P003A (current fault), P0506 (pending) and P0471 (historic.) I was doing just fine driving with no MIL. Came to a stop light and about 30 seconds later, the truck had a low, rough idle. Pulled over on a side street with no throttle to get it out of the way and she stalled before I could put it in park.

Started the truck to move it a little more and it was very rough starting and stalled in about 40 feet.

Sat for 5 minutes to research a little about my problem on the phone and cleared the codes hoping I could get it home before it died again.

She had a rough start and ran almost normal. Had a mild rough idle/vanes sounding closed symptom on the way home at stops, but no repeats (been fighting that since September.) As a reminder to the community, around September I had to restore my emissions and had the stealership reflash the truck.

Hasn't been running right since.

About 3 months ago, I took it to a local turbo shop and they said I needed a new turbo. (Didn't really trust what they were telling me and they wanted a large sum of cash for a rebuilt turbo with rebuilt actuator.

What are the chances it just needs a reflash? If it does, DRD is gonna get some of my money finally.

If its just the actuator, City Diesel will get some of my money.

If the vane lever is sticky and indicates a new turbo, recommendations for a rebuilder? (Still thinking I want to put the City Diesel actuator on if I do.)

I'll get the courage up to drain the coolant and check the actuator in the next day or so. I've read I can just unplug it for now and keep driving it.

Read: if it's the turbo, I can drive it to the mechanic and let him hurt is back pulling out the manifold if I'm feeling really lazy.

Thanks for all the help.

Its the truck in my signature.

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[DDP]

On 4/13 driving home I got a wonderful P003A (current fault) and a P00AF (pending fault.)

Cleared the codes hoping it was a fluke.

Then today (4/21) I got the P003A (current fault), P0506 (pending) and P0471 (historic.) I was doing just fine driving with no MIL. Came to a stop light and about 30 seconds later, the truck had a low, rough idle. Pulled over on a side street with no throttle to get it out of the way and she stalled before I could put it in park.

Started the truck to move it a little more and it was very rough starting and stalled in about 40 feet.

Sat for 5 minutes to research a little about my problem on the phone and cleared the codes hoping I could get it home before it died again.

She had a rough start and ran almost normal. Had a mild rough idle/vanes sounding closed symptom on the way home at stops, but no repeats (been fighting that since September.) As a reminder to the community, around September I had to restore my emissions and had the stealership reflash the truck.

Hasn't been running right since.

About 3 months ago, I took it to a local turbo shop and they said I needed a new turbo. (Didn't really trust what they were telling me and they wanted a large sum of cash for a rebuilt turbo with rebuilt actuator.

What are the chances it just needs a reflash? If it does, DRD is gonna get some of my money finally.

If its just the actuator, City Diesel will get some of my money.

If the vane lever is sticky and indicates a new turbo, recommendations for a rebuilder? (Still thinking I want to put the City Diesel actuator on if I do.)

I'll get the courage up to drain the coolant and check the actuator in the next day or so. I've read I can just unplug it for now and keep driving it.

Read: if it's the turbo, I can drive it to the mechanic and let him hurt is back pulling out the manifold if I'm feeling really lazy.

Thanks for all the help.

Its the truck in my signature.

Sent you a message my friend with some info.

We can help you with finding the proper turbo re-builder if necessary as well as other items.

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[AK Bob]

On 4/13 driving home I got a wonderful P003A (current fault) and a P00AF (pending fault.)

Cleared the codes hoping it was a fluke.

Then today (4/21) I got the P003A (current fault), P0506 (pending) and P0471 (historic.) I was doing just fine driving with no MIL. Came to a stop light and about 30 seconds later, the truck had a low, rough idle. Pulled over on a side street with no throttle to get it out of the way and she stalled before I could put it in park.

Started the truck to move it a little more and it was very rough starting and stalled in about 40 feet.

Sat for 5 minutes to research a little about my problem on the phone and cleared the codes hoping I could get it home before it died again.

She had a rough start and ran almost normal. Had a mild rough idle/vanes sounding closed symptom on the way home at stops, but no repeats (been fighting that since September.) As a reminder to the community, around September I had to restore my emissions and had the stealership reflash the truck.

Hasn't been running right since.

About 3 months ago, I took it to a local turbo shop and they said I needed a new turbo. (Didn't really trust what they were telling me and they wanted a large sum of cash for a rebuilt turbo with rebuilt actuator.

What are the chances it just needs a reflash? If it does, DRD is gonna get some of my money finally.

If its just the actuator, City Diesel will get some of my money.

If the vane lever is sticky and indicates a new turbo, recommendations for a rebuilder? (Still thinking I want to put the City Diesel actuator on if I do.)

I'll get the courage up to drain the coolant and check the actuator in the next day or so. I've read I can just unplug it for now and keep driving it.

Read: if it's the turbo, I can drive it to the mechanic and let him hurt is back pulling out the manifold if I'm feeling really lazy.

Thanks for all the help.

Its the truck in my signature.

Please keep us posted.


2014 RAM 3500 (Aisin) 3.73 4X4 Limited Crew Cab Long Bed DRW. Oil Bypass Filter, 50 Gallon auxiliary fuel tank.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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[watersupply189]

Sorry your having this issue, keep us posted what you find.


2016 Ram Laramie 3500 (DRD), G56, 6.7, Rough Country Leveling, HID headlights, Morimoto LED fogs plus a whole lot more!

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[AmericanWolver]

Will do folks.

I'm gonna get on it as soon as I finish getting the sprinklers done.

Hopefully start on it later today or tomorrow.

I'll take some pics of what I'm doing and post them. (More importantly, what not to do.)

As I told a mechanic friend years ago, "Being able to turn a wrench doth not make me a mechanic."

I tend to get the job done the hard and slow way, but I get it done.

However I did fix my parents Suburban when the engine shop said it was the transmission and the transmission shop said it was the engine.

Turned out to be a bad U joint.

When I do post, just don't mock by poor skills as a mechanic or as a photographer.

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[cwendel]

Yeah, make sure those vanes move real easy.

I learned the hard way. And those guys at city diesel have a good product.

If you find they are just dragging, try what I did.

I dropped the downpipe from the turbo and sprayed it out with brake clean until it ran clear.

Those vanes moved real easy after that.

If you have the ability to, try to also run a desoot.

I had luck with that being able to remove some of the buildup around the vane plate.

2013 2500 6.7 cummins crew cab. white and stock as can be
using Tapatalk

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[AmericanWolver]

Yeah, make sure those vanes move real easy.

I learned the hard way. And those guys at city diesel have a good product.

If you find they are just dragging, try what I did.

I dropped the downpipe from the turbo and sprayed it out with brake clean until it ran clear.

Those vanes moved real easy after that.

If you have the ability to, try to also run a desoot.

I had luck with that being able to remove some of the buildup around the vane plate.

2013 2500 6.7 cummins crew cab. white and stock as can be
using Tapatalk

Thank you for the heads up. I had read about removing the unison ring to prevent further issues. Thought I might try that and do a manual cleaning job every 50k or so.

I've uploaded some pics from day one's journey. I'm just gonna take my time. I work nights and haven't worked in a month due to Covid-19. Still can't get myself out of bed before noon. Since there is no hurry, why rush things. I can tell you that on my work truck, I'd have this done by now. (2020 Peterbilt.) Ram would make a lot of friends if they could build a tilt forward clip for these trucks.

So, it's pretty cruddy in there. I think the previous owner(s) did some mudding with the truck. Spent an hour trying to get an Allen key into the cap bolts. Had 1 come out nice and easy, the other 3 feel like they want to round out on me. I hit it with cleaner and WD40 penetrating spray and will try some more tomorrow. Might end up take a Dremel to cut a slot in the heads and use a good old flat head. That suspension tower makes things 3x more difficult. The bottom 2 are in a obscene location. Trying to bend an overweight, out of shape body around the hub assembly to see over the top of the tower is driving my back nuts. Gonna take out the battery tray and air filter tomorrow to see if I can have better luck from the top. I doubt it. The power washer might get fired up early this year to try an clean things up a bit.

I was going to reuse the coolant by putting it into a clean bucket, but seeing I have 110k on it, I think I'll just do new and call it a coolant flush and not have to do the drain again next year when I hit 150k.

Think I'm going to take a gamble and get the City Diesel actuator ordered. If mine is fine, I have a spare. If not, I don't have to wait as long.

Here's the link to the photo album. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tQBSPw6jZUGyMddv5

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[cwendel]

Pull the inner fender out.

Just some 8mm bolts and clips.

Makes the entire job easy and get ready to heat the bottom back bolt, they made the design really dumb.

You will see once you get it out.

2013 2500 6.7 cummins crew cab. white and stock as can be
using Tapatalk

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[AmericanWolver]

Pull the inner fender out.

Just some 8mm bolts and clips.

Makes the entire job easy and get ready to heat the bottom back bolt, they made the design really dumb.

You will see once you get it out.

2013 2500 6.7 cummins crew cab. white and stock as can be
using Tapatalk

Thanks for the heads up about the heat. I might have to give that a shot. I've never been very good with applying heat. I'm either impatient or not bold enough with it, not sure which. Removing the inner fender was the easy part. I had done that before I even drained the coolant.

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[AmericanWolver]

Well, its time to finalize the saga.

It turned out to be a much bigger battle than I expected. That bottom bolt was a bear. I tried to follow the advice of cwendel on using heat. It wasn't enough. The bolt head ended up getting more and more rounded. A neighbor and I drilled a hole through the shock tower to get better access. What a waste. I ended up taking the turbo apart and took the cartridge out leaving the turbine housing attached to the the manifold. Should've done that in the first place. It also gave me an opportunity to clean the nozzle ring and unison ring.

Putting it back together was not a pleasant task. Getting the nozzle ring to line up with the unison ring was a bit tricky, but getting the 2 units to fit flush took lots of precise use of a hammer and a 2"x3" and old sledge hammer handle. Using those, I could direct the strikes right where I needed them and got it done. The compressor housing was much easier to get mounted. Hook up all the hoses and wiring then proceeded. When it was all said and done, the nozzle ring moves nice and smoothly without much resistance.

During this adventure, I also went to the petcock on the radiator and got a little more coolant out. I found the easiest way for me on my dual radiator system was to take the grill off and then the plastic air dam on the driver side of the radiator. It was right there, easy to get to and work.

I went to Harbor Freight to buy their cooling system vacuum filler. I now love that stupid tool. I took a -20 in/hg draw on the system (all I could get) and let it sit for a few minutes and had no drop in vacuum. (Note: if you use one, put a piece of tap over the end of the overflow tube on the coolant bottle .) This indicated to me the hoses and actuator on the turbo sealed. Then I put the battery tray and air filter back in so I could start the truck. Proceeded to start (no coolant yet) and went back to look at the oil lines to the turbo to make sure there was no leak. The idea about not putting coolant in was in case I had to take it all apart to fix an oil leak, I wouldn't have to drain the coolant again.

No oil leaks. I took a vacuum on the cooling system and proceeded to fill it. That was the easiest, cleanest way to fill these trucks. Using a 5 gallon bucket to premix the coolant and a convenient place for the hose for the filler, I ended up putting just shy over 5 gallons in. (Not bad considering it only has 5.7 in the system.) I used Mopar purple coolant, I couldn't get a 2EH free locally in a concentrated form. $20 for Peak 50/50 or $25 for Mopar concentrate, not a tough call for me. Also, since they are the ones that did the water pump recall just 10k miles ago, I figured that if the 2 colors didn't mix, I could get them to fix it since they either filled it with the wrong coolant or sold me the wrong coolant. (Previous coolant was orange in color. The parts manager told me the purple will sometimes turn orange for random reasons. As I poured the new coolant into the bucket, it was purple with an orange look depending on the light. I could see how it could be confusing.)

Started up the truck and ran it too operating temp and kept a close eye on cooling and oil systems looking for leaks, all is good.

In this adventure, I had to remove the shock. In doing so, found the shock was bad. It's got a new set of Bilstein 5100's on her now.

Also wanted to extend a thanks to DDP (Clayton at Dudes Diesel) he was kind enough to talk to me on the phone to figure out if I needed a new turbo. With his council, I decided to stay with my old one. I did call 3 shops in my area that work on turbos. 1 would only sell me a Holset factory refurb, another wanted $500 but wouldn't give me a warranty unless I bought an actuator with it for a grand total of $1500 and the 3rd was similar, $1500 for the whole shebang, $1100 without warranty or actuator. I wasn't too interested in using a refurb Hoslet actuator when I had this beautiful City Diesel sitting on my workbench.

When I started the truck, it did throw a code. A P003A Turbo Boost Control Exceeded limit. Cleared it thinking it might be a fluke seeing as the new actuator was probably learning, took it for a drive and watched my PIDs for turbo activity and I'm content that it works as described. Still fighting a rough idle/stalling issue during a Regen (desoot in Mopar language) at stop with the truck out of park. Think a tuner is next on my list. I was at one the mechanics that my employer uses getting a pintle hook buffer replaced. (Great farmer type mechanic. Works on anything with an engine, but very good with diesels. Only fixes what needs to be fixed and a straight shooter. 2 hours away from where I live or he'd be my mechanic.) His feeling is a bad flash of the ECM. Not having a good experience with my local stealership (see my previous thread) I think I might put the $125 fee for flashing toward a DRD programmer.

Anyway, I'm very impressed with this new actuator. The truck seems to build boost a bit faster and runs a bit smoother. Also, I'm very impressed with these Bilstein 5100's. Guess that ends the actuator saga.

Thanks for the help and the pointers from everyone at igotacummins.

-AmericanWolver

P.S. I updated the album from my previous posts showing the completion of the project. I missed a few shots as I got more focused on the work. Sorry.

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