Quote Originally Posted by kkiller46 View Post
Sorry guys, haven't been on in a while.
Yes, my OEM actuator had failed. And even though my truck was still under warranty Dodge would not cover under Powertrain Warranty because the Actuator isn't common to the engine oiling system. Never mind that it has coolant running to it.
So I purchased a City Diesel Actuator and could not be happier with the product and the service.
In addition I also added a DRD MM3 Tuner at the same time.
Again, could not be happier with the product and service.
One sidenote, just in case anyone else has experienced this. After installing Actator and Tune I was running the exhaust brake on by default.
And occasionally, like once every few weeks, I would start the truck when it was hot and it would sound kind of like when the exhaust brake is engaged as part of the DRD tune to help warm the truck up in cold weather.
But the truck would have no power and just pour black smoke from the exhaust.
I simply had to restart the truck to correct.
I asked Ray at DRD about it as I thought it might be a software glitch.
He said he thought it was actually an Actuator issue. So contacted Jason at City Diesel. Here is what he said.

I think Ray probably has the right idea about this. It does sound like
the vanes are sticking in the closed position. 99% of the time when you
have a mechanical problem causing vanes to stick its in the fully closed
position. It sounds like you have a mechanical vane issue thats
probably only happening when the right sequence of events is happening,
IE the truck is hot and the vanes are commanded to 100% they may be
sticking occasionally. It does not make sense for this to be an
actuator issue. Most of the time when this is an actuator problem you
do not see it always have a problem in the same vane position. To the
actuator there is no difference in closed, open or anywhere in between.
We see this most often in trucks that are using the exhaust brake 100%
of the time as this does cause premature piston ring wear on the turbine
wheel piston ring. The main contributor of wear to this piston ring is
exhaust pressure and the exhaust brake being on constantly of course
increases exhaust pressure and piston ring wear. When this piston ring
wears a bit the turbo starts allowing a small amount of oil into the
exhaust housing. This small amount of oil mixes with exhaust and
creates a gummy mess that gets pushed up to the extreme ends of the
typcialvane travel(IE 95% travel) and can cause the vanes to stick when
its pushed passed that @100%. The later model trucks (after 2012) went
to a dual piston ring setup that makes this less common but it does
still occasionally happen.

No more often than you are seeing the issue exercising the vanes will
probably be enough to fix this for you. Please note that running the
exhaust brake is not good exercise as most of the time the exhaust brake
stops at the 95% range. You instead need to exercise the entire range.
The easiest way of doing this is turning your ignition key on and
plugging and unplugging either the fuse that powers the actuator or the
plugging and unplugging the actuator connector itself. The goal is to
cycle power to the actuator in order to trigger its self-learn and self
clean cycle. This needs to be done at least 100 times. You can also
simply cycle the ignition from on-off-on many times the problem is you
need to wait 4 seconds after switching off before turning it back on.
You might get away with simply cycling the ignition a few extra times
everytime you drive it as well.

I did what he suggested and it completed solved the issue. Has not happened again and it's been like 4 months.
If you need any other info don't hesitate to ask.
Again I cannot recommend DRD and City Diesel highly enough. They are both wonderful to work with!
Lots of info there that I’ll need to read again a few more times but thanks for sharing! .... But my spark plugs have been properly gappped by Ray @ DRD and I do run the exhaust brake in “auto” 100% of the time. I thought that I had read this was better for “self cleaning” the turbo and keeping it from sticking so now I’m conflicted in what I’ve read. I’ve not experienced to my knowledge the issue you speak of when “hot starting” the truck but I’ll keep an eye out for that too but maybe that’s only after your aftermarket City Diesel Actuator was installed..... I’m glad to hear they’ve been more than helpful in diagnosing the issues and working with you towards a solution and if/when I need to go that route.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk