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All was going great with my little B2, until yesterday. After warming up it started sputtering and bucking again. I replaced the TPS a while ago and it cleared these and many other problems up, but now it's doing it again. Pulled the codes 3 times and got.....
42 is "system running rich". But you didn't have that code in memory. Does it stop acting up after the engines warms up?
Anyway, the O2 sensor is the source of the code. It is used as feedback to the ECU to adjust the injector pulses. I suspect that the sensor is bad or the wires are loose, corroded etc. There are ways to test the sensor - simply measuring the output voltage.
Actually, it runs good UNTIL it warms up. Then the CEL is on again/off again and the stalling out and bucking starts. It's really weird....it'll happen for a few minutes then the CEL will go out and it'll run fine again for a few minutes, then back and forth this way. I have no idea, but I'll check the O2 sensor. I'm wondering if using Seafoam might have deposited carbon on the sensor, or if the cats are clogged.
In addition to checking the output of the sensor, check fuel delivery. Can you tell if the engine is actually running rich or if the rich code is a false rich? Any black smoke or gasoline smell out the exhaust, fuel in the oil, cat getting red hot (indicates rich)? One fairly common cause of a rich running engine on these is a bad FPR. Is there any gas in the vacuum line to the FPR?
No black smoke..... a bit gray maybe, but only after cold starting and only until it warms up, then hardly no smoke at all. The inside of the tailpipe isn't even that black.
There is a smell but it doesn't smell like gas, but rather like a sweet/sour smell....hard to describe really. It only has the smell when fully warmed up. I'm thinking it's the seafoam leftover in the tank because that's about the time the smell started (when I first used it).........or maybe clogged cats even.
The oil needs to be changed soon, but it's just oil....no fuel or water in it.
I pulled the vac line off of the FPR and there isn't a gas smell in it at all, that I can tell.
The idle is right where it should be, until the CEL comes on and then it starts idling down to about 500 RPM's or so and trying to stall out. When the CEL is off the idle is back up and doesn't even have a miss.
Last edited by Catfish369; Oct 28, 2004 at 12:31 PM.
Back on the 23rd of September I put half a can of Seafoam through the brake booster vac line until it almost stalled out and shut it down, and then the other half in the tank. The smoke that came out just before shut down was so thick that I couldn't see the end of my driveway. It hardly smoked at all when I restarted about 15 minutes later though. Haven't added anything but gas since then....and a new TPS.
Last edited by Catfish369; Oct 28, 2004 at 08:22 PM.