As the temperature in your engine gets hotter and hotter the probability of
pinging is greatly increased. You stated that you had been smelling
antifreeze and indicated a leak at the thermostat gasket. That means you've
lost pressure in your cooling system. That pressure is what helps keep your
engine at the correct operating temperature. The 180 t-stat will help it
more in the future but remember that if you spring a leak in your cooling
system even a 180 t-stat won't keep your engine from getting hotter than it
should thereby possibly causing detonation to occur.
HTH,
Ron
00 SLT QC 4X2 5.9 46RE 3.92 LSD
For modifications see my DML Profile
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dakota-truck@buffnet.net
[mailto:owner-dakota-truck@buffnet.net]On Behalf Of Patrick and Kelly
Engram
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 9:46 AM
To: DML
Subject: DML: Pinging problems and update
To Bernd and all:
Bernd, if I at one time told you to record my truck as a non-pinger,
change it! It's been
pinging progressively worse since April until I cant take it anymore. I
had gotten a tank of
gas in VA on a trip that made it ping real bad, but after a few fillups
at my normal station, there
still was a ping present. It's most evident on light to moderate load
on acceleration, and also under
light load in OD at low engine speeds.
Dealer said they couldnt duplicate it, so I had to drive the tech
around and point it out to him. I had
asked them to do the plug wire reroute, but they didnt do it because
they never heard the pinging at
first. I'm going back in a week or two for a new dash vents (mine all
broke-is this a common one too?)
and he said he'd reroute them then.
So, I've got 27,000 on the truck and decided to do the Autolite 3923's
and the 180 t-stat ahead of time
to see what improvement I could get. Today, I removed the metal plug
shields, installed the plugs, and
changed the t-stat (gasket was leaking anyway, I'd been smelling
antifreeze the last few weeks but
never saw it dripping) Reset the computer, did a quick relearn at idle
by turning a/c on/off, cycling it through
gears a few times, and turning wheel lock to lock, then let it warm up a
little more and took it one quick drive.
The hill leading up to the main roads around here is enough to normally
cause my truck to ping. Well, no ping
today. Felt good on the new plugs, and never had any ping at all yet.
I post a followup this weekend, as I'll
be driving a few hundred miles each day to the races in Dover.
Now, I will be tackling the TV cable adjust, as the tech said he
shouldn't mess with that...
Patrick
'99 R/T Regular Cab, Maryland
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