Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
JeepBuilder
TDR MEMBER
Arrg... Like a bad case of De' Ja Vu my wife and I were returning from our first camping trip of the summer and sure enough, what I thought was a minor stumble turned into the exact same dead pedal problem we had last year, same exact situation. Not quite as bad as before but enough to make her question me on if it is worth keeping this truck. I have dumped a lot of money on this truck. Honestly it is a real cream puff and in superb condition. 172K miles. Last year when the first dead pedal happened I cleaned 13 (?) grounds on the truck and coated them with liquid electrical tape to help seal them.
What truck do I have? It is a 2001 quad cab dually 3500 with 5 speed and the 24 valve. 50 HP injectors, ATS turbo, FASS lift pump putting out a consistent 12-14 PSI even with the dead pedal happening. It has an edge tuner I rarely use. The MAP sensor has been replaced before the first DP problem.
So I had dead pedal last summer. Bought a reman tuner ready (Wire tap OK and does not void warranty) VP44 from oregon fuel injection. Installed it with a new stealth cover. Also bought a new APPS from Genos and calibrated it. Unrelated to dead pedal I changed the tappet cover gasket, new high flow pS pump, new vacuum pump, I also fully documented the numbers on the ECM while I could see it. No I did not change it out. Drove it after all the repairs and it ran just great. Winter came and I parked it to wait out the salted roads. I do not drive it in winter. I warm it up a couple times and drive our ice covered dirt road just to move fluids and put a charge on it. I have used lubricity formula at every fill up for the new pump.
Flash forward to now. Having put several hundred miles on the fresh VP44 with no issues except a rough idle and a random almost miss, I discovered I had over torqued the injector lines. Not observing the critical 30 FT LB spec and I corrected that a while back when I read about it. The idle improved and I still have a random miss. I may have done something there. We load the camper and tow a small utility trailer with one 450 quad, two bikes and two kayaks, with a 3700K generator mounted on the tongue. Probably 900ish pounds. Coming home today the dead pedal came back. Not as severe as last year but dead pedal is dead pedal. It stinks and I have yet to find a solid solution after reading post after post here and elsewhere.
Today while looking at yet more posts, I found Katoom's instructions to measure AC voltage on the alternator. (Thank you Katoom) I turned everything on and had the wife run it at 2K rpm. I showed on a fluke 77 that I had 0.085 AC for a reading. Katoom mentions .05 or below is good. So I am above that.
Since it is above what is good for the truck, Have I damaged my ECM??? I have a rebuilt AC Delco ALT here and will change it out and remeasure.
What else could cause this maddening problem? I am not sure where to go from here. I hesitate to drop yet another thousand on an ECM without knowing. Should I do that? Does anyone have any advice on where to go to get a reliable unit? I see online ads. But, I really hate shotgunning parts. Especially when they are expensive and there is no promise of a good fix. I have never found a solid answer to dead pedal. All we want is to have a reliable truck to haul our camper. This truck does it so well when it runs like it should. Any help is greatly appreciated.
What truck do I have? It is a 2001 quad cab dually 3500 with 5 speed and the 24 valve. 50 HP injectors, ATS turbo, FASS lift pump putting out a consistent 12-14 PSI even with the dead pedal happening. It has an edge tuner I rarely use. The MAP sensor has been replaced before the first DP problem.
So I had dead pedal last summer. Bought a reman tuner ready (Wire tap OK and does not void warranty) VP44 from oregon fuel injection. Installed it with a new stealth cover. Also bought a new APPS from Genos and calibrated it. Unrelated to dead pedal I changed the tappet cover gasket, new high flow pS pump, new vacuum pump, I also fully documented the numbers on the ECM while I could see it. No I did not change it out. Drove it after all the repairs and it ran just great. Winter came and I parked it to wait out the salted roads. I do not drive it in winter. I warm it up a couple times and drive our ice covered dirt road just to move fluids and put a charge on it. I have used lubricity formula at every fill up for the new pump.
Flash forward to now. Having put several hundred miles on the fresh VP44 with no issues except a rough idle and a random almost miss, I discovered I had over torqued the injector lines. Not observing the critical 30 FT LB spec and I corrected that a while back when I read about it. The idle improved and I still have a random miss. I may have done something there. We load the camper and tow a small utility trailer with one 450 quad, two bikes and two kayaks, with a 3700K generator mounted on the tongue. Probably 900ish pounds. Coming home today the dead pedal came back. Not as severe as last year but dead pedal is dead pedal. It stinks and I have yet to find a solid solution after reading post after post here and elsewhere.
Today while looking at yet more posts, I found Katoom's instructions to measure AC voltage on the alternator. (Thank you Katoom) I turned everything on and had the wife run it at 2K rpm. I showed on a fluke 77 that I had 0.085 AC for a reading. Katoom mentions .05 or below is good. So I am above that.
Since it is above what is good for the truck, Have I damaged my ECM??? I have a rebuilt AC Delco ALT here and will change it out and remeasure.
What else could cause this maddening problem? I am not sure where to go from here. I hesitate to drop yet another thousand on an ECM without knowing. Should I do that? Does anyone have any advice on where to go to get a reliable unit? I see online ads. But, I really hate shotgunning parts. Especially when they are expensive and there is no promise of a good fix. I have never found a solid answer to dead pedal. All we want is to have a reliable truck to haul our camper. This truck does it so well when it runs like it should. Any help is greatly appreciated.
