? Electric vacuum pump

[tmccarty]

I have a 04 3500 and on the wheel well on the passenger side between the battery and firewall there is what appears to me to be an electric vacuum pump that cycles on for a couple of seconds then shuts off for maybe 10 seconds. If anyone can please tell me what this so i know what to ask for at the dodge parts house. It has a hose that runs out the bottom and t's off and goes into the firewall between the wipers and continues over and under the drivers side battery. It does not make a difference if the engine is running or the key is just in the on position. If i unplug the electric connection it stops the cycle and does not seem to affect the engine. I unpluged it today at work and drove it home with no problems. Thanks in advance

 

[rbattelle]

Is the truck an automatic? The early automatics (prior to 2004. 5) used a vacuum pump to operate the cruise control. If you didn't use cruise on the way home that would explain why you didn't miss it.

Ryan

 

[tmccarty]

Yea it is an auto and i did use the cruise control thinking it was part of cruise control. cruise worked fine

 

[rbattelle]

Okay, well that's somewhat odd. I checked the service manual, and it does specifically state there is a vacuum pump for the cruise control. So I don't understand how you could unplug it but still use the cruise.

I guess the next step would be to pull a hose on it and see if it's pulling vacuum. I'm not sure where the vacuum pump is located on these trucks, so I can't verify for sure whether what you're looking at is the pump.

Ryan

 

[sag2]

It should be for the cruise, and no it should not have worked.