My brother has an '08 3500 drw. He bought the truck with 20K miles. As soon as he got it, randomly when he was pulling a load going down the highway and used the engine brake, it would work just fine, decelerates, slows the truck down, but when he gets back on the accelerator the engine brake wont disengage! The ONLY way that it will disengage is if he manually turns it off with the button, or if he bumps it up into neutral and lets the engine come down to an idle, lets it disengage, then shifts back into gear.

Like I said this has happened randomly for about 70K miles. About a month ago, we deleted the egr, egr cooler, and the dpf, and added a smarty running the ME software. Since then, it is not random anymore. If he has it on, he has to shift to neutral or turn it off with the button everytime it engages. What could be causing this problem to begin with, and why is it so much worse since weve deleted the smog stuff???

Any input appreciated!

 

Im not an expert, but my guess is his turbo was clogged when he bought it, and has gotten worse. I would have the turbo cleaned. I don't think that it has anything to do with the deletes. After cleaning he shouldnt have anymore trouble, because the deletes will prevent the soot buildup in the turbo.

 

Too bad you didn't have it fixed by the dealer before the deletes..

I am not 100% sure its just dirty, if it was the switch wouldn't work at cruise rpms..

 

I have a 08 and had the same problem at about 60,000 mi. the dealer did a test on the turbo if it still doest work right they replace the turbo theres a cone shape slider that gets gumed up and wears and wont work right

 

The truck is an early '08 and was actually a lemon law buy-back. All the emissions crap and turbo were replaced @ around 20K. Trucks got a 12month unlimited mileage warranty on it that doesnt run out until 4/10. Only problem with taking it in to the dealer is having to put it back to stock! That egr cooler was a to get off!

How do you clean the turbo ???


Does the turbo have to be replaced to fix that??? Or is it something that could be cleaned???

 

well look threw the passenger wheel well you can see the turbo you can pull the cover with the wires are and try to clean the brake which is integrated in the turbo housing if cleaning doest help you will most likely have to replace turbo again when they did mine they flashed the ecm and then i couldnt get my bully dog to done load and bully dog still cant brake the code

 

Solution to the Bully Dog problem: sell it and get a SMARTY!!

 

I will get with him and give that a try, I would rather try to clean it than put all the egr crap back on to take it to the dealer!

 

Cleaning the turbo requires some disassembly and possibly drilling of the turbo. If you look at the exhaust side of the housing near the center bearing housing there may already be a bossed area with a 1/8" NPT plug in it. If not the turbo must be removed and drilled for this hole with the proper thread.

From that there is a braided hose with fitting to attach to the turbo and a cleaning fluid is injected into the exhaust side of the turbo onto the sliding nozzle cone. This fluid removes carbon and hardened deposits. Typically most techs use about 3 -6 cans of fluid to do the job. My 08 already has the boss and plug in it from factory, yours may as well if the turbo was already replaced.

 

Turbo cleaning procedure:
http://wiki.dieseltruckresource.com/.../11-001-08.pdf

 

Thank you guys very much for your input. Very good information! It turns out theres some other issues with the truck as well, and we have replaced the egr and dpf to take it in to the dealer. We're gonna let them handle it!

 

Good idea. You can redo the deletes once you have the dealer replace any suspect parts and you will then know their condition. What a pain, but at least you still have that option!