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Much needed maintence and repair

Did you put the dpfe hoses back on the right ports? One is ref and one is high. One hose is larger than the other, but it's easy to get them switched around. Don't know if that would throw P0401 or not.

P0401 is insufficient flow, it could be the egr valve is bad or needs cleaned. One way to check if the egr valve is working properly is to do the "suck test". Start the car and pull the little vacuum line off the egr. Put on a 1-ft length or so piece of tubing and suck through it like a straw. If the car stumbles and tries to die it's working fine.

If it doesn't do anything it could be stuck and needs cleaned or it could be a vacuum leak. Check along that little hose and all the other vacuum lines in that area under the egr.

fwiw I've never had to replace an egr valve in anything. My 96 has 199K and my 96 F150 had 200K..both original egr's.

edit: hesitation at idle is most likely due to P0401. When you get that fixed, if it still does it, I'd replace plug wires (Ford/Motorcraft).
 
trhlz1222 said:
P0401-egr still. any ideas? ive cleaned the passage ways twice now. maybe a third time would work. haha.
Click to expand...

I am having the same exact problem with my 96' tour at the moment. Guess I should do the "suck test" well. Now, to make sure....the EGR is located right next or near to the intake correct?. The little silver knob thing? lol.
 
the "suck" test is to determine if the egr valve itself is working correctly.

on the dpfe sensor the hoses are difference sizes and should only be able to connect one way. but the port locations did change between the metal and plastic dpfe sensors.

on the P401 and P402, the P0402 is typically the dpfe sensor. the P0401 means the tb needs to be removed and the egr passages behind the tb need to be cleaned.

and on the seafoam in the intake, waste of time, imho. you need to pull the intake clean/rebuild them. Then the seafoam can be used to help keep the intake clean, its not going to remomve the build up on its own.
 
the suck test made the car start to sputter and almost stall. so its working. ill take the tb off and see how dirty it is. ive cleaned it twice now and to no avail.

and the hesitation isnt at idle. its when im driving and trying to accelerate. thats why i think it is a plug wire not sitting all the way on
 
Thats a good indication of a loose plug boot. It took me a week to trace that down on a previous car.
 
or the plugs and wires could be carbon tracked. if you haven't changed the plugs and wires do that at the same time.
 
i just replaced the plugs yesterday. when i tear the intake apart to clean it ill make sure all the boots are sitting correctly. will probably get to it tomorrow.
 
I think P0401 can cause it to "surge" at highway speeds also. That's what mine was doing, but I had a lot of codes and replaced a lot of parts...dpfe, ect, fuel filter, all 4 O2 sensors, etc so I don't know for sure what fixed it.

P0401 could also be caused by a hole in the EGR tube. It's the metal tube that runs from the bottom of the egr to the exhaust manifold?? and it's very difficult to see let alone check. If you pull the intake check it then.

My 96 F150 had a break in the metal flexible bellows part of the tube causing P0401. Don't know if the contour has a bellows or other similar weak spot.

It is a good idea to change wires with the plugs anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to do that, but it won't get rid of the code.
 
this is what the egr passage ways look behind the tb. are they clogged enough to throw that code?

0804091105a.jpg
 
replaced the burnt circuit board behind the cluster and no headlights still so im gonna test the fuse box for power and what not like the manual says and see what i find

edit: i got the headlights working. now i think i need to replace my blower switch again. do these things go bad quickly or something i just replaced it last fall. its starting to cut in and out. i dont have ac to use but it just annoys me. anyway the headlight issue was fuse 26. i checked the ford service manual and it said to check the volts to fuse 26 so i looked to see what fuse 26 was and its listed for a main light. when i checked the fuses before i didnt check this one because i thought main light meant the dome light inside. didnt know it was for the headlights. well that ended up being the problem and now all is good.

i gotta drive the car a little more to see if the engine light comes back but other then that only things left are the ac and fuel filler problems which will wait till i have more money
 
well i haven updated this in a while but i got everything taken care of except the ac, gas tank problem and the engine light. so not really that much got fixed. i did everything i said i was going to do as far as maintance. it is still throwing the p0401 code. any other ideas? suck test is positive, and the passage ways are clean.
 
When I had that code, I ended up pulling the entire intake off and cleaning it. The buildup wasn't at the TB, it was down in the tubes where they connected to the head. It was a real PITA. Gasket is somewhere around 45.00 and you got to be careful putting it back on or it will break and there you are spending the money again!

WHat is the DPFE?
 
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