Sherman's mechanical repair saga continues...

Yesterday morning at 7:45am (when the sun comes up around here!) I tried to fire up Sherman. I had changed all the spark plugs and plug wires late Sunday afternoon, and hadn't yet tested to see if it did any good.

He fired up fine, and idled fine to warm up. After 10 minutes or so, I put him into gear... moved about five feet, and he promptly sputtered and died. Arrrggghh. Trying to re-fire him immediately didn't do any good.

I went in and explained the situation to the Home Depot manager. We had been there two nights without moving, and didn't want to overstay our welcome. She was fine, although I could tell she didn't want us there a third night.

I called O'Reilly's Auto Parts and asked if they had a MAP (manifold absolute pressure) sensor. They did, and I walked up there to buy it.

Got it installed and fired him up again. He ran perfect, and I took him for a spin around the parking lot. Everything seemed good to go, so we got on the road and drove about a mile to a gas station where I put in about $60 USD worth of gas.

As we pulled out of the gas station, he coughed and sputtered. All along, the problem has been very intermittent.

The sputtering continued and we limped him to an empty lot beside the O'Reilly's store.

I went inside and asked if they knew a good mechanic. All three people behind the counter promptly said "Attwood Engine Services".

I called them up and spoke to Jamie and explained the problem. He said he would be able to look at it in the afternoon. I said that Sherman seems to run better cold, so we would let him sit and cool off for two hours and then we should be able to make the 1 mile (1.6 km) drive to his shop.

Made it to Atwood Engine Services with a bit of coughing and sputtering just as we arrived. Eventually, Jamie came out to have a look at things, and Sherman was on his best behavior! We could not get him to recreate the problem! Until we took him for a drive around the block... and it began again.

Jamie did some poking around and started thinking it was a fuel issue. I explained that to my knowledge the fuel filter had never been changed... at least while we've owned it. Which to be honest is not very proactive on my part!

Anyhow, that was the first step here. Got the filter changed, and I didn't mind paying to have someone else do it. It's bolted to the inside of the frame rail underneath the motorhome, and the guy didn't have an easy time of it.

The muddy looking stuff he poured out of the old filter... I'm surprised Sherman was running at all! Ran great, idled fine... until we went for a spin and the same coughing and sputtering returned.

Next thought was the fuel pump. They hooked a connector into the fuel line and were able to attach a pressure gauge to it. There is a steady 30 psi, just like the specs call for (28-32) and the pressure remains steady even when he is coughing and sputtering. So, at least we don't have to change the fuel pump which would have involved dropping the gas tank.

It would seem this in not a fuel related problem.

The next decision was to change the entire distributor. He thought it might be the pickup coil which if you're going to change it you need to remove the entire distributor anyhow. Plus, I had read that if your distributor assembly has over 100,000 miles on it, you should really just change the entire thing. And, Sherman's did have a fair bit of corrosion on the inside.

So we ordered a new distributor assembly. It arrived, and Jamie went straight to work changing it. This didn't take very long, and then they had to time the engine. Got all this done, and took him for a spin, where he promptly died on the road in front of the shop. Had a hard time getting him going again to get him back into his spot.

This time, there was a strange buzzing noise coming from somewhere in the engine compartment, and this has only happened once before, about 3 days ago.

This made Jamie think that it's the ECM (engine control module), and he ordered one. He says he can return it if it doesn't fix the problem.

And that's where we stand at the end of the day. Spending the night parked outside the shop. We're running out of things to replace! It could still be the engine temperature sensor, or the EGR valve. I guess we'll find out today!

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