Audible Audi vacuum leaks?-longish

[james accordino]

I "thought" I had lost my ear for vacuum leaks.  Done
the Audi vac. leak hunt too many times.  Found a few
by pulling apart suspect bellows or bending the hose
to expose them.  Nothing much.  On Sunday while
replacing my fuel pump, my bud with 94 Tauri (3.8 V6
EEC-4).  "Not too good fuel econ., uneven, low idle
and finally day before check engine light".  Tell him
to clean Idle Speed Control valve.  Easy, a little
carb cleaner.  Idles better but just higher, a little
above idle.  O2 sensor.  Check and it's the original
with 99K.  Jap made by Hitachi.  The cheesy stainless
is all rusted.  Pull it out and its a weird bright
olive drab.  Ask about coolant losses and he says, "Oh
yeah, it blew a head gasket."  But of course, DON'T
replace the O2 sensor.  So he gets and installs one.
Still doesn't run right.  Now I'm thinking WTF?  I
KNOW these systems.  Open the hood again and look
around.  "Start it up."  The minute he starts the car
my eyes go right to the top of the intake.  There
right on the "tree" the distributes vacuum, I hear it
plain as day.  Check one of the small feeder hoses and
sure enough, split right at the bend off the tree.
Anyway the point of this is, probably many of us are
chasing nonexistant vac. leaks and second guessing
ourselves.  If you've heard a vac. leak, you'll HEAR
it.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't still inspect our
rubber boots and hose connections.  I need to remove
several of these elbows to change my air filter
anyway, so I give them the once over then.  BTW, his
fuel ecomony increased dramatically.

Jim Accordino

--- lrickert at covad.net wrote:
>
> Is it possible to hear a vacuum leak from within the
> car? In my 87 4kq I can
> hear a sucking air noise that comes and goes with
> throttle opening. It appears
> to be coming from the dashboard. The car doesn’t run
> perfectly, but not too
> badly either.
>
> thanks
>
> Luke
>
>
>


__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com