Hi all, I have a 2001 ram with 5.9l cummins. recently it has started to smoke heavily on acceleration or when climbing a hill. i checked for codes and there are none. I am suspecting that the wastegate is the problem.I put the park brake on and my wife presses the accelerator, and i cant see the wastegate actuator rod moving although i think i can hear the turbo spooling up.I dont have a boost gauge fitted. Any ideas of how to troubleshoot this problem, i am not very familiar with diesel engines.i suspect that the wastegate may have frozen , could i try to move the actuator arm with a small wrench.A little guidance would be really appreciated.

 

the waste gate is not your issue. A stuck closed waste gate will just cause the turbo to spool higher and create more boost which would clean up your smoke.

Smoke is unburnt fuel, the result of too much fuel and not enough air.

excessive smoke makes me lean towards a bad map sensor.

Basically means the engine thinks its not getting boost and injects extra fuel to aid in spooling the turbo so it can see boost. if it doesn't see boost it keeps trying. The map sensor is what lets the engine know how much boost its getting.

also you will want to put a fuel pressure gauge on that truck since you have a vp44 injected truck. vp44's are sensitive to input fuel pressure and keeping that fuel pressure between 10-20psi at all times is very important to ensure a long life span for the injection pump.

 

thanks for the info..I changed out the vp44 a couple of years ago and they fitted me an idiot light for the fuel pump at the same . it isnt showing any fuel pressure issues, but ouch that vp44 was worth more than my truck..is there any way to test the map sensor , other than change it out for a new one ?

 

Have you by chance checked your air filter?

 

checked air filter and it is clean .. also checked price of MAP sensor at NAPA, $ 242.
thats crazy

 

$160.99 on rockauto.com

 

i changed out the fuel filter and put in a new map sensor but truck still has black smoke under load, any ideas ???

 

possible that the injectors have low pop pressures or a pintle is hanging up. you can have either Jamie at Cummins Performance Parts (CPP) or Chris at Ducky Fuel Injection (DFI) either one of them will be able to inspect, pop test, and repair your injectors. Chris has more experience at it and is known as one of the best injector builders around, but Jamie is pretty good as well.

for other things to look at: are you running any tuners? and have you checked for boost leaks? (need to make or buy a boost leak tool for this)

 

Granted I'm in a newer truck but I had a similar problem a short while ago... was getting black smoke on regular acceleration and my fuel mileage dropped real bad... I ran some injector cleaner through and that cleaned it up in a tank.. Then it dropped again, and I found my 2 front callipers were dragging... granted, there wasn't any smoke however.