I've combed over the threads and can't seem to find anything that specifically fits my issue. I have only had the truck 2 weeks so I dont have a lot of history with it. It was doing all these things when i bought it so it isnt a sudden development.

My oil pressure gauge sits about 38 idle but about 75 under driving. Never fluctuates other then those 2 spots. I plan on doing my plenum gasket this weekend along with rotor/plugs. I assume doing the plenum fix will probably help my oil pressure issues.

The other issue im having is a rubbing sound during acceleration. It doesnt make any noise while at a light and I can't replicate it in park or neutral. I have checked the drive shaft and there is no play in it. If im driving and take my foot off the gas it goes away so that eliminates brakes/rotors/tires.

Any thoughts on what else it might be? since I am doing the plenum this weekend figured I might as well try and solve this.

Thanks guys

 

I know the serpentine belt makes a lot of really weird and irritating noises

 

Don't just replace the plenum gasket... replace the pan and bolts as well. There are kits on ebay pretty cheap. (fifty bucks.) Get gaskets locally.

Plenum won't do anything for oil pressure. Some fluctuation while driving is normal. Yours seems a bit on the extreme side, but, given the way the oil pressure gauges on these trucks work, don't bet that it's real accurate..... That said, pressure is good, don't worry about it.

Put the rear up on jackstands, and see if you can make the noise that way, if you can, see if you can find where it is coming from. If it doesn't make the noise initially, apply light pressure to the brake pedal, so there is some load on the driveline, and see if it starts. (I am suspecting pinion bearings, or T-case here....)

 

Might want to still consider the u-joints. Reason being I had a bad joint in the rear shaft and the one at right front wheel. Only reason i caught them was they were sqeeking. I had zero play that i could feel. Just decided to replace them. When I took out the old ones the bearings were dust with very small bearing pieces left.

 

I got the plenum replacement kit from hughes along with the o2 sensors.


I have to get bigger jacks to lift up the rear end since my little jacks i used on my old focus dont work on my truck, lol.

I believe this truck was used for a lot of mudding before me due to having some M/T tires on it when i got it. I'm kind of assuming at this point most of the bearings are probably shot with all the mud and dirt.

 

So i started doing the plenum repair today. I planned on doing the plugs/wires/cap/rotor, cover valve gasket, hughes plenum kit, 180t-stat, and o2 sensors.

When I pulled out the keg it was WAY worse than I had planned.

This stuff was just caked on and sludge like. the old gasket just fell apart as i took it out. I spent probably 2 hours just doing clean up. When i opened the cover valve it definitly looks like sludge build up. Do i just need to add a adative or something along those lines to get it cleaned up? I am really worried that because it so bad the new gaskets wont seal correctly. This is probably the hardest thing i have done car wise. normally my dad did it while i was in college/highschool.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks,

 

You want any mating surfaces squeaky clean. You need to be able to eat off of them. If there is a LOT of crap under the valve covers, and down in the valley, you might want to just bite the bullet, drop the oil pan, and clean all that crap out of there, then flush the engine with something that evaporates nicely. (buy stock in a brake cleaner manufacturing company)

If it's just the gasket surfaces that are crappy. A solvent soaked rag, putty knife, and elbow grease works pretty good.

 

Allot of the sludge can be removed with a wet/dry vac with the narrow tip on the hose. Don't use the vac with any type of combustible cleaner.

 

Yeah, your oil pressure sounds fine; totally normal for it to go way up at higher speeds.

Brian (Hey You), would this be the time to do the timing chain (double roller or otherwise) and sprockets? A '99 has got to have a few miles on it. Isn't this a fairly standard part of a plenum repair?

As for the rubbing sound, I agree that the u-joints are a very likely culprit, especially since the PO was fond of the mud. That's reason enough to just go ahead and replace them anyway, especially if they're the "permanently lubricated" (yeah, right) kind. I bet you find at least one cup that's bone dry.

 

The cat is most likely no good or on it's way out also. And unless you plan on getting a SCT tuner, I'd stick with a stock T-stat.