Hi all. I'm new here. And love it. I found the DIY posts, but unfortunately all the detailed pictures that would have kept me from asking for help tonight don't seem to be available anymore. Anyone know how to get access to these?

I'm doing the plenum repair on a 94 5.2 van B250. It's been 30 years or so since I've taken the time to do my own repairs. But due to the economy I now need to.

Anyway, while doing the plenum repair on my 94 Van I found the front area to be a royal pain in the *** to work on with VANS. And my first problem has been is not knowing how the belt comes loose so I can remove the Alternator and AC. I've read that the belt tensioner needs to be pulled, I think towards the center of the van using a 15mm socket wrench set at 6 o'clock or 9 o'clock position and then I should slip the belt off. Is this right? And then I can just loosen all the Altenator bolts and AC bolts. One post I read says something about taking off the Idler pulley to get to one of the AC bolts. But this post doesn't seem to be for a VAN. So I'm not sure exactly.

I have to say from what I've read and working on the van it's a real chore getting access to the front engine parts. I had to move quite a bit just to get the plastic shroud out of the way. I had to still fight the AC lines to remove it completely. What a pain. The inside work around the intake was a piece of cake. Just needed to lable everything as I not used to all the electric sensors that have been added since the 70's and 80's.

Thanks for any help tonight. It's a bit chilly out tonight but I want to keep going since it's gonna only be in the 40's the rest of the week.

 

More like 11-12 o'clock for the wrench on the tensioner bolt, then pull it towards the center and slip the belt off the idler pulley. That's the easiest pulley to slide it off because there is no lip to get the belt over.

No you do not have to remove the idler pulley.

Remove the fan and pull the shroud right out of there. That'll give you enough room to crawl in there and take a little nap if you need to.

 

Thanks,

Finished dinner, now back to give it more time. Hopefully I'll be able to get the intake off tonight and get it cleaned up and repair plenum. Might think about doing the mod to the intake. Not sure.

 

BTW, don't forget to disconnect the battery.

 

Got the intake off. Got lots of pics. But battery died on camera and I'm not sure how to upload to this site. But I'll give it a try because I found a sensor cracked I have no clue what it's for/is. Just barely hanging on. It's cracked right at the base. It's by the thermostat passenger side. It's not the temperature coolant sensor though. I changed that last year. This one is on the opposit side next to the thermostat. I thought it might be the IAT but it seems to be more to do with the coolant area. Same level as the ECT. I see another sensor above that in the Intake manifold. I'm clueless as to what it might be. I have to buy one before finishing. And these saleman at autoparts store around here are mostly clerks. I doubt they would know what you call it.

Oh yea battery cable disconnected first thing. Lots of sludge built up inside engine when I lifted the Intake. Especially on bottom of maniflod. Also noticed one of the port completely blocked with an orange substance. I shouldn't say it's a port, as I'm just guessing. But it's the smaller of teh openings at the back of intake. Maybe RTC. It's late I'll have to look tommorrow. Tired and it's late. It'll be in the 20's tommorrow morning but I got the intake out so I can spend time cleaning it up in the garage til it warms up some. Or maybe I'll go for the mod and take another day or so.

 

That is also a temperature sensor. The 1-wire one is for the dash gauge and the 2-wire one is the temperature sensor for the computer.

 

Thanks you much!!!

It looked like the same except for the wiring. And I took a dry run at this repair 3 weeks back labeling everything but couldn't get the wire clip off that sensor and I think I caused a hair line crack by yanking on it. Since then I've noticed the dash temp guage climbing when going uphill on teh highway. I was wondering if that had caused the guage to fluctuate some. But I also drained the radiator a few times due to heater core problems, but never used anti-freeze to top off after re-cycling fluid since I new I'd be doing this. I'm sure the ratio was more like 70/30. And every thing in the coolant system was replaced this summer except for heater core and fan clutch.

Thanks for your time. I really appreciate this.

 

Right after you bolt the intake back down might be a good time to take the garden hose and power flush out the heater core, radiator, and engine block while you have all of it apart. Pull off the lower radiator hose first.

 

I do plan on that and had talked to a few people online and at auto shop who worked for a radiator shop. And both recommended using CLR to soak in the cores and then flush with hose. Helped the guy on line who now has good heat. The guy who worked at the shop said that they would do this quite a bit to relieve buildup. So I have a gallon of CLR pump to run through the core. Hope it helps heat problem. I'm tempted to run CLR through the entire system too, but I'm afraid of it hurting anything.

 

Just wanted to thank everyone for helping out with my repair. I'm buying everyone a beer. I now have more response on acceleration and no pinging so far. I have a 50/50 mix with 93 octane and 87 octane so I don't no for sure. But I can hear a difference. Still have problem with cold weather starts. So that's next. And oil pressure light still comes on when stopped in drive only. But I replace oil pump 3 times in past 8years. So I doubt it's really the oil pump. I no the screen is an issue. Although this repair took me 4 days to do. 2 days I spent cleaning the crap out of the sludge and carbon buildup. I had a rewarding time doing it. First timer for fixing internal engine repair. Now have a little better understanding of the inner working of all the sensors and basics of the engine. Pretty cool. So thank you all.