dodge woes!!!

am having trouble with a 2000 dakota with the 4.7 V8 in it. idling rough, runs ok on the highway, trouble codes say 2,3, and 8 injectors are bad, and another code says left cylinder bank running lean. BUT, am getting black puffs of smoke after sitting at idle for a few minutes. Wouldn't that be too rich?

Has anybody else had this kind of thing happen to their truck? Anyone have any ideas? Its too close to the holidays to start buying all kinds of parts to hopefully guess the problem.

The truck only has 78000 miles on it, kind of hard to believe that 3 injectors all went bad together, isnt it? fuel pressure regulator? pump?

LOL I guess I should have stayed with my chevy, but GM can't seem to make a frame that will hold up in this part of the country (PA) There are 10 yr old and less trucks all around here with bad frames.

Check your tune up parts, spark plugs, cap, rotor, and wires.

Make sure you do not have any exhaust leaks prior to the O'2 sensors. This will give the sensors a running too lean situation, causing the computer to richen up the fuel injection.

Replace the fuel filter, if you have not replaced it in the last 30,000 miles. This will restrict the pressure, and flow of fuel, causing a lean miss fire.

All of these things can cause a rich smell in the exhaust, coupled with a 'blinking' check engine light, and a melt down of the catalytic converter, plugging up the exhaust flow.

i have sprayed ether around the intake, doesnt seem to be any vacumm leaks there. Have found no exhaust leaks. I'm gonna change the O2 upstream sensor this weekend, see if that helps. If that doesnt work, I'm gonna try changing just one of the injectors, and re-run the codes to see if that one injector code goes away. The fuel filter is in the tank, as much as I hate to do it, if these other things don't seem to help, Im going to pressure test the fuel system before I take the tank out. I don't think its a plugged filter, as it has all of its power on the highway, it is not acting gas starved. A bunch of my friends seem to think that it could also be the EGR valve, I will try that next.

My problem is that none of the codes the computer gave me seem to match the possible causes of my problems. EX. I don't think that 3 injectors all went bad together, but that is what the comp. is saying.

I just got an up load back into my current memory from one I worked on 7 years ago. That one had a leak from the power steering pressure switch, that pushed power steering fluid inside of the wiring harness, causing multiple codes to be set. I was going to pull the front O'2 sensor to bench test it, and power steering fluid was inside of the plug. I was like 'what the heck?' how did this get in here? There was not a sign of a power steering fluid leak outside of the wiring harness either.

I had previously worked on the power steering, replacing a bad steering rack, and hoses. It kept foaming the fluid in the power steering pump, and the rack had over 3,000 psi of pressure when turning hard right, with only 1,700 while turning hard left. After this repair, I put a little dye in the power steering fluid, to be able to pin point any leaks in the future. This is the way I knew where to start looking.

DAMN!!!!

I changed my upstream O2 sensor this afternoon, and took it for a ride. The idle has improved to almost perfect, I'm going to wait a day or 2 to see if the black stuff out the tailpipe quits. (it was too dark to see today).

The part of what you said that floored me was that the 5th code the scanner came up with was PO551," Power Steering Pressure sensor circuit malfunction"

when I changed my o2 sensor earlier, It looked oily inside the plug. I wrote it off as being dielectric grease or something, since it gets pretty warm right there.

tommorrow in the light, I'm going to check that switch, to see if there is oil coming out of the switch.

How did you ever get it all fixed? did you have to clean every plug? with what?

I just emptied a spray can of brake clean over a couple of hours into the wiring harness, at the pressure switch. I also had the lowest connection(O'2 sensor) disconnected, with the wire loom opened up.

Chrysler used a rubber boot to seal the connection, at the sensor, and taped it into the wiring harness. This allowed the fluid to wick down the wiring harness, causing 'shorts'. Shorts may be not the best word to use, but it helps to explain the problem.

ok, this morning I went out and looked inside the plug to the power steering pressure switch, and sure enough, it was full of power steering fluid. At the parts store, I could not find a can of anything to clean the fluid, as they all said "DO NOT SPRAY ON ELECTRICAL CONNECTIONS" so I cleaned out the plug as good as I could with some Q-tips. I was thinking about commpressed air to try to blow the fluid out of the harness. Think that will get it? I'm also going to cut the cover on the wires back a couple inches so this can't happen again. I checked the plugs on the injectors whose codes came up, but they were dry. Tommorrow I will cancel the codes out, will have to see if anything new comes up.

also took the truck for about a 200 mile run today, it ran perfectly. No black soot out the tailpipe, either.

It's been long enough that I don't remember what all of the codes that were set. They are on a hard drive, of an old laptop of mine, that will not turn on.

I had opened up the harness at the pressure switch, and the O'2 sensor about 2"s. The brake clean worked good to flush the power steering fluid out of the harness it's self. I use electrical contact cleaner inside of the connectors themselves.

That pressure switch was only available at the dealer, if I remember right.

I have not done a continuity test of used power steering fluid, but I found this to be the problem. There may have been some metal residue in the used fluid, allowing it to transfer some of the 5 volt reference voltage into the sensor's ground wire. This is the only wire that is common among several sensors. I'll bet it was the fluid in the O'2 sensor connector that caused most of the codes to be set, not the power steering pressure switch it's self.