Over this past week I have been Vegas staying a friends place. Its been nice to have a place to get things done on the van and to recoup as well as visit an old friend. Of course before I got to Vegas Gimli (my van) was having some problems that were very difficult to figure out and I had to place many SOS calls to my father over several days trying to figure out what was going on. Personally it was stressful and not fun in the slightest. Before I left for this trip the idle control was having some issues and my father thought he had fixed the issue at hand before I left.
Turns out it wasnt fixed. So I then had to call him and see what was going on with it and try to diagnose it using Torque and pictures while talking over the phone. At first it seems easy to fix by wiggling the wiring around near the maf sensor and after doing that the idle would calm down and go back ot normal. Seems simple enough until one day I woke up, started the van and Gimli stared revving super hard and no matter how much I wiggled the wiring he was determined to go to space.
After several days of trying to get the van to clam down and not succeeding it was determined I had to take it into a shop to get it diagnosed and see what coudl be done. Narrowing down what could be the case Dad and I thought it may be an air flow leak, the MAF sensor or a wiring issue.
So after some chat and hard decisions I took it in the shop and the next day I get a call. He thinks its the air control valve and that it has a habit of sticking and that it needs to be replaced. Let me just say, he was a nice mechanic but, I was not happy when he told me it would take 800 to fix it since he HAS to but the throttle body with the control valave to then put it in the van. Right then I get a message saying there is someone in vegas that May be able to take a look at Gmili and help me out instead of the mechanic. Taking a day to think about my decision I tell the mechanic to not worry about it and that I would be picking it up shortly.
After picking up my van I take Gimli over ot this guys house and immediatly after I get the van and drive it down the road it started revving super hard. Of course the mechanic said he couldnt get the van to do any hard revving while it was in the shop but the second I take it back it looses its mind. Once at this friends place I park the van and immediatly he revs. I turn it off nad we begin the process of elimination. Over the course of two days we discovered there was a problem with the MAF sensor (which dad and I had already guessed), the wiring was messed up and had a bad connection ( that was something we already knew as well ) and it HAD one leak which we were able to fix with some tape. Once everything was in place we started him up and he purred like a kitten. No longer was gimli trying to go to Mars.
Over the course of almost two weeks I had such a wild experience with my stress. Im just glad someone was able to help me out and that I didnt have to pay for something that wouldnt fix the problem. Thank goodness for making friends.
