Problem after seafoaming

First off sorry if this is the wrong section for this but it seemed the most relevant.

Anyway, bought an 03 1500 with 4.7 with 200k on it a couple weeks ago. Had a slight lifter tick when it's cold in the morning, did some googling found it's pretty common and saw a lot of people cleared it up with a seafoam treatment. I've always used it on my vehicles so went ahead and did it on this truck. With it running I pulled the brake booster line and very slowly poured ~1/3 if not a little less of the can into the line til I thought I'd poured enough. Being at 200k and probably never having been done I didn't want to overdo it. Shut the truck off, let it sit about 15 min, and noticed a CEL after. Did the key trick to pull the code, found it was a vac leak code, and didn't think much of it since I'd pulled the booster line. Hammered on the gas most the way home (about 10 minutes) and it stopped dumping smoke out after a couple minutes. Seemed to be running better and idling better at lights and didn't think I had any problems til I got home and went to back into a parking spot and the engine stalled. Now it stalls anytime I go from Drive to Neutral or Reverse. If I go from park to reverse, neutral or drive it does fine and operates normally but anytime I go from drive to any of those three it's stalling out now and I can't figure out why. It also wants to stall out when idling sometimes when I first start it or won't turn over first thing in the morning now. If I try starting it a couple times it does fine like it should after the 2nd or 3rd start, sometimes it just fires up and idles fine as it should the first time but seems to be more temperamental when it's cold. I haven't had a chance to clear the CEL (scan tool at work is broken atm) but it seems to want to stall more at start up if I have the heat cranked and it sounds like it's trying to suck vacuum. I figured I still had a vac leak but I can't seem to find one anywhere and it's connected fine at the brake booster where I pulled the line. Little lost on what could be causing it at this point.

sounds like you have a vacuum leak somewhere. check all the lines. even though you removed the booster line the engine code you got could have been for somewhere else.

White Beauty said:

sounds like you have a vacuum leak somewhere. check all the lines. even though you removed the booster line the engine code you got could have been for somewhere else.

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I've traced everything off the brake booster and can't find anything. There any spots prone to problems or any lines that I might be missing somewhere?

Get a can of starter fluid and spritz it around the vac lines and intake manifold while the truck is running. VERY SPARINGLY. See if you can get the idle to pick up from it. If it does, that will tell you where the vac is leaking.

If you can't find a leak, try repeating the seafoam treatment. May have knocked some crap loose and needs to finish cleaning.

Another seafoam regret thread, there are a million of these. Could be a bunch of different things, check the net. Seams like Sea Foam treatments can lead to several different things from sensors to plug problems to a bunch of other things.

NYCruiser said:

Get a can of starter fluid and spritz it around the vac lines and intake manifold while the truck is running. VERY SPARINGLY. See if you can get the idle to pick up from it. If it does, that will tell you where the vac is leaking.

If you can't find a leak, try repeating the seafoam treatment. May have knocked some crap loose and needs to finish cleaning.

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I'll give that a shot tomorrow.

Burla said:

Another seafoam regret thread, there are a million of these. Could be a bunch of different things, check the net. Seams like Sea Foam treatments can lead to several different things from sensors to plug problems to a bunch of other things.

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I don't regret it. I've done it on every car I've ever had regularly and never had a problem til now. I'm 99% sure it's some sort of vac issue. I've read all the seafoam horror stories but in most those cases it's a case of someone using way too much in a system that's never been cleaned before and knocking way too much crap loose at once.

I have heard more problems with seafoam than it is worth. I would rather rebuild my motor that trust it to that stuff.

Yup everything you describe sounds like a vaccum leak, as stated
You could also use propane or carb cleaner to do the test, whatever you have on hand

A bottle of soapy water works as well, just look for the bubbles. But as stated above starting fluid or even WD-40 will work. I know the hard vacuum lines that are connected to the brake booster get very brittle, especially on an 03 with 200k. When you pulled the elbow of the brake booster it may have cracked somewhere that's not visible. Another member on here found that his vacuum line running to the cruise control was broken in several places. IIRC that vacuum line is covered with some plastic wire loom in spots.

Soapy water works on pressure leaks,not vacuum.

NYCruiser said:

Soapy water works on pressure leaks,not vacuum.

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Cool. Well I stand corrected, I was just saying what I've been told, never tried it.

redram2007 said:

Cool. Well I stand corrected, I was just saying what I've been told, never tried it.

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A vac leak would just suck the soapy water in, not blow bubbles in it. Soapy water works great for finding leaks on gas lines in the house.

Or finding where the flat in your tire is!

Finally got around to this today. Couldn't find anything visually and ended up having to smoke test it. Ended up being a split in one of the rubber lines on the back of the top of the motor. Idiot at the Dodge dealership kept faxing us wrong diagrams and telling us the part was discontinued so I ended up just cutting the bottom of it off to shorten it and stuck it back on.

Apparently I had crap knocked loose that was causing the running issue separately but I guess it wasn't able to clear itself because of the vac leak. Once I got the vac leak fixed it was still having issues. Revved it a few times up to around 4k rpms, had a decent bit of smoke pour out the one time and it cleared the CEL and has been fine since.

It took some pulling to get the brake booster line off so I guess when I was doing that it ended up splitting the other hose. No way I could have seen it without running smoke through the lines.

Glad you got it sorted!

Me too, I was getting tired of having to find parking I could pull through to avoid having to back up lol