The next morning I fired up the starlink and continued to research other potential issues that might be causing the problem. I kept coming back to the crank sensor, the wiring or possibly the PCM. We also found information on how to bench test a crank position sensor. After breakfast I gathered more tools and parts including my scan tool, power probe, spare battery, wire, spare PCM and some other miscellaneous parts from the guys. Sometime in the early afternoon we arrived at WH1 were the truck was. Someone on FB posted about it, not sure where the Santa Rosa comment came from, that's hours north of where I live. The back of the truck had all the gay magnets all over it, at least they didn't post that
First thing we tried was swapping the PCM since that was easy process. No dice.
Second was toning out the wires between the PCM and the sensor. Checked out fine.
Third idea was bench testing the sensor with a power probe, volt meter, ground and piece of metal. We had the "new" AC Delco sensor on the tailgate with some jumper clips and three sets of hands to assist. As you pass a piece of metal past the sensor we noticed the voltage would increase and go back to zero like it should. I also noticed it would increase and maintain X volts after the metal passed by. That didn't seem right but we really didn't know if it was us being inconsistent with the test such as the distance the metal was from the sensor? We decided to pull the "old" sensor in the truck that came with the engine.
After pulling the sensor and inspecting it, I noticed a very fine piece of metal stuck to the tip. When I say small, I would compare it so a coarse piece of pepper from a pepper mill. I didn't think too much of it since it's a magentic tip and it probably picked up before it was installed or after when I pulled it out. During the bench test we found the sensor wasn't holding voltage after the metal passed like the other sensor did (randomly). We concluded this "old" sensor should work fine but it hasn't been working so we called an auto parts store in Reno and ordered another sensor before they closed. I figured we might as well try the old sensor again, maybe something has changed? If not, we're leaving the truck again and coming back with a new sensor the next day. After the sensor was reinstalled, the truck fired up like it normally does. There was some cheers and shots of bourbon were consumed. There was also some jokes about never turning the truck off until we leave so I left it running while we packed up.
As we all pulled away my buddy with the FJ has his hood open and said the steering was being weird. I asked him to turn the wheel while and I noticed a weird noise in the front axle, driver side area. He put it in gear and pulled forward and something grinded weird and jerked the drivers tire. We put a scissor jack under the front driver axle housing so the tire was off the ground and realized the axle shaft or diff was broken. No output out of the drivers side so we grabbed some tools out of my truck and I shut my truck off. We pulled the slug so he can three wheel home and we put the tools away in my truck.
We go to leave and my truck won't start. WTF! I pulled my scan tool and I see rpm when cranking. I was pretty annoyed at this point so I went back to basics and checked for fuel pressure at the Schrader valve on the fuel rail. Nothing. At this point my buddies were about to burn my truck to the ground but I wanted to check the pump before we do that. Opened the fuel pump hatch, turned the igniton on and I couldn't hear the pump. Removed the other lines to the pump, removed it and had someone turn the ignition on, still nothing so I hit the pump and it turned on spraying fuel. Put that bitch back in, started the truck up and headed back to camp.
We got to camp around midnight.
The next day our trucks only drove down to the water. We relaxed in the lake and drank beer all day.
Called ahead to the buggy and asked them to add a propane bottle to our order.
