drisley
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2013
- Posts
- 301
I've got a 2002 Vacationer on the W22 chassis, Vortec 8.1. We are currently up around the Smokies, from Florida. As we went north of Atlanta, I noticed that the engine (seemingly suddenly) was much louder under load. More so than usual. Here's what I'm noticing...
I've done some reading and some people say spark plugs. I'm not exactly a mechanic here. And I don't have a mechanic's set of tools with me here (just standard stuff). But, is there anything I can check easily?
Some have talked about the donut gasket where the exhaust pipe begins (out from the manifold). When I look there, I see no weird discolorations or anything. Interestingly, though, we can smell some exhaust fumes from the engine when we're sitting still. When we pulled into our current campground, we even had the gas alarm go off inside while the rig was sitting still. No odors or anything while traveling because the airflow is higher, most likely.
Hoping somebody can help point me in the right direction.
We're heading to Anchors Down from here and I'm sure I can get there without issue, since I've probably put 150 miles on the rig since I noticed this. But, there's a lot of up and down around here in the mountains, so this noise is nerve wracking and I'm concerned if it is hurting anything.
- When under load (like climbing a hill or accelerating, it is louder than usual. Almost like a lawn mower.. it has that unmuffled clicking sound coming from the passenger side.
- It seems to rattle a bit while idling.
- The exhaust coming out of the passenger side tailpipe is visible and a bit louder than the driver side. Not smoking, but you can see the exhaust.
- It SEEMS as if I have to open throttle more than usual to get up the hills. I'm going out of memory here, but it just seems not to have as much umph up the hllls. Could just be me being overly sensitive at this point.
- No overheating or anything. Engine seems to be doing it's job. And when we're flat and level and the engine isn't under any load, it sounds perfectly smooth and normal
I've done some reading and some people say spark plugs. I'm not exactly a mechanic here. And I don't have a mechanic's set of tools with me here (just standard stuff). But, is there anything I can check easily?
Some have talked about the donut gasket where the exhaust pipe begins (out from the manifold). When I look there, I see no weird discolorations or anything. Interestingly, though, we can smell some exhaust fumes from the engine when we're sitting still. When we pulled into our current campground, we even had the gas alarm go off inside while the rig was sitting still. No odors or anything while traveling because the airflow is higher, most likely.
Hoping somebody can help point me in the right direction.
We're heading to Anchors Down from here and I'm sure I can get there without issue, since I've probably put 150 miles on the rig since I noticed this. But, there's a lot of up and down around here in the mountains, so this noise is nerve wracking and I'm concerned if it is hurting anything.