This is a blog post about the things that have not quite gone right with our Molly. We are just getting started here, but wanted to keep track of issues along the way.
1st ENG SYS alarm
Saturday, May 26, 2018. California/Arizona Border. 3,659 miles
It was hot, above 40ºC, and I was stuck in a long line of traffic waiting for inspection at the State of California Food & Agriculture Dept: Inspection Station, when Molly decided to light up with the first engine alarm. It was amber, meaning, get to FUSO when you can.
I pulled over at the first opportunity and rang FUSO. They wanted to tow me, but that was not really an option, as I had no way to get back to San Francisco after the truck would have been dropped somewhere. So, Fuso agent and I, jointly decided to stop the engine to see if it would reset and restart. I was worried it would not start again. But it did, and no alarm, so off I went.
At the time I did not know how to read the error codes. So not sure what the reported issue was.
2nd ENG SYS alarm
Wednesday, July 4, 2018. San Jose. 4,179 miles.
Planned to take Molly out for the 4th of July vacation day. But plans changed quickly after a Red ENG SYS alarm was displayed. The error code was SPN=3701 and FMI=-2, which is a bit meaningless to me. According to the manual this means “The value measured by component ‘Differential pressure sensor of diesel particular filter’ is too high.”. Also a little meaningless.
One of the possible failure modes is “Filter regeneration was not successful or not possible.”. This makes sense, as Molly was stuck in highway traffic while trying to do a DPF regeneraiton. Molly entered half power mode.
A visit to the local FUSO service center did not help. They found a different alarm, being “The coolant temperature is implausible”, which is an amber alarm. I guess this is related to the 1st ENG SYS alarm, and might not have reset. The FUSO service center removed the thermostat, everything looked ok, reset the code, did a regen, upgraded the software and a drive test. Not highly conclusive. Maybe the software upgrade would help, at least for the regen issue.
3rd ENG SYS alarm
Monday, September 3, 2018. Near Tahoe on Highway 80. 5,850 miles.
Returning from Tahoe, and caught in heavy highway traffic, we experiences our 3rd ENG SYS alarm, amber this time. The error code was SPN=520644 and FMI=31, the implausible coolant issue again. The thing is, the coolant was not high. Turning the engine off and on cleared the issue. I am starting to suspect that this issue occurs after fast highway speeds followed by stop and go traffic. Will see if this happens again.
20,000 miles later, this has never happened again.
1st Check Engine Light
Sunday, December 12, 2021. Near Seattle on Interstate 5. 24,217 miles.
Driving up to Deception Cove for the day, Molly’s Engine Light came on. The error code was SPN=520650 and FMI=0, which translates to “The emission value of the NOx sensor (raw value) is too high”. Could be a number of things, so will keep an eye on it and see if it self heals.
Well a few days later it did indeed self-heal, who would have guessed!. Did not even need to manually reset the MIL, as it cleared itself.
4th ENG SYS alarm – Serious this time
Friday, January 28, 2022. South East of Seattle. 25,411 miles.
It was Friday evening and about 10 minutes before getting to our camp site, Molly displayed an orange ENG SYS alarm. There was also a yellow DEF icon and the check engine lamp (MIL). The error code was SPN=520651 and FMI=0, which translates to “The learned values for component ‘NOx sensor 2’ are outside the permissible range. ( Lambda value )”. This particular error is only meant to turn on the engine check light, so something more complicated is going on. Could be a number of things, so will keep an eye on it and see if it self heals.
On Sunday morning I turrned on the ignition and the Eng Sys was still present, so decided to remove and clean the DEF dosing pump. Hoping that this might be the problem. We left the camp-site with the solid amber alert still present, waiting to see if it would disappear. Almost exactly 30 miles later the amber alert light turned into a red alert flashing alternatively with yellow accompanied by a loud buzzing sound. We pulled over to investigate. We knew this might happen when we left the campground.. After calling Fuso for some roadside assistance, which did not help as our coverage had expired, we decided to drive to the nearest Seattle area Fuso Service Center. Luckily it was only 8.4 miles away. We found a local hotel for the night. We where only 15 miles from home, but staying near the Fuso Service Center was the right thing to do, so we could get the repair going bright and early the next day.
The following morning we sweet talked Bobby (Service Manager) into taking Molly in and looking into the problem for us. They currently have a 2 month backlog, but they squeezed us in. Five days later, Molly was returned all fixed. Issue corrected by replacing two sensors; Exhaust Muffler NOx Sensor (MK668275) and Exhaust Oxygen Sensor (ME555789). All covered under the 5 year exhaust warranty.
5th ENG SYS alarm – Molly wants attention
Friday, April 12, 2024. Near Chisos Basin, Big Bend National Park, Texas. 44,377 miles.
We were on our way to Chisos Basin for a visit as we left Great Basin National Park. But there was some problem on the roads and traffic was being restrict into the area by the rangers. So we ended up waiting in line for about 15 mins, moving forward every few minutes. The engine was idling all the time. eventually we got to the head of the line and were let through, about a minute later we got a Red ENG SYS with the piecing constant audible alarm. We immediately pulled over to assess this. This happened once before in a similar situation, on a hot day waiting in a line. So we did what we did then, and stopped the engine, waiting about 10 minutes and turned Molly back on. everything was just fine. No more warning lights and sounds.
The trip into the Basin was steep and winding, so we decided to turn around and stay near payment. Just being cautious.
Saturday, April 13, 2024. Near Fort Davis, Texas. 44,499 miles.
A day later we were visiting McDonald Observatory, at the upper carpark, when Molly signaled she wanted some attention. Again we got the Red ENG SYS with the piecing constant audible alarm. We did the same trick, of stopping the engine, waiting and resuming. And it worked for a few minutes, but a few minutes later the fault was back. Time to get the code reader out and investigate. We had no internet, so we broke out Starlink and looked up the two codes we had, which were SPN=30 FMI=17 and SPN=98 FMI=17. This indicates high crankcase pressure and low engine oil. The first thought was the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) filter. We stopped the engine for 15 mins and the problem cleared itself. We checked the oil level, and noticed it was lower than usual, not too low, just a little lower than usual. We headed back to camp which was 16 kms away.
At camp we did a little inspection, and found oil seeping from the exit side of the turbo intercooler. This is a low point in the piping. After much humming and arhing, we decided to remove the air piping for an inspection inside. The intercooler end was visually free of oil, while the engine end had much more oil present. We could not work out how oil was getting to this part of the system. Maybe from turbo bearing though the intercooler or maybe from the EGR. Basically there should be no oil here.
Went to the local service station before it closed, it is a very small town and we were lucky that they even sold the oil we needed1. We got there 30 minutes before they closed for the weekend. Topped up the oil and replaced the parts removed for inspection. since there was no large amount or pooling of oil, we assumed that the engine is not getting damaged and we can drive on it. The following morning we did the PCV regeneration procedure recommended in the FUSO Owners manual, which is to rev the engine for 2 minutes to 4,000 RPM while in Park. Hopefully that will help until we can get the PCV filter replaced.
Another Earthcruiser owner offered his driveway, tools and expertise to help me replace the PCV. Although 500 miles away, we decided this was the best idea. So parts were ordered and headed in a mainly northernly direction to Colorado. Along the way we got the warning a few more times. We also did the PCV regeneration procedure a few times.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Ridgway, Colorado. 45,424 miles
Gary and I complete the service of the PCV filter, along with replacing the engine oil and engine oil filter. More details here.
- Turned out we brought the wrong engine oil. The specification for Molly’s engine oil is 5W30-CJ4. we had incorrectly purchase 5W30-xxx ↩︎