Troubleshooting chart for P0030

 

There is hope!
I built a DIY smoke "machine" and found a massive vacuum leak on the front side plenum/runner hose. It had a 2" split in the center on the bottom of the hose. I could see the smoke pouring out. I removed the runner and yes, the hose is split on the seam. I am certain a massive amount of air was being sucked in making all three front cylinders lean and the ECM must have been dumping gas in on those cylinders causing the inability to idle. Hence, the black O2 sensor. When I gave it gas, it over came the vacuum leak and ran smooth, but back at idle it ran very poorly if not stopped.

If you are wondering why I couldn't find that leak by spraying for vacuum leaks? It was so huge of a leak, it wasn't making any hiss noise and I couldn't get the engine to run long enough to spray carb spray around checking for vacuum leaks. IT was a perfect storm, pointing toward the O2 sensor B2S1 when O2 sensor was simply reporting correctly i.e. extremely lean. Thus, constantly lean causing flooding, rich and back firing while running very hot!

Everything makes sense now! Is there any reason why I couldn't simply use a plumbing fitting in place of this hose? It is just air intake and no fuel through this hose, right? What do you recommend?

 

Splurge for the right size hose designed for automotive use. Can't really go wrong that way. No reason to introduce strange plumbing related variables. My three cents anyway. You've been through enough crap to find this, so go to the last 2 miles of your marathon and put the right vac hose on it. I think you and the vehicle have both earned that right.

 

Checked four auto stores and none had it. They had 4" intake bellows, but not 3". My final stop was Napa and they provided me with hose that will work for intake purposes. I just want to get it working and then I'll look into get fancy parts for $32 each. I have enough pipe to replace it twice a month for year! LOL I really should cut it and get it done, but I'm too tire from screwing around with baby oil smoker, but hey, it worked!

 

After replaced the main intake hose between the Plenum and the front runner... the engine started and ran perfectly! This is a case of doing too many repairs and Uncle Murphy's (Murphy's Law shat on me numerous times).

Once upon a time, at the beginning of February, I parked the vehicle after it started to puke oil on to the rear exhaust manifold making it impossible to drive without a gas mask! The burning oil fumes were intense. I feared it would start on fire. The oil was running like a river on the rear exhaust manifold. I studied the PCV system and determined there was excess blow-by causing gaskets to fail and oil to leak everywhere possible. I decided to replace the valve cover gaskets and rebuild PCV reed valve in an attempt to handle the blow-by crankcase pressure. I had to wait a long time for gaskets and reed valve viton rubber to arrive. It was weeks of down time and I didn't want to disassemble to engine and wait weeks to put it back together as this was my first time digging so deep in this engine. If too much time went by... I might forget how to put it back together!

I disassembled the top half of the engine just before the gaskets were suppose to arrive and then I got very sick in mid-February... I believe it was covid as both my wife and I got very ill. A week later I was on my feet again, rebuilt the PCV reed valve (1st time) and as I was finishing up the bolting up the engine lift brackets... the curse of Murphy punched me right in the face as I saw the front valve cover gasket hanging outside the front of the valve cover! Totally annoyed with myself that I messed up so badly, I was thinking to myself, "self - Why didn't you spot ATV to hold that gasket in place... you idiot"! Nevertheless, I took everything back apart... fixed the gasket and very carefully made damn sure everything remained in place... and then Murhy hit again! I broke off a valve cover gasket bolt with my crappy torque wrench! I went back to old school after that!

With every back together, I went to start the engine and it would not fire and the battery eventually went dead. Charged it over night and went to start it and good god man I never heard a more sickening wicked sounds as I did that day! I assumed it has something to due to the PCV rebuild. The engine was back firing, bouncing all round like crazy (as it did when the timing belt tensioner failed years ago) and couldn't hardly keep it running at an idle. I freaked thinking I destroyed my wife's Saturn! I felt sick! We bought the Saturn new in 2000. I was extremely down in the dumps and what makes it worse is I had to drive my wife everywhere because our other vehicle is a 1996 Dodge Ram 2500 manual transmission and she can't drive stick! At this point we were pumping $100+ per week for gas and then my crank position sensor when out on the truck! We were fuked! The dodge would shut off and be hard to start. It was still very cold outside so running bikes was out of the question1

Okay, we had to break down and buy a new vehicle, but my wife would NOT allow me to junk the Saturn even though I actually picked up the phone a few times to call the junk yard for pickup! After buying a new 2020 Yaris Hatchback for under 20K... and the gas mileage of this vehicle is outstanding like we have ever had before... in excess of 35-45 mpg... it literally sips on gas and it is fun car to drive. The pressure was off... so I managed to race the Saturn back into our single car apartment garage and took it all apart again! I didn't see much that looked wrong.

This time it was easier because I knew where the hidden bolts were. I worked slowly and tried to verify everything twice and threes times more. I rebuilt the PCV reed valve by sanding the thick piece of Viton rubber so it would very easily move unlike my first attempt. This was the third time I had the PCV Oil Separator off the engine. I reassembled everything working slowly to insure I didn't screw up. After a week of careful work, I went to start it up and it still ran like crap! It's junk I said and my wife said, "Fix it"! One day would run better than the next which didn't make any sense to me and it ran fine at high RPMs. So I finally broke down and ordered a Code Reader. For years I wanted and needed a Code Reader.

Covid lock down was in full bio-weapon political form at this point and shipments took forever to receive. We parked the Saturn in the lot and tire went flat and I had to remove the tire to refill the air at the gas station. First priority was to replace the crank position sensor on my truck. I thought the Saturn was hard to work on! Dodge put the crank position sensor in the worst location ever! In order to reach it, you have to lay on the engine and extend your left arm fully and then you can only put finger tips on the greasy bolts and you have to do it all by feel! I actually hurt my ribs badly doing this I was experiencing a lot of chest pain and I didn't dare go to see a doctor complaining of rib pains! I didn't want to be diagnosed as a covid patient and end up on a vent! I did slowly recover in a week's time.

After I felt better, I again managed to limp the Saturn into the garage by "flooring" it while I applied brakes. It would run great a high RPMs and buck horse wild under 1,500 RPMs. I pulled all the plugs, but didn't receive the borescope in time to visually inspect the cylinders for fear perhaps the timing belt failure a couple years aog returned or perhaps valves or piston are now damaged. I ordered a compression test kit at this point., but it never arrived in time. Another tool set I have wanted forever! I was truly reaching for straws at this point. Nothing and everything had to be considered as a possible fault. I again removed the Saturn from the single garage to safely house the Yaris from quickly approaching hail storms. The Saturn sat lonely in the lot and I wondered if I could fix it! The weather passed and I returned the Saturn to the garage for another tear down! At this point, I kept doing the same things over and over again expecting different results! You know, I was going insane!

My Code Reader arrived so I reassembled the engine again to make use of the code reader. For the first time during all this... the engine light came ON... so I believed the code reader might help. The code was Oxygen Sensor B2S1 was failing. Cool, something concrete... I thought! I purchased an Oxygen Sensor from Oreilly's. Installed it and then ALL O2 Sensors were coding! I spent days fooling around with rabbit hole! I learned the difference between original Narrow band O2 sensors, Narrow band with pump O2 sensors and Wide band O2 sensors. I pinned out the O2 Sensor heater pins which are actually color coded wrong in service manuals, plus there were difference between all bank 2 O2 sensors. I decided to reinstall the original O2 Sensor and was able to recreate the "All O2 Sensors" coding out by simply connecting the new O2 sensor I purchased. I returned this sensor and Oreilly's offered me a new one, I said, "No way, I don't want to connect another one of those for fear it might take out my ECM!" They immediately refunded my money which I greatly appreciated! If I had to guess... it might have been the right part number, but it was the wrong device. This reminds me of when I purchase two new struts for the rear of the Saturn. They came in at the parts store... two new struts, same part number, but they were physically different! It took three tries to find two identical struts. Right, Wrong... I didn't care as long as both were identical. This taught me an important lesson that even correct parts numbers can be wrong because old parts get modified over the years, but the parts numbers remain the same.

I had just installed a new muffler about 7 miles driven before the Saturn started puking oil like beached whale! This made me think perhaps the exhaust could be pulled or maybe the CAT failed... It was logical to me to think perhaps the "exhaust" failed and that was causing the O2 Sensors to screw up. I removed the upstream O2 sensors and discovered we owned a stock car! Verooom! The apartment building tenants just love me! But, the engine still ran buck wild and it was embarrassing! The exhaust is working... next????

I did notice the front O2 sensor was black and the read sensor was white. Everything I was seeing was pointing toward a huge vacuum leak, but where? Symptoms: Engine fails to idle, Runs great at higher RPMs (over comes vaccum leak), black Bank 2 plugs/front O2 sensor. I don't have smoke machine, so I built one! The DIY smoke machine worked okay, but the smell of baby oil was so thick in air as if I changed 100 babies at once! And then I saw it... smoke rising from under the front bellow hose between the plenum and the front runner. I immediately remove the front runner and found a slit about 2" long! WTF!!! The front bank was sucking air like a fish out of water!

Conclusion: The B2S1 O2 sensor was reporting LEAN LEAN LEAN and the ECM was dumping gas into Bank 2 causing the massive rich condition turning everything on Bank 2 black. Also, it was likely causing massive over heating in the exhaust pipe blanching every dip of oil in to dust! It all made sense now. The rubber hose failed and you couldn't see the failure unless you got physical with it. Some days it would run slightly better than other likely based by mere happenstance.. causing me to run in circles!

Before anyone says... How the heck could you miss that? The tear/slit/rip was on the bottom of the hose. When the hose was on the vehicle there was no evidence there was a hole in the rubber. There was no vacuum leak noise as I was rarely was head-under the hood while idling. Also, I was unable to perform a vacuum leak test i.e. spraying carb spray around under the hood because the engine would not run without me throttling the gas peddle and keeping the RPMs well above an idle. Also, the front runner and the plenum, they actually touch and the hose simply bans them together, but this was way more than enough to cause MAJOR symptoms out of happenstance running me in circles for months! I likely ripped the rubber hose just after I found the misplaced front valve cover gasket and never noticed it.

Suggestion: Any time you remove the runners for whatever reason... do a complete and thorough individual inspection to verify their integrity! This hose failure made the engine sound like a bolt was inside the engine as it buck like a wild horse and would not run an idle. Because I dig so deep in to this engine (first ever experience with Saturn), I had my hands full and on so many different things, wires, modules, replacing several gaskets while isolating and testing sensor galore... it had me chasing my tail while under massive pressure before we bought the new car. Well, every 20 years isn't bad between car purchases and I did learn a ton of good information about the Saturn. I also increased my tool crib significantly with Wife's approval... a code reader, air compressor, borescope, compression test kit, misc unique tools for Saturn maintenance and a DIY smoke machine which saved my butt and was the least expensive tool ever! I have to thank my wife for not allowing me to junk the Saturn! If it wasn't for her I would have junked it and believed I kill it. But now I can continue to restore her baby and possibly put Collector plates on her! The Saturn, not the wife! But, she's a keeper! Happy endings once again!

A basic inspection you can't see the tear in the rubber.

Say Ahhhhh!

 

Great news!

 

Awesome write up. Derf is the only other person I know that would have gone into such great detail. Kudos to your wife for telling you to fix it and not letting you scrap it. Now you have 3 vehicles to insure and work on instead of just 2, along with your bikes! LOL

 

I've driven the Saturn for 300 miles since it's been back on the road. I replaced the e-brake cables, wire brushed and undercoated the entire bottom, changed the air filter and cleaned the MAF. The Saturn Lives! It runs like new! Next to fix the A/C (Clutch coil is Open) and look at the ABS light which has been ON for years.

 

Drive it like you stole it and enjoy it. You've damn sure earned that right.

 

I'd throw some gauges on the HVAC to see if there is anything left in the system. If not, you obviously have a leak. Therefore you would want to find out how big that leak is and where before spending time and money replacing the clutch on the system that leeks sufficiently badly that it's not worth fixing.

If I remember correctly, you still have a code that points to power steering. And that code is known to light the ABS.