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Smog pump bypass?

TexasNomad

FTFS Designated DRINKER!
I've been having a real problem with a noisy belt/Pulley on my Bronco first new belt then new idler then tensioner then cussing.
Starting to think its coming from the smog pump so I thought maybe I could just get a smaller belt and just bypass the bastard but what new fresh hell could that unleash on my bronco? I remember my dad doing it to our 86 f150 as soon as he got it home from the lot and never seemed to have a problem, any one have any other ideas how to track down a noisy pulley on a Serpentine system?
Its coming from the passenger side of the engine.
Did I mention getting it wet makes it stop.
Also I'm getting weird smelling fuel fumes when the engine is running but I cant find a single sign of a fuel leak any where So I'm thinking something is going south with that Smog pump just really don't feel like coughing up money to get a new one.
Thanks yall I gotta split and head to Oklahoma city.
 

5.0Flareside

GingaNinja
14,463
384
La Vergne, TN
depends on how your belt is routed.. i was able to delete the smog pump on my flareside and just get a smaller belt and had no issues.. some belt routings require a smog delete pulley in its place...
 

O'Rattlecan

Redneck Prognosticator
26,687
797
Belton, MO
To locate noises, you can use a garden hose or some type of tubing. Hold it to your ear and move the other end around to each pulley. You may look ridiculous doing it, but you'll find the noise and won't get your head caught in the fan.

Ryan
 

Truckin4life

Texas Chapter Leader
I use the garden hose trick from time to time...

Tex, im not sure on the 5.0 but i know the 5.8 you can run a shorter belt and just bypass it, worth a bit of looking into. I used to know the measurement off hand but its likely different for the 5l anyway...
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
If it is in fact a pulley, pull the belt off, and see/feel how the pulleys spin. If a bearing is going bad in one, you should feel a rough spot. You said when it gets wet, it goes away...first, that would incline me to believe it's the belt, but if it's not, start spraying down each pulley with WD-40/water/etc. until the sound goes away, and find which one it is by process of elimination.

As for bypassing the smog pump, people remove them all the time...so bypassing it should be no problem. I'm not sure what the belt routing is, so you may need a dumby pulley setup there...but I doubt it. Then the only issue is finding the correct length belt, figuring out how to re-route it, and reprogramming the rig to run without it.

The fuel smell...any cat converters remaining? Fuel injector o-rings leaking???
 

Ton van der Sluijs

official Lucas dealer
hi guys
this is the way I dissolved the problem; I've machined a bracket and a shaft on ball bearings.


I've dismantled the smogpump, and the rollerbearings were both running in grease and dust..(bad constructed vanepunp)




best regards Ton
 
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Removal of the smog pump will affect O2 sensor readings and cause a LEAN condition causing the premature failure of spark plugs. Don't kid yourselves into thinking that just arbitrarily removing part of a system that well integrated into the operation of the engine will have no effect on things. The loss of air injection to the exhaust at the heads affects the O2 sensor and the computer WILL compensate by leaning out the fuel mixture and advancing spark timing. But then if you like replacing spark plugs and don't mind superheating the cylinder walls with the increased spark advance, go for it. Just fix the smog pump. It ALWAYS astounds me that people simply refuse to believe that these components have an effect on the way the system functions. Yes, the computer will compensate for it but so you might not actually FEEL the difference but its doing damage... period. Do as you will. I'll keep the equipment intact and my EEC-IV running as it was designed to if only to extend the life of my engine.
 
Last edited:

5.0Flareside

GingaNinja
14,463
384
La Vergne, TN
Removal of the smog pump will affect O2 sensor readings and cause a LEAN condition causing the premature failure of spark plugs. Don't kid yourselves into thinking that just arbitrarily removing part of a system that well integrated into the operation of the engine will have no effect on things. The loss of air injection to the exhaust at the heads affects the O2 sensor and the computer WILL compensate by leaning out the fuel mixture and advancing spark timing. But then if you like replacing spark plugs and don't mind superheating the cylinder walls with the increased spark advance, go for it. Just fix the smog pump. It ALWAYS astounds me that people simply refuse to believe that these components have an effect on the way the system functions. Yes, the computer will compensate for it but so you might not actually FEEL the difference but its doing damage... period. Do as you will. I'll keep the equipment intact and my EEC-IV running as it was designed to if only to extend the life of my engine.

sorry but i completely disagree.. these systems dont get bothered hardly if at all.. i know a guy that put a rebuilt stock 351W in his truck and removed EGR and Smog pump and he's put well over 200k miles on it since he put the new engine in 7 years ago and has never had an issue and is constantly hauling..

I built my 351W in my old Flareside and removed the smog pump and blocked off the EGR and to this day with the new owner there are no illeffects..

i totally dissagree..

and also, for bout 2 weeks i was running arond in the flareside with open headers and no O2 sensor hooked up and it ran fine.. not rich or lean or anything..
 

Ton van der Sluijs

official Lucas dealer
Goodmorning y'all
The smog is the biggest crap I've ever seen on an engine in 35 years!!
The smog blows fresh air in the system two positions; under 2000revs just after the cat and above 2000revs straight on the exhaustvalves IN THE OPPOSITE WAY OF THE GASSTREAM!! How stupid can that be!! Because that cold ray of air blows exxentric on the valves, they will deform..
The cold air lowers also the exhaust gastemperature and moist in the muffler will shorten life of it. My truck is just 7 years in Holland.. One can see that all the bolts and nuts are undamaged, exept those of the exhaustpipe/headers... they are worn; I had to machine new ones. It tells me that the exhaustpipes are replaced a lot.

I've blinded off the EGR as well and MPG is improved, smoother run, more power and my engine remains clean. when I bought her, a thick layer of tar was in the inletmanifolds and the valves were damaged by all the tart what was sticking on the valves.
Let it be clear; an EGR is a gov. thing , only for the environment.
without the EGR, the O2 shall always cooperate with the EEC to reach the stochiometric value of 1:14,7 gas/air.
The inert gasses from the EGR lowers your combustionspeed (actually your timing retards) lowers the combustiontemp (powerloss) and because there's a natural law that say's " to keep a body on a certain speed, a certain amount of energy is needed to maintain on that speed". In other words, when the EGR is on duty, one shall push the acceleratorpedal deeper to keep speed. when I blinded it off, the first thing what I spotted, was the the pedal stood higher at same speed.
Now, they say that the EGR takes care for a lower NOx, okay? but when it messes your combustion, more fuel goes thru the engine and a lot of unburned will leave the tailpipe.
One must not forget, that the carmanufacturers and the oilcompany sleeping in oneand the same bed!! If your car can cope the environmental demands, it's okay and if the fuelconsumption rises, it's super to them!! All Gore happy, oilbosses happy, and as an extra bonus for the aftermarket sales, more work to do for carmechanics and more parts to sell.
Cars, oil and environment is pure politic games and we, as ordinary people are the"milkcows"of the governments.

This summer I've installed a woodburner in the house and 20cubic yard of wood behind the house is waiting to get burned this winter.... Environment? To leave a tree rotting away for years seems to make more CO2 than a quick burn in a burner... the Nuon(dutch natural gas company) shall not become rich over my back. but that was offtopic!!

best regards Ton
 
hi guys
this is the way I dissolved the problem; I've machined a bracket and a shaft on ball bearings.


I've dismantled the smogpump, and the rollerbearings were both running in grease and dust..(bad constructed vanepunp)




best regards Ton

Thats a real nice job there Ton .... wish i could do that myself unfortunately for me my ambitions concerning machining are far in excess of my abilities lol
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
sorry but i completely disagree.. these systems dont get bothered hardly if at all.. i know a guy that put a rebuilt stock 351W in his truck and removed EGR and Smog pump and he's put well over 200k miles on it since he put the new engine in 7 years ago and has never had an issue and is constantly hauling..

I built my 351W in my old Flareside and removed the smog pump and blocked off the EGR and to this day with the new owner there are no illeffects..

i totally dissagree..

and also, for bout 2 weeks i was running arond in the flareside with open headers and no O2 sensor hooked up and it ran fine.. not rich or lean or anything..


I'm sure you and your buddy have more engineering experience than the fine folks at Ford.
 

5.0Flareside

GingaNinja
14,463
384
La Vergne, TN
I'm sure you and your buddy have more engineering experience than the fine folks at Ford.

its something that is require to be there by the EPA.. Ford designed it in the best way they could. it's not intertwined that much in the system...

and hundreds and hundreds of trucks out there have this stuff removed and most are just fine...
 

Ton van der Sluijs

official Lucas dealer
Goodmorning:)
It's useless to blow cold air on hot valves.... Ruin your costly acquired combustion with gasses thru the EGR a waste of compression ratio. If you lower the compress ratio to 1:6 you get the same result; a lower combustiontemperature= worse combustion and a lot of unburned fuel out the tailpipe.

Ton
 
It may run just fine... doesn't mean the system isn't screwing things up by trying to compensate for the stuff you arbitrarily removed. I never said it wouldn't run. YOU have absolutely NO IDEA how rich or lean it might be because you cannot control nor measure the ratio yourself. The ECM is doing that. And you will find out how bad it is in a few months when you pull fouled plugs out of it.

Ton,
Who said a word about cold air on hot valves? DO you have ANY idea how the Thermactor system works? Fresh air is introduced DOWNSTREAM of the exhaust valves. And just exactly how does the Exhaust Gas Recirculation system ruin your exhaust gasses? The EGR pulls some exhaust back through the intake again... if anything you are WARMING the intake air with it. The fresh air introduced to the exhaust is done so that the catalytic converter can reach the necessary operating temperature (which is HIGHER than combustion temps) to burn off excess crud.

Call me when you folks understand how these systems work because all I've read here is a bunch of backward pseudo-knowledge that completely contradicts the way the Thermactor and EGR systems work.
 

Truckin4life

Texas Chapter Leader
Carb's... I love the simplicity... :)

An EFI system will run with out the smog crap. But its more in depth than is being portrayed here.... You can fool the sensors into thinking it is running as it needs to be so you don't run lean or rich. But that's a whole other subject. Anything can be accomplished with a good tune.
 

Ton van der Sluijs

official Lucas dealer
Goodmorning Don;
It's not only rubbish, but the sparkies on starboardside are better accessible ; in other words, the chance to ruin the screwthread is brought back to zero , in my opinion .
what I also gonna remove, is that cannister which is between the gastanks and engine. Here nobody demands it, so why not removing it?

Like a sailor says"what you don't have on board, can't fool you""


Ton
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
Call me when you folks understand how these systems work because all I've read here is a bunch of backward pseudo-knowledge that completely contradicts the way the Thermactor and EGR systems work.

I believe it stems from the misconceptions that are still perpetuated today based off the EGR systems from the 70's. But hey...if folks want to reduce their mpg's and throttle response...who are we to stop them...right???
 

BuzzGun79

Nov.TOTM 2012 / 2012 TOTY
2,388
55
im no fan of smog equipment,but todays vehicles are way more advanced than those in the 70s.we had no computers in our cars & the smog equipment in most cases did not live up to its potential.removing it was no big deal.it was like removing a dead horse & in most cases i gained more by removing it than having it there without damaging anything.in todays vehicles its there for a reason & the vehicles computer calibrates & tunes to it removing it has to do something in a negative manner,you may not notice it.but hey its your vehicle.not mine.
 

TexasNomad

FTFS Designated DRINKER!
To locate noises, you can use a garden hose or some type of tubing. Hold it to your ear and move the other end around to each pulley. You may look ridiculous doing it, but you'll find the noise and won't get your head caught in the fan.

Ryan
That's a smooth idea boss man I"ll give it a shot this weekend..

If it is in fact a pulley, pull the belt off, and see/feel how the pulleys spin. If a bearing is going bad in one, you should feel a rough spot. You said when it gets wet, it goes away...first, that would incline me to believe it's the belt, but if it's not, start spraying down each pulley with WD-40/water/etc. until the sound goes away, and find which one it is by process of elimination.

As for bypassing the smog pump, people remove them all the time...so bypassing it should be no problem. I'm not sure what the belt routing is, so you may need a dumby pulley setup there...but I doubt it. Then the only issue is finding the correct length belt, figuring out how to re-route it, and reprogramming the rig to run without it.

The fuel smell...any cat converters remaining? Fuel injector o-rings leaking???
I've replaced all the ones you can replace and the others feel nice and smooth no play no nothing Its really frustrating i've replaced the belt and cleaned all the pulley areas that contact the belt with b12 and a rag to make damn sure it wasn't oil or some other scum, as for the leaking Not a single sign of a leak any where nothing is wet or even looks damp.
But after i turn off the engine on the left side of the engine I start smelling fuel vapors, and it seems to be getting worse and all the cats are still there its a bone stock Bronco.


hi guys
this is the way I dissolved the problem; I've machined a bracket and a shaft on ball bearings.


I've dismantled the smogpump, and the rollerbearings were both running in grease and dust..(bad constructed vanepunp)

best regards Ton
Nice to meet you Ton names Tex! and those are some mad skills you have there my fine Nederlander friend.

Removal of the smog pump will affect O2 sensor readings and cause a LEAN condition causing the premature failure of spark plugs. Don't kid yourselves into thinking that just arbitrarily removing part of a system that well integrated into the operation of the engine will have no effect on things. The loss of air injection to the exhaust at the heads affects the O2 sensor and the computer WILL compensate by leaning out the fuel mixture and advancing spark timing. But then if you like replacing spark plugs and don't mind superheating the cylinder walls with the increased spark advance, go for it. Just fix the smog pump. It ALWAYS astounds me that people simply refuse to believe that these components have an effect on the way the system functions. Yes, the computer will compensate for it but so you might not actually FEEL the difference but its doing damage... period. Do as you will. I'll keep the equipment intact and my EEC-IV running as it was designed to if only to extend the life of my engine.
Yeah all that sounds really painful and like a can of worms I dont wonna open right now, but will likely open in the near future.. haha.


Goodmorning y'all
The smog is the biggest crap I've ever seen on an engine in 35 years!!
The smog blows fresh air in the system two positions; under 2000revs just after the cat and above 2000revs straight on the exhaustvalves IN THE OPPOSITE WAY OF THE GASSTREAM!! How stupid can that be!! Because that cold ray of air blows exxentric on the valves, they will deform..
The cold air lowers also the exhaust gastemperature and moist in the muffler will shorten life of it. My truck is just 7 years in Holland.. One can see that all the bolts and nuts are undamaged, exept those of the exhaustpipe/headers... they are worn; I had to machine new ones. It tells me that the exhaustpipes are replaced a lot.

I've blinded off the EGR as well and MPG is improved, smoother run, more power and my engine remains clean. when I bought her, a thick layer of tar was in the inletmanifolds and the valves were damaged by all the tart what was sticking on the valves.
Let it be clear; an EGR is a gov. thing , only for the environment.
without the EGR, the O2 shall always cooperate with the EEC to reach the stochiometric value of 1:14,7 gas/air.
The inert gasses from the EGR lowers your combustionspeed (actually your timing retards) lowers the combustiontemp (powerloss) and because there's a natural law that say's " to keep a body on a certain speed, a certain amount of energy is needed to maintain on that speed". In other words, when the EGR is on duty, one shall push the acceleratorpedal deeper to keep speed. when I blinded it off, the first thing what I spotted, was the the pedal stood higher at same speed.
Now, they say that the EGR takes care for a lower NOx, okay? but when it messes your combustion, more fuel goes thru the engine and a lot of unburned will leave the tailpipe.
One must not forget, that the carmanufacturers and the oilcompany sleeping in oneand the same bed!! If your car can cope the environmental demands, it's okay and if the fuelconsumption rises, it's super to them!! All Gore happy, oilbosses happy, and as an extra bonus for the aftermarket sales, more work to do for carmechanics and more parts to sell.
Cars, oil and environment is pure politic games and we, as ordinary people are the"milkcows"of the governments.

This summer I've installed a woodburner in the house and 20cubic yard of wood behind the house is waiting to get burned this winter.... Environment? To leave a tree rotting away for years seems to make more CO2 than a quick burn in a burner... the Nuon(dutch natural gas company) shall not become rich over my back. but that was offtopic!!

best regards Ton
I agree with you Ton all this stuff on our engines is to make the tree lovers happy and rich schmucks richer And not to do a DAMN thing for power or millage, and they do run better when removed engines were meant to be simple!
It may run just fine... doesn't mean the system isn't screwing things up by trying to compensate for the stuff you arbitrarily removed. I never said it wouldn't run. YOU have absolutely NO IDEA how rich or lean it might be because you cannot control nor measure the ratio yourself. The ECM is doing that. And you will find out how bad it is in a few months when you pull fouled plugs out of it.

Ton,
Who said a word about cold air on hot valves? DO you have ANY idea how the Thermactor system works? Fresh air is introduced DOWNSTREAM of the exhaust valves. And just exactly how does the Exhaust Gas Recirculation system ruin your exhaust gasses? The EGR pulls some exhaust back through the intake again... if anything you are WARMING the intake air with it. The fresh air introduced to the exhaust is done so that the catalytic converter can reach the necessary operating temperature (which is HIGHER than combustion temps) to burn off excess crud.

Call me when you folks understand how these systems work because all I've read here is a bunch of backward pseudo-knowledge that completely contradicts the way the Thermactor and EGR systems work.
Do I know how to start a thread of what!
Streak I don't think I've met you before but its nice to meet you and it sounds like you know your stuff, I would love to rip all this worthless Emissions crap off this engine and We all know its worthless too, but the fact is IT was MADE to be on the engine and the engine cant run right with out it there It will be taken off in the near future but it will be done right after a engine swap IF I end up keeping her, But i'm not looking to dive in to some epic engine hack and slash job right now just wanted to know if I could safely get past with by passing it I have the money to buy a new pump just don't want to if I dont gotta.

My dad removed the smog pump on our 85 f150 and it still runs to this day I see her in Traffic every once in awhile, I wont try and sound like I have advance knowledge on how these things work and the dangers of removing them, what might last 20 years on one might last 5 miles on another maybe just luck or maybe our 85 ford was just that bad *** I dunno.
Thank you for all your reply's and this weekend I have some work to do on her I think I need to go barrow my brothers garden horse, mawhaha, Im seeing double so its time to watch some cartoons and hit the ol hay.
 

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