Chrysler Repair: 1999 Chrysler Town and country burning too much gass, chrysler town and country, 10k ohms

Question
Hey Kevin,

I have one of those '99 town and country which has been blowing black smoke when attempting to start. i changed the map sensor (because of dtc code reccomendations) and it ran better for a short while... A friend told me it is a computer problem. I've recently replaced the fuel pump and cannot think of what else would cause this problem.

any ideas? Also my temp gauge also drops to zero then back to the half mark eratically. Don't know if this helps.

Thanks!

Yuri.

Answer
Hi Yuri,
I wonder if it might be the temp sensor or its wires to the pcm? You didn't mention the engine so I can't be specific about the wiring, but the sensor is located next to the thermostat housing on most of the several engine that are possibly in the van. The resistance across the terminals of the sensor should be in the range of 7-10k ohms when the engine is cold. If it reads higher then that would cause the engine to call for more than needed fuel in the starting up mixture.
Another possibility is that one of the 6 injectors is leaking a bit of fuel so that it puddles in the cylinder until you go to start it so there would be too rich a mixture (black smoke) when first starting. You could check the spark plugs when the engine is cold to see whether any one of them may seem wet, and after removing all of them you could watch when a helper cranks the engine for the first time after a cooldown to see if you spot any fluid squirt of a spark plug hole.
Roland