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164 lines
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164 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 2199
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Title: HPR2199: Replacing the Throttle Position Sensor on My Truck
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2199/hpr2199.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-18 15:39:32
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---
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This is HPR episode 2199 entitled replacing the throttle position sensor on my truck.
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It is hosted by John Culp and in about 19 minutes long and carrying a clean flag.
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The summary is soundseeking episode, listen and replace the throttle position sensor on my truck.
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This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honesthost.com.
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Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
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That's HPR15.
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Better web hosting that's honest and fair at an honesthost.com.
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Hey everybody, this is John Culp in Lafayette, Louisiana.
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It has been a long time since I've recorded one of these things and it's good to be back.
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I've been awfully busy with work.
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That's why I haven't recorded one in a while.
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I've got ideas for a couple to do during the holiday season here.
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The semester at school is over and the high guys, these two cats, I'm out in my car
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port right now.
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There's two feral cats that we take care of.
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We just about two weeks ago trapped them both and took them to the spay neuter clinic and
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got them fixed and got them neutered and got their shots.
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So I feel a lot better about feeding them every day now that I know that they're not
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going to be out there breeding other little kiddies.
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I wish we could catch their mama.
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That's the one who she is way too smart and wildly.
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She never gets caught in a trap anyhow.
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So today what I'm doing is another of the sound seeing things.
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I'm sitting in my truck right now and what I want to do is take a picture of the check
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engine light here and turn it on.
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The check engine light came on in my truck about a week ago maybe.
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I first noticed it three or four days ago anyway here let me get my camera app and I see
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it.
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There it is.
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Yep, okay.
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So the check engine light is on right now and I know what's wrong with it because I have
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a little on-board diagnostic tool.
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They've got these crazy things now.
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I remember the last time the light came on I drove the truck over to AutoZone where they
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hooked up a tool to the truck and then took it inside and uploaded it to their computer
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to tell them what part I would need to buy and they said it was the throttle position sensor.
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Well a buddy of mine at that time I think I talked about this on a previous HPR episode
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when I first got my truck but a buddy of mine who is really good at cars said before
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you go and buy a new throttle position sensor you should try just cleaning the current
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one using some spray on electrical contact cleaner and so I did that and put it back
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together, turned the truck back on and voila it was fixed.
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Now we are 15, 18 months later and the same issue has come up and this time cleaning
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it did not do the trick.
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I know that it's the throttle position sensor because now I have my own on-board diagnostic
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tool.
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I've got this very small little device about the size of a pack of gum.
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We plug it into the place where you put the on-board diagnostics and this one is a Wi-Fi
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device.
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Some of them are both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
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This one is only Wi-Fi so right now I've just connected my phone to the Wi-Fi signal that's
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given out by this device and I'm going to have some screenshots in the show notes but
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I'll probably put them on a flicker slide show.
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I've connected my phone to the wireless network that is generated by this little V-Peak
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OBD2 compatible diagnostic tool thingy and now I'm going to open up an app on the phone
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called Torque.
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Torque is an Injig Diagnostic app that kind of gets into one of these on-board diagnostic
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tools and will check all kinds of stuff.
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I don't really know how to use everything that it will do but like right now it's showing
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me the revolutions per minute that my truck is doing in idle and I'm going to tap where
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it says fault codes and then I can say tap here to scan for fault codes and so it's scanning
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my engine and it has a little percentage indicator up across the top and it says fault log
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manager scanning 40% done and it currently says power train and once it's done it'll
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give me a detailed listing 77% now we've done it just a sec.
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Okay yep it says P1120 power train throttle position sensor out of range and I don't
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remember whether I had to tell it what kind of vehicle I had so that it would know what
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to tell me about this fault code or whether it checked my vehicle identification number
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and figured out what kind of vehicle I had from that but anyway I'm going to long press
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on that and now it says close yeah it just says close it seems like there's a way for
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me to clear the fault codes as well right if I click back on fault codes and clear fault
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codes okay sending the clear command I'm not sure is it doing it on my car or oh yeah
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yeah so and now the check engine light is off on my truck but what I wonder is whether
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like when I turn this off and then back on let's see turn it back on you know what and
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now the the check engine light is is off but the funny thing is I bought a new throttle position
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sensor and so you know I think I might go ahead and install it anyway since that was what
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I intended to do here it's probably about time it fits if that throttle position sensor
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problem has come up twice since I bought the truck I think it's probably time to put the
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new one in so I'm going to release the hood high kitty cats they're hanging around here
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watching me so that their food bowl is right by where I park my truck and they won't
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come here and eat it as long as I'm here they won't let me touch them or anything like
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that you guys could come eat you know I'm not going to hurt you I'm feeding you okay I'm
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going to take a position of the throttle position a picture of the throttle position sensor now
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it might not come out very well because there's not a lot of light down here but here is a
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picture of it on the vehicle whoops focus okay and now I need to take it off of there first
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I'm going to plug it from the little thing okay I've unplugged the little connector and that
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was what I did before to spray the contact cleaner in there it's held on to the engine by two
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Phillips head screws I have no idea how tight these are somehow I suspect that they're going to
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be pretty tight so hopefully it's not going to be too hard for me to undo them
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pushing really hard turning
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boy that's tight I'm able to strip this right out of there from that careful
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man that is really really tight let's try the other one
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hmm that sure looks like all you should have to do is take those screws out but my goodness those
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are tight I'm a little bit scared to try and do this I wonder if I should try it with my drill on
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a low setting I'm going to go get my drill
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I'm still trying to get the old one off
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okay I've got it on reverse hi guys there go the cats again and do run around the corner okay so
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this thing is a lot stronger than I am so what I'm going to do is stick it in there and push really
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hard against it and then hit the um
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got it yes
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oh
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oh boy that thing is really in there good I wonder if it was stuck in there with some kind of
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um it looks like it was kind of stripped or something I should take a picture of that to show
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no wonder it was hard to get out I hope it's going to stay good enough Nick when I put it back in
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I wonder if it had some kind of thread lock on it okay there's one bolt I was trying to get the
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other one out
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okay I got the part out
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now I'm not sure how to tell a bad throttle position sensor from a good one but I've got a new one
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here that I ordered on Amazon
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genuine motorcraft part here for the Ford vehicle this is a Ford Ranger pickup truck 2004
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okay I'll take a picture of the old one next to the new one
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okay
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hold one on the right new one on the left now let's put the new one on
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this I just stick the thing on here every time I walk over here those cats oh my gosh here he comes
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again those goofballs you guys are goofballs
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you
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see here there a trick to getting you one there but just pushed really hard
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you can go look at this one yeah that looks about right
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you
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it's got the first bolt started there
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hmm
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get to see where that was going
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oh who was that just fell off the
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oh yeah
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I drilled that fell off the back of my drill they've got a little slot on the back of the drill
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to hold a spare bit or something and the one that was being held there just fell off
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that's all right
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okay tell us that's cool the hole or not
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oh I guess let's see
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looks like that's going in there
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oh
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man y'all I totally love the cordless drills like one of the most useful tools you could ever have
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love love love this thing it is so much stronger than I am it was able to allow me to get this thing
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off of here I'm going to go okay looks like that is in I know plug in the connector
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oops I have to finger out there
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seems like out of here a little click into place there go on
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did you click into place look like it
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mm well I'll see how that did I'm going to start up the engine
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and hopefully check engine light will still be off here
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yeah everything looks good well I think I might be it then see I'm not sure exactly what
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kinds of things the throttle position does for you throttle position sensor I guess it helps
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regulate how like idle speed and stuff like that but anyway hopefully the truck will run better
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now with this brand new part in there and once again I was able to get the trouble some
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check engine light to disappear without taking the truck into the shop for this I am very grateful
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and it makes me feel like a real hacker all right turning the truck off for too long sometimes
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during the break I'll probably do another episode about the truck having to do with a recent
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series of upgrades I did to the lights I've upgraded a bunch of the light bulbs in the front
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and tail lights from halogen to led and I'll I'll do an episode that talks about that all right
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so thanks for listening and this has been John Colp for Hacker Public Radio talk to you guys
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later bye
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you've been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio dot org we are a community
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podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday today's show like all our
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shows was contributed by an HBR listener like yourself if you ever thought of recording a podcast
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and click on our contribute link to find out how easy it really is Hacker Public Radio was
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founded by the digital dog pound and the infonomican computer club and is part of the binary revolution
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at binwreff.com if you have comments on today's show please email the host directly leave a comment
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on the website or record a follow up episode yourself unless otherwise stated today's show is
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released on the creative comments attribution share a light 3.0 license
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