Exhaust Brake Not Functioning
Hi Everyone,
I'm working on a 2011 Ram 2500 with the 6.7L diesel engine, and customer complaint is that the exhaust brake doesn't work, I couldn't find much troubleshooting info on it, the ecm is showing that the exhaust brake switch is turned on so I figured everything is good from the switch to the ecm, and I also did a visual inspection on the wiring and that looks good, was wondering if someone could help me out? Thanks!
Codes? Just replaced a turbo on a '14 because VGT vanes would not move. Controller (mounted to turbo) could be bad as well. You would have codes pertaining to such.
Thanks for the reply! And no I don't have any codes. What is the best way to check if the vanes are moving?
You could pull the actuator off the side of the turbo and see if mechanism moves. The issue with doing that on the '14 we had was there is very little clearance to access the lower bolt that would need to be removed with the actuator, and it was way too corroded to get it out.
Is the vehicle modified? Emissions parts deleted? Check for disabled OBDII monitors that should be enabled. If it has non stock programming then I recommend return to stock before trying to diagnose anything.
I've found more commonly than not, a turbocharger actuator failure will result in exhaust brake faults in the infancy of the failure. That being said, as mentioned some tuning revisions disabled the exhaust brake, and some C&C trucks had factory configuration options to turn it on and off! I'd look for other charger codes and inquire about other charger related symptoms.
Drive the truck and watch command vs actual VGT position on your scanner. This may give you some indication as to whether the veins/actuator are having issues and whether it is a command issue or not.
Thank you all for your replies! Yes it does look like the truck has the emissions components deleted. And I did watch the VGT position and they seem to be sync with each other. Is there a way to check if the non stock program has disabled the exhaust brake?
There may or may not be tuners that could tell you. Easiest to do is to return to stock calibration and then see how it works. Be aware, sometimes the PCM is locked by the tuner and you can't easily flash it back to stock-if so it would need a new PCM or someone who can possibly do board level chip flashing. Is this a newly purchased vehicle for the motorist-most likely from out of state? If so…
Non-oe tuner added.....your are wasting your time....if you reinstall the original program then all the deleted items will need to be installed....and as the laws are getting tougher on diesel deletes the customer will probably need to reinstall sooner or later anyway.
I know that you could actually enable and disable the exhaust brake with Witech in the ECM. However with it being tuned and deleted it needs to go back to the tuner to make sure everything is good on his end. Or if you have Witech you could enable it yourself. Otherwise I would not waste your time. If the ECM is receiving the switch input an the VGT vanes work then the only thing it can be is in…
Hey Joe did you get this sorted out? If not I can help
Hey Tyler, Well not sure yet, I opened up the actuator and it looked like it could be bad and smelled like a burned circuit board, so I order a new actuator for it, but I'm not sure if that is going to fix it or not, I'm not getting any reading from the exhaust manifold back pressure sensor either, not sure if that really matters or not, maybe you can tell me?
For sure what's the best #