Hi everyone, I really need some help with an issue I created on my 2002 Yukon with a 5.3L engine. Not sure what I did! Last week, I removed the shroud and air box to air intake tube with the MAF sensor to change my belt. Problem is that It started snowing, so I covered the air intake and put the air tube behind the truck. Upon finishing the job, I put the air tube back on, but I had not noticed that a pack of snow had somehow found it's way in and only noticed after reconnecting the tube with the air intake. So I took the tube off and cleaned what I could but a small portion of it melted, leaving little specs of water. Thinking that it would not do too much harm (almost like condensation), it may impede my tuck at first but would be fine after. Put everything back together, well almost everything.... I drove the truck right after, and approx 10 miles later, the engine light flashes like mad and the truck started sputtering like crazy, it was so bad I could no longer accelerate and the engine was backfiring like crazy. During the ride back home, it would start working normally again and then die about 25% of the time.

I didn't think a bit of moisture in the air intake would of messed it this badly so went under the hood and noticed that my stupid self had left the MAF sensor unhooked. So I plugged it back in, and the engine was still all messed up. Thinking that maybe the ECU/PCM was still trying to run the truck believing there was an issue with the MAF, I decided to unplug the battery for 5 hours to reset everything.

Well, after this little trick everything worked fine, for a week... Now today, getting back home from work, the truck started going nuts again, sputtering, backfiring and engine light flashing. The problem now is that it doesn't go away until i turn the truck off. Restarting permits the truck to work perfectly for 2 min, and then suddenly dies again.

So, any ideas what's causing this? Would a little bit of water droplets mess up my IAC, MAF or TPS sensors? I can't see it being anything but a sensor because the truck CAN run fine if i reset everything or restart.

Thanks.

 

Considering that water got into the air intake and you got most of it out before you hooked everything back up, I'd think that maybe the MAF got some water in it and it's giving incorrect readings...just a guess...

 

Ok, and the odd part is that it's been over a week and 35 miles ago. You'd think water would of evaporated by that time. Guess I'll take things apart, look at the sensors and see what's up.

 

Maybe try cleaning the MAF first with electrical contact cleaner, maybe some junk got on the "hot" wire when it was removed...

 

If you have a code scanner look up the codes. If not autozone will read the codes for free.