The other day I was replacing the valve cover gaskets on my trooper and found that the air intake hose was completely dry-rotted and is no longer good (its in several pieces!). There is a vacuum resevoir attached to this hose and I honestly have no idea what it does?
Can anyone tell me what the function of this resevoir is and is it a necessity to have? I havn’t seen these on my other cars and I can’t find the OEM replacement part anywhere. Can I just run a piece of universal hose from the air filter box to the throttle body? what are the risks of doing this? Also, If i replace the entire system with say, a cold air intake, will there even be a need for concern with the vacuum resevoir since the kit would likely come with a new hose?
thanks so much for your time and advice-I REALLY appreciate it!
Are you sure it’s a vacuum reservoir?? Sounds like an intake muffler, a resonant chamber that silences intake noise…
That’s sorta where I’m leaning toward with the description.
In any event, if you find any rotted or detached vacuum lines …ANYWHERE …repair them. If they’re truly attached to a vacuum source, you’re sucking unfiltered air into the engine. You’re sand blasting the internals with airborne abrasives. Even the grommets on the valve cover and other related hardware can allow material intrusion. Depending on where the break is, it can bypass the throttle body and go directly into the crankcase in big enough chunks to score bearings. Not that it will destroy the engine in any catastrophic manner, but will RADICALLY increase the wear rate.
Your air filter and intake system integrity is the most important filter there is on an engine.
If you use a K&N, don’t over clean it. It can maintain silicon intrusion to a decent level for so many cleanings. Then the gauze wears out. Don’t over oil it either.
If you use a K&N, don’t over clean it. It can maintain silicon intrusion to a decent level for so many cleanings. Then the gauze wears out. Don’t over oil it either.
Better yet remove it and put a paper filter back on.
Thankyou very much for your advice–I am starting to thik that it is nothing more than some sort of muffler—I took it in to my auto zone and he called it a resevoir so thats what I thought it was (I’m learning so much with this project!) Anywyas, I went to a local junkyard and found a shit ton of troopers in it (hopefully its not a bad sign) but there were so many parts and one of them even had a hose, but it didnt have this muffler thing on it, but I got it for $5 and its in great shape and I also got a couple other vacuum hoses and a new filter from one of them and just redid everything today to be sure and you would be amazed at how much better the truck runs!
thanks again to everyone’s advice
I once owned a Mazda 626 that had something like that in the intake line. I came across a parts diagram that called in an ‘oil trap’ or something like that. All I know about it is that the car didn’t run well when the previous owner’s duct tape repair job died of old age, that rebuilding it to be airtight made the car run better, and that there didn’t seem to be any oil trapped in it.