Wanted to add one other symptom that my PM has been exhibiting all summer, but that I'd forgotten about until it did it again this morning.
We usually boondock: camp out on public land, no hookups, no neighbors, no noise. That often means following some derelict doubletrack through the woods or the cactus until we feel that we're far enough from the noise of a road to sleep soundly. We do this ~3 weekends a month.
Sometimes these tracks are steep, or at least briefly get steep. I'm emphatically not interested in rock crawling or worrying about dragging anything in the undercarriage on the ground -- so if the road gets rough like that I backtrack. But sometimes, like last night, the track is steep enough that 1st gear is required. We creep slowly up, taking our time, never spinning the tires, easing our way to a level, quiet spot with a view.
Once there we'll park, shut down the engine, and then proceed to make dinner and get ready for bed.
Why belabor this point?
Because it is *always* this scenario -- a steep creeper of a hill -- that has me waking the next morning to a CEL. Always, 100% of the time.
The symptom I referred to above happens when we're creeping back down that hill the next morning. I'll be in 1st gear, (shift lever in M mode, manually selected 1st gear) idling my way down, using the engine compression to do as much of the braking as possible, only touching the brake pedal when there's a big dip, or hole, or ledge (or similar) approaching that I don't want to hit with too much speed. And sometimes the clutch will simply 'let go' -- effectively going into neutral -- and the engine is no longer doing any of the braking, while the van rapidly accelerates. Feels like free falling when the clutch lets go. My foot is hovering over the brake pedal so we never gain appreciable speed before I catch it and slow it back down. But that's not the point -- the point is that the clutch is letting go to begin with.
Am I wrong to expect the clutch to 'hold' us as we creep down hills like this?
Taking the van in to have them drop the trans in the AM, so that they can inspect the clutch. Just want an idea of how much emphasis I should place on this 'symptom'.
Thanks for your opinions and collective wisdom.