Guys never worked on a 4.2L V6 before, I have a family friends truck with the P0401 error. Yanked the EGR valve and found it jammed up with carbon.

Took some cleaner and some gun cleaning tools and got the valve free and moving correctly. Ran the truck with the main hose off and I get the usual stumble on idle. Vacuum pump moves the valve correctly. Still errors out on three restarts, but mane does it idle better.

So on the 4.2 there are what looks like two sensors on tip of the egr valve. a rectangular box with double pis that slides into a larger round housing. Took them off cleaned the contacts. Checked all the hoses for leaks.

So is the rectangular box on top of the EGR valve the DPFE on these trucks. It looks nothing like the one on the ford parts website and the connectors are different as well.


This is not what I have on top of the EFR valve. Mine is long more rectangular and it has pins that stick out when I remove them.

 

The late models have a unitized assembly - EGR valve, vacuum solenoid, and DPFE. If the valve was that crapped up I'd replace the whole assembly, it's just over $100 for aftermarket from rockauto.com.

 

That's what I thought I might have to do, is there a reason that ford still sells a DPFE for the v6 though the parts department then. I have not trouble fabbing it up as its only ~36 through the local dealership instead of almost 200$.