May Day!!!

[JFerg65]

Haven't posted iquite some time because the Burb has been running like a champ, just turning 201,000 miles.....until today. I'm over a 100 miles from home and the thing wouldn't start when I got in to head for home. No worries I thought. Acted like a gasser not getting spark. So I pull out the spare pm'd and no joy. Then I grab the new ops I've been carrying around with the socket. Well socket doesn't fit. Catch a ride to the hardware get a wrench and then to a guy that has a torch. Bend her at a 90 and I'm off to the races... Fingers crossed and no joy!!! I even changed e fuel filter. And still no start. Luckily I have a place to lie my head for the night but I need to get this resolved. Truck has 201,0000 on her and I think this is the 2 injector pump. The lift pump is also running by feel as well as pumping out the t-fitting.

Any suggestion??.....

Can or will a pump just die like that without symptoms?
I'm currently in northwest Ohio in port Clinton if anybody happens to know a 6.5 turbo guru. At this point I' m calling on some people I know to come drag my ass home. I would rather trouble shoot in my own driveway!!!!

Any help would be appreciated

[sctrailrider]

Are you sure you are getting fuel to the injectors?? Next thing I would think is a bad PMD ......

[john8662]

Check the fuses.

Got a set inside the cab on the side of the dash (open the door to see the panel), then there is another fuse center just underneath the hood on the driver's side of the truck too. Check 'em out.

J

[JFerg65]

Thanks for the quick replies. I swapped out the pmd with known good spare and no dice. I'll check the fuses in the a.m. Cellular service is spotty here. I'll see if anyone else has any ideas by morning. I will crack an injector to see if I'm getting fuel as well.

Some other info. No service lights on dash, glow plugs seem to be cycling as normal. I've disconected the battery to try to reset things in between changes as well.

[greatwhite]

Running fine and then dead after a shutdown would be an odd failure mode for an IP.

Fuses are a good suggestion, I would look at the fuel shut off solenoid on the IP next.

Mine failed on me out of the blue. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 bucks.

It shuts the fuel off right at the IP so it can be a bear to trouble shoot if you're not thinking about it with a "no fuel to the injectors" problem.

See if it "clicks" when you turn the key on. If it doesn't, you can thread it out and remove the pintle on the end of the solenoidto get fuel flowing again.

Don't turn the key on with the solenoid out of the IP or the lift pump will douse the entire front of the engine in fuel. I suppose you could pull the LP fuse and then do a key on to see if the shutoff solenoid retracts.

Pulling the pintle seat off and threading the shutoff solenoid back in can "get you home", but it should be replaced with a new unit ASAP. The shutoff solenoid is the postive shutoff for a runaway. The PCM shutting the PMD down should stop it on an electronic truck, but if the fuel solenoid delivery valve fails open, there's no way to shut it down. Well, another way would be jamming a piece of flat plywood over the turbo intake to choke the air off and the engine would die out, but most people tend to head for the hills when thier diesel runs away. Sticking your hands in there to rip off the intake boot and block off the turbo is the last thing on thier mind when the engine rpm tries to leap to high heaven all at once.

Of course, this is all assuming your shutoff solenoid is the problem.

But since you've already ruled out the PMD, it sure seems to me that the Shutoff solenoid is the next most likey culprit from your description....

[JFerg65]

Finally got back to the truck this am with a battery charger in hand to revitalize the cranked out batteries from yesterday. I eventually called it a day and headed back home (100 miles) with another vehicle. Got a friend who is delivering a load to new york but once back we will take his goose neck and go retrieve the burb so I can work on it in my driveway. I will update with a final diagnosis once she is on the road again.

[JFerg65]

WOW.......all I can say is keep it simple stupid!! I am embarrassed to say I broke the cardinal rule when trouble shooting our motors. I finally got back in town after having to leave right away after dragging it back home.

I double checked grounds and then pulled the shut off solenoid. and put power to it. No issues there and I had good power to it via the harness and had a good click when the key was turned on.

I cleaned up a slight bit of corrosion in one of the mounting holes in the remotely mounted PMD.

I double checked fuel out put via lift pump and I got my pint of fuel in less than 20 seconds.

I pulled the fuel cap and had quite the vacuum pull as I opened the tank. Left it loose afterward.

I then cracked the front injector and nothing. I then loosened all four and tried again putting the accelerator to the floor for ten seconds. This time I began to see some fuel. I put the glow plug fuse back in and turned her over. She started to fire and I got her going.

At this point I was feeling pretty good about the whole deal but only could see two things that it might have been, faulty fuel cap or air locked IP with a bigger culprit to trace.

I drove it to the corner and got my self a six pack to have a celebratory beer. Got home had my beer and went back out to start it and NO START!!

Cracked the injectors and no go. At this point I'm now thinking my pump has gone south for good since I couldn't get fuel to the the injectors. You are all saying PMD stupid....but it isn't I swapped it with a known good spare.

At this point I have just had it and am sitting staring at the motor. I'm now just going through my head one last time trying to piece this together and end up looking right at the PMD extension cable connector at the IP. I say to my self it couldn't be that... it looks like new still with dielectric on the outside of it. Get ready......

****I climb in pull it apart and corrosion city on three or four of the pins!!! I'm so ticked at myself but now all the pieces start to make sense. I clean it up put it back to together and with my fingers crossed turn her over with injectors open and get lots of fuel. Button those up and she fires right away. I waited a few hours and she started right back up for a second time.

I started her up just now after sitting all night and she fired right off. The glow pugs did not cycle but she fired right up. At this point I'm pretty certain it was corrosion on that connector all along. It makes sense as well symptom wise acting like a PMD going bad. If it's not working no fuel to pump as well.

Hopefully this is the fix and in the mean time I'm now really mad at myself for missing that simple issue. This would have been a ten minute fix 100 miles from home, but I went into panic mode worse case scenario trouble shooting, replacing parts on hand and skipped right over the very basic mantra I've been taught here.. grounds and connectors first!!!

I'm off to get a new set of injectors (these are original as far as I can tell) and install the new glow plugs i have on the shelf for awhile. I will keep you posted if my connector prognosis was the real culprit as time goes by here.

As usual thanks for the assistance. All I can say is that I was a real dumb ass on this one....But I did get it resolved. Just glad I did it myself and didn't take it to a shop and pay hundreds to to find that corroded connector. I'm pretty certain I would have left with a new IP to boot!!

[greatwhite]

Good to hear.

I had a recent similar problem.

I lost cruise control and started getting fuel too short responses.

I'm thinking PMD, but it's a 1 year old heath unit.

So, I start sniffing around. Pull the PMD connector; looks good. So do the PMD pins.

Well, I don't know why but I pulled the resistor out to have a look underneath. Maybe because I couldn't believe these symptoms weren't a pmd problem.

The pins look clean all the way to the PMD case. But then I turn the resistor over and sure enough, there a big green blob of corrosion bridging the resistor contacts on the board!

Grumble grumble grumble.........

I clean the PCB off and reinstall the resistor.

Problems gone!

I have no idea how corrosion got in that one spot, maybe a touch of left over flux or something else equally unusual.

That could have been one heck of a long and expensive chase if I hadn't thought to pull the resistor.

Corrosion, gotta love it........:rolleyes:

[JFerg65]

Well... I spoke too soon. Problem not solved but it has to do with the same connector. I just hopped in to go do some tree work and no start!!!! Pulled the fitting apart and cleaned it off again. This time I see the fitting on the injector side is more or less falling apart and one of the middle pins looks like it arced. That female pin is gone/toast.

Since I've never seen my pump up close, how does that short harness hook to the IP? Does it come right out of it resulting in this short pigtail with the female end I currently have or does it have fittings at both ends?

Will this still work if I can get another end fitting and cut out the bad one and splice in a new one using butt connectors with heat shrink?

I hope I didn't fry something in the process here.

[greatwhite]

The lower intake manifold pretty much has to come off to replace it.

Two wires go into the Fuel solenoid in the center of the rotor and it's two eylets at the solenoid with small nuts:

http://www.dieselperformance.com/productImage/large/Fuel_Pump-_Stanadyne_DS4_lrg.jpg

You might be able to fool your fingers up under there, but that looks like a nightmare to me.

I can get a picture after work if you want. I've got a new one on the shelf and also an IP on the shelf with the harness installed.

I wouldn't use but connectors on a IP harness. It may work, but probably not for long before it corroded again. And but connectors are very poor connections in the greater scheme of things. Not what you want in this kind of circuit....

[JFerg65]

I have one on it's way. Thanks for the picture. Hopefully at the end of the day, I'll start tearing into it. Never a dull moment when things go awry!

[JFerg65]

Well finally got the truck back on the road. It apparently was the corroded harness coming off the IP. That literally was a five minute fix once the intake was off. It took a bit of wiggling to get my fingers down into injector lines to install the new harness.

Since I had every thing off the top of the motor with the valley exposed, I decided to do a bunch of small upgrades while it was down.

- I purchased the OPS extension hose to locate to a more accessible location.
- I removed the fuel filter assembly and installed my new RACOR 490 with a 2 micron filter. I had this on the shelf for some time just waiting for the day when I was tearing into something else. I mounted it in the front of the engine compartment off of a bracket that bolts to the compressor assembly.
I have a spare filter and am in the process of picking up the vacuum gauge to monitor the filter.
-Since I had to install a couple of new fuel lines, I made them up out of braided stainless with black AN type fittings.
- I installed a new glow plug controller I had on the shelf while I was in there as well.

At that point I decided to bite the bullet and install new glow plugs and injectors. They all appeared to be original. The worst part of that job was installing the little clips on the two return line plugs on either side.

Bleeding it was a piece of cake and she fired right over. My truck always took about a five count to fire over. I don't even get to 2 now. The motor sounds quite bit different now. I'm sure I will see somewhat improved performance on the highway.

Thanks again for the help.

[greatwhite]

Good stuff!

:)