Consumer Alert VP44 Pump

[Bill Kondolay]

#ad
</img>



#ad
</img>



#ad
</img>



#ad
</img>



#ad
</img>

 

[JR2]

I am guessing that you have found the problem with your employees/son's truck...

 

[LSMITH]

Bill, I have never been in a VP44, can you explain what you are showing us? I get the point that it is bad, just don't know what is bad. Also, is the brown flat thing connecting the pieces a ribbon cable going to the solenoid? What is your diagnosis of the failure cause? Thanks, Howard.

 

[Shovelhead]

"Need More Input"

 

[Bill Kondolay]

First off let me just say this for the record. I am no expert on the

VP44 pump.



On Stefan's truck the truck was acting like it was low on power or had a bad miss. When it finally died we did a pressure test on the inlet of the VP44 pump and it had 0 psi pressure.



Diagnostic seemed quite simple , replace the lift pump.

So I replaced the lift pump, there now was 14 psi fuel pressure at the inlet at the VP44 pump.



The truck would fire up and then just die, hooked up the snap on scanner and diagnostic was to replace the VP44 pump.



Since according to the scanner I was going to have replace it anyways i decided to go with Diesel Dynamic's modified VP 44 pump.



Took the old pump off and decided to find out what the failure was since i could still turn the pump by hand.



A lot of the other pump failures that i had heard of you could not turn the pump by hand as they had ceased.



I was curious, when i removed the top cover plate i discovered one of the screws had completely fallen out and the other one was pretty loose.



If i had more knowledge or thought to call Lawrence before i took the old pump off i would have been able to fix it right in the vehicle, about a $6. oo fix and two hours of my time.



A lot of people complain about how rough their trucks run at certain rpms or lack of power and some even really bad fuel mileage and i wonder if our senario is related as Stefan had been complaing of the same things for some time, but you know the saying about a mechanics vehicle, never enough hours in the day to get to it.



The system of the VP 44 pump as i understand it from Lawrence works very similar to the crank trigger system used on race cars.



I am quite familiar with crank triggers, basically it is just a magnetic pickup that pulses the spark plug. It has to have a certain amount of gap between the pick up and the gear.



The VP 44 pump works in a similar fashion, my guess is the screws had been backing off for a while and i just didnt connect the symptoms.



A lot of us with bombed trucks are in a situation where we are our own warranty stations. I wonder how often this situation where the screws back out occurs.



You can actually inspect the screws without taking off the pump.

By removing the top cover plate and tilting the cover plate towards the engine , the cover plate screws are #25 torque bit, and there are 8 of them.



If you follow the wiring strap it leads to the magnetic pick up located just underneath cover plate. There are 2 screws holding the magnetic pickup, they are a # 10 torque bit.



I am not by any means suggesting that you guys take apart your pumps and look , i have absolutely no torque specifications and the most honest thing i can say is that this is what caused our problem.



I put these pictures up for Kat Diesel since he was having similar problems as Stefan was before the truck completely died.



I would just like to thank Lawrence at Diesel Dynamics for his expertise and diagnostic assistance and expediting me his new modified pump. I just wished i had called him before i took the old pump off. It was kind of like reading the directions after i built the project. (lol)



Just for the record , DTT did warranty the pump for Stefan simply because when i took his pump apart i made it go into little ity bity pieces and i could have stopped when i discovered the screws.



I think i will stick to transmissions as i have a good grasp on how to put back the little ity bity pieces.



Stefan's old pump is going back to Lawrence for assembly so a professional can properly do the job.

 

[HVAC]

Which Lift Pump Heh?

Which lift pump was it that went belly up?



Is it just a coincidence the lift pump was found to be dead simultaneously with the VP44?

 

[GDouglas]

Just out of curiosity, those loose bent screws would't happen to be the ones that hold the built in camshaft sensor inside the pump would they? If so then I can hook up my Fluke Scopemeter to the camshaft posistion sensor wire between the pump and ECM to study the signal quality. According the the factory manual, it is a VT/OR wire from pin 4 of the pump connector.



If a lot of our hesitations and misses are from loose camshaft sensor screws, then it looks like a lot of us may be able to do a low cost repair/inspection of our own pumps and avoid fighting the dealers.



Thanks for the pictures and info. It shure would be nice if this is most of our problems.

 

[KatDiesel]

I'm checking mine out this week, hopefully its this simple and resolves my problem. Sure would like to get my hands on that DD pump

 

[Cobra]

vp44 pump

Kat Diesel

I see you have a 2001. What problems are you having? Is yours a 2001 or 2001. 5?



Mine is 2001. 5. No real problems now, but I just had a new lift pump installed (warranty) truck only has 10k miles.

 

[Big_DQ]

Okay, now I'm wondering if those little blurps of power and intermitant misses some of us are having, that have been blamed on our fueling modules-boxes, could be these screws. I'm going to open mine in the AM just to check.

Don

 

[Koa Man]

Those 24 valve engines scare me.

 

[JR2]

They scare me too... . its scary how fast they make my truck move... hehehe





FYI,

You need a fancy torx head bit with only five blades (not the normal 6) to get into the top of the pump.

 

[Diese1nut]

Hopefull

I have two questions.

1. Did the new pump cure your problem or did it just get your truck running again.

2. If I pull the pump cover will I need any gaskets or "O" rings for inspection.

I hope this is the answer for many of us.

I would have pulled the cover but didn't want to get stuck on a Sunday.

 

[MikeR]

If I pull the pump cover will I need any gaskets or "O" rings for inspection. didn't want to get stuck on a Sunday.

No you don't, but just so you know, no replacment parts are sold for the VP44 pump anyway.

 

[John]

Originally posted by JR2

FYI, you need a fancy torx head bit with only five blades (not the normal 6) to get into the top of the pump.

That's not true JR2. A call to Piers and my own subsequent visual verification found that the cover screws are #25 Torx (not 5-sided and/or security Torx fasteners... just standard #25 Torx)... Piers checked one of his newer VP44s and I checked my '98. 5 VP44.

 

[Ramafid]

Has anyone tried to check if the screws are loose? If so has the engine miss gone away after they were tightened? It looks like you have to pull out the magnetic pick-up from the pump. Is this true ? Does it have to go back in the exact position that it was taken out ? I want to take a look and see but don't want to end up with a dead pump.

 

[JR2]

Well I stand corrected... . all I know is that on several posts about ********* replacment cover for the VP44 it is mentioned that you need to buy the weird torx head for them. Its nice to know that it is just a regular torx, now if I really want to get in trouble I can open the lid and snoop around.

 

[John]

Hey JR2, that's the exact reason I asked Piers about this. Also, I thought it funny that I had a #25 security Torx bit..... that has 6 points. After Piers checked into this for me I verified this for myself.



Piers also stated that the 5 point security Torx screws in question are used on the P7100 pump.



clear as mud?

 

[Hammer]

Question Here?????

Bill,,In your post you tell of these magnetic pickups,can you relate to us what Lawerence said they controlled???,,Is this a pickup that only controls engine and pump timing or does it also control the injectors firing order??,,Reason I ask is this,Diesel Dale has had at least 3 trucks with the same symptoms(all different years),and if this is the case depending on what this trigger controls it would only seem obvious to create a better trigger system(simular to what we use on our drag cars) would you agree??,,There are way too many guys with these electronically controlled computer scooters having these problems to blame the aftermarket boxes(somehow I kinda figured that there was alot more here than met the eye) and this may be a major issue,,I'll say I am out in the dark on this a little due to mine being a 12 valver,but,with me looking for another ride I'd like to keep tabs on this... .....

 

[Diese1nut]

Screws

Well I just pulled the pump cover to check the screws. One screw tightened mabey 1/8 of a turn. Didn't want to go crazy with out knowing torque specs.

Truck still runs the same. Skip skip skip.

Oh well worth a shot.