Hi, Thanks, and of course... Questions!!

[rmarriner]

Hi All!

Well after months of lurking I finally decided to get my uh ... stuff together and get a membership. I just wanted to say hi and thanks to everybody for all the info. You guys are fantastic, hopefully I can give back a little after learning so much from you guys (although I seem to have been born with 11 thumbs making me just about useless when it comes to doing stuff with my hands). Thanks again!!

And now the questions...

Hopefully I figured out how to work the profiles and signature stuff and a profile of my truck will appear at the bottom. Anyway, I have removed the muffler from the stock exhaust and added a 12cm turbo housing. Now from posts I've read, I was expecting a decent kick in the pants in terms of performance. I realize I have a large set of tires and 3. 54s on a 6000lb truck which don't exactly equal performance but I ran third of three trucks at a mudbog, getting spanked by a gasser ford with street tires (no cracks about the driving now. . .

I assumed that my problem was lack of fuel, so I turned the smoke screw in 3 turns and went to adjust the full fuel screw only to discover that it was already turned in right to the collar.



In a nutshell, even with the smoke 3 turns in and the full fuel screw against the lock collar, I have absolutely no smoke with the 12cm housing or even when I had the 21cm housing. I'm thinking it could be 2 things - my injector pump is tired, or the injector's are too small (on dodgeram.org I read that turning up the pump won't help some trucks of my vintage because of little weenie injectors)?

Does anyone else have ideas as too what the problem could be? Am I expecting too much?

I'm very sorry about the super long post.



Ray

There's just something about school bus aerodynamics that says "Brute force and ignorance"

 

[rmarriner]

Woohoo, my first reply... Oh it's from me. .

I read my post and realized I'd left out some important info. Unloaded I can hit about 18 lbs of boost and my max EGT pre-turbo is a hair over 1000F. My max top speed is 65 to 70 MPH.



Ray

Still lovin' the school bus

 

[RDusch]

Ray,

one thing you can check, pull of the top of your diaphragm where the smoke screw is, and take a small screwdriver and push on the little fuel pin down in there and make sure its not stuck in and not letting the pump feed,



you can also remove that collar with a dremel, count turn on the way out, replace the fuel screw and got 1 to 1 1/2 extra turns

with the PODs a half extra will probably due.



The tires and gearing wont hurt a bit, in fact when you start making some power the 3:54s will actually help and the big tires will just lay a wider strip of rubber in front of the gassers.



Rick D



just noticed the stock exhaust the 4" will definetly make a diferance and drop that EGT, then you add more fuel to bring it back up again , it's hard to get more air in there hen you can't get it back out.

 

[nascar mark]

Welcome aboard,



Possible frozen pump pin. If frozen adjustments don't mean swaqt until unfreezing. Pin is located under diapham and starwheel. It runs horizontal from middle of pump to ride on the concentric pin that is attached to the diaphram.



You don't need a injector puller. Vise grips and small pry bar works fine. Takes less than 1 hour.



mark

 

[rmarriner]

Wow, I should have subscribed a long time ago. .

Thanks for the replies, I probably won't get to try anything out until the weekend, but I'll let you know how it goes.



Ray

Go go school bus

 

[BushWakr - RIP]

Yup, I'd go with marks thoughts on this one. That little pin is a bit notorious for sticking. Caution here,,, if you find that to be the case, and you get it un-stuck, AND you put in those nozzles... ... you might wan to hang on

You will likely see alot more get up and go, not to mention EGT's...

I found a link for you to get a look at the basic (very basic) internal layout of the AFC,Starwheel, fueling cone, fuel pin etc. that I drew some time back...

BTW, you didn't indicate if you are running an auto or a stick transmission.





http://216.235.147.117/forums/showthread.php?threadid=22290



good luck with the mods... . and watch your EGT's





Bob.

 

[rmarriner]

Well, it looks as though the pin may be the problem, but I've now discovered (or created) a whole new problem. I of course couldn't wait until the weekend to start playing so I pulled the top off the AFC last night. After pulling the diaphragm up I noticed the pin did appear stuck so I hit it with some WD and poked at it with a screw driver. It went farther in but didn't want to come back out. I was worried about this but decided to put the AFC back together and take the truck for a drive... maybe the pin would shake out on it's own.

Good plan, but the truck won't start now. :{

I and a friend spent all afternoon on it and still won't run. All it will do is roll, fire and then immediately die. After talking with Piers and Al at PDR (thanks for the help guys - I highly recommend them to everyone) and trying some stuff at their suggestion the truck still only rolls fires and dies. Both Piers and Al said they had never seen a truck that wouldn't run with the pin stuck in.

So here's What I've tried:

soaking the pin with WD, Brake Kleen etc then rolling the throttle on and off while using a pick on the pin - no effect pin still stuck in there

pulled the fuel solenoid off and tested it - tested fine and no metal filings to indicate a done injection pump

cracked all injector lines to see if air somehow got into the system - no air, lots of fuel

lost of general muttering and cursing - I feel better but the truck doesn't:{

Does anyone else have any ideas what this could be? At this point in time I'm just about ready to try anything

Thanks in advance

Ray

(maybe soon to be taking the REAL school bus :{ )



Oh and Bob, my truck is an auto, but my EGT's are pretty low right now Thanks too for the link.

 

[BushWakr - RIP]

I've not done this, nor have I heard of anyone doing it but... .

Why can't you grab the little bugger with a set of forseps and pull the thing out like a bad tooth??? I don't think it will come right out and you won't pull that hard/far.

All you need to do is free it up and then work back and forth some.

Maybe someone can comment on that??? Perhaps check with a pump man... hey PW !!!

If your temps are fairly good now, watch them when you get that pin working





bob

 

[rmarriner]

I've just about every little tool I can think of to get a hold of that pin and still can't get a hold of it. After playing with it so much there's no longer enough of it sticking out to get a pair of fine tweezers onto it. A pick comes tantalizingly close to getting a grip on it but always slips. Something needs to give it just a little push from the other side to get it to pop out, unfortunately the spring doesn't seem to be doing it and neither does fuel pressure. As a last ditch effort Piers suggested pressurizing the fuel tank a little to give the low pressure fuel system a bit of a boost that will maybe pop the pin out.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is to maybe use some kind of suction to pull the pin out. I'm not sure if I'm ready to give my truck mouth to mouth yet though.



Ray

Well... maybe oil won't taste so bad if it's gets my truck running

 

[NeedMoPower]

Ray,

On the front side of the pump, there is a plug where the pin is assembled. All you need is the right size allen to remove the plug. The downside to this is that you will have to remove the throttle linkage. If you cant free the pin any other way then I would try this.

Cody

 

[JFitzgerald]

Ray, your tires really aren't much larger in diameter than the original size, 235-85R16. Mainly just wider. I also run 33x12. 5x16. 5's. I use a 1. 035 multiplier when figuring my mileage.



Also, PB Blaster works great for freeing up stuck & rusted parts. No comparison to WD40. Good luck.

 

[cwienenga]

fuel pump

you might want to call Art @ H&H Diesel in Fife Wash. they are the local fuel system specialists. He's a nice guy and really helpful just keep it brief,he's real busy.



cliff

 

[BushWakr - RIP]

My little curved tip forseps have done jobs like this easy as pie. Besides, what's the worst that can happen, you get a new tool...

you know what I mean...





Bob.

 

[sgriffing]

Full fuel question

Q #1

Okay, the concentric has one side that goes right to the edge and the other side has a little ledge.

Which side do I want facing forward (To the pin)?

Q #2

If the Concentric pulls out and drops in "Real easy" is the pin stuck? Do I have to move anything to get the concentric back in?

I ask because I am doing this from crutches and a wheelchair. Climbing on top with a light isn't going to happen. Right now the truck seems kind of gutless.



Thanks guys,

Stevie G

 

[BushWakr - RIP]

sgriffing,

"... seems kinda gutless... " isn't much to go on. If you can provide more info it would help. Do you have any guages, or excessive smoke? Is there smoke at start up, what color, does it smoke when warm, if so all thru the power band or just at certain times... etc.





Turning the cone so that the deepest part is facing forward allows for the fastest/most fuel delivery. The idea is to allow the fuel delivery pin to travel out as far as possible.

The way to check the operation of that pin is to remove the diaphram and spring, look down the hole and rotate the throttle open. It the pin is working properly it will pop out of its little hole. Should this work, you just need to get a slim flatblade screwdriver and push it back in. You'll hear a "click" sound when it pops out.

If it doesn't come out, then it's sticking and you'll need to try and free it up.

The starwheel which you'll see inside there is another adjustment that will allow your max fueling to come on faster (at lower boost levels) Turning the wheel counter-clockwise puts more pressure on the spring, which in turn means that you need more boost before the diaphram/cone starts to drop down and increase fueling. Turning clockwise eases the spring pre-load pressure and allows lower amounts of boost to trigger fuel sooner/faster.

The smoke screw affects the first bit of "launch"... it gives a shot of fuel to the engine so it can "puff" the turbo into spooling quicker. Once you've gone past the initial "launch" it no longer is a factor.





Hope that helps a bit.



Bob

 

[sgriffing]

Clear as mud

Which side is the "Deep" side.

The side with the steepest angle apears to be the side that comes out to the shoulder at the bottom (Pin is in further at low bost=> less fuel at low boost).

The other side isn't as steep and has a ledge at the bottom (Pin will be further out at low boost => more fuel at LOW boost).

I can't really tell which side is deepeat the top (Max fuel).

I'm sure I'm beating a dead horse but I can't catch a running one.

 

[JFitzgerald]

Think of it as a cam

The object is to turn the eccentric so that the pin is allowed to move further out of its' bore toward the eccentric.



If you think of it as a cam lobe, you want the pin to be on the "base circle", 180* from the top of the lobe.



Hopefully this will help, just trying to say what Bob already said, in a different way.

 

[rmarriner]

It's alive!!!

After spending three days trying to get the rabbit out of the hole it's finally out and I can start my truck again!!

Thanks to everyone for the ideas. Special thanks to NeedMoPower who's vote to pull the plug so to speak made me decide to go ahead and pull the throttle linkage off. (Truly I had thought of it before, but looking at all those springs and things and the fact that I was dum enough to get the pin really stuck I was pretty reluctant to give it a try )



sgiffing - do not do what I did. I assumed that the pin was spring loaded - it isn't. Because of this I wasn't very careful when I poked at the pin and because it was sticky even rotating the throttle wouldn't pop it back out. Whatever you do make sure that there is always enough of the pin sticking out to be able to pull it back out.



My best guess as to what happens if the pin gets stuck all the way in is that not enough fuel can flow past it to make the injectors pop. This means that the truck will roll and fire but then immediately die because there's no fuel there. I could be wrong though so if anybody knows why the truck would fire then die please let me know.

Once I finally got the pin unstuck the truck started first try. D'oh, chalk that one up to experience.

Since the truck was finally running I went ahead with the POD's. WOW!!:--)

Big difference, the truck launches instead of strolls. I still suspect that the pin is sticking though since even with the PODs, smoke screw turned in 3 turns, the full fuel screw turned in to the lock collar and the diaphragm turned to 2 o'clock I have no smoke at idle (but you can definitely smell fuel) and it will make a small cloud if I mash it from a stop and light haze if I run at WOT. I know that smoke doesn't equal power, but I would like to be able to make the truck smoke and then turns things down until they don't smoke, but I can't make the thing smoke in the first place. If that pin is permanently sticky, is there any way to fix it or does the pump need to be replaced?

FYI with the PODs and the tweaks listed above, I can get 22 lbs of boost and 1100F in 3rd gear before I back out of it (I'm too chicken to play the EGT game )

Thanks again for all the help!



Ray

Oh ya, don't attempt to try to suck the pin out with a straw after you've sprayed brake clean and WD in there for 3 days - first you turn and then

Learning at the speed of dum.

 

[sgriffing]

Lock collar

I removed the lock collar from the screw on the back of the pump.

It doesn't seem to turn in any further than before though.

I put the lock nut on right up to where the collar used to be and the screw got "Very tight" just before reaching the locknut.

Now, to clarify, the lock collar covered about 5/16" of the threads at the end of the screw. I should also note that many of the parts under my hood are "Beige" in color.

So, am I maxed out on fuel adjustment?

Did I do something wrong when I put the screw back in?

POD's are next and I want to be sure everything is okay before I take the next step.



Thanks again guys,

Stevie G

 

[rmarriner]

Hey Bob, I got your PM and decided to post the group, maybe somebody'll have an idea if there is actually anything wrong with my pump. Thanks for asking though.

I did finally get the girl running again. In the end I took NeedMoPower's advice and pulled off all the throttle linkage to get at the plug on the AFC. With plug out I could use a screwdriver to push the pin back into place. I tried soaking it with WD, Krown, Brake Kleen and worked it back and forth using 2 screwdrivers and while the pin became less sticky, I still don't think it slides as well as it should. In fact even after all the work getting the pin to move again I put the the throttle linkage back together and then put the diaphragm back into the AFC and the truck wouldn't start so I pulled the throttle linkage off again, pulled the plug out and with the AFC fully assembled pushed the pin a tiny bit further in and put the throttle linkage back together. Only then would it start. In fact my pump is sensitive enough that a couple days after I pulled the top off the AFC again and rotated the diaphragm without removing it and the truck would't start. Again, I had to put the top back on the AFC, pull the linkage and plug, push the pin back into place and reassemble linkage before it would start (when it wouldn't star I pulled the diaphragm out and like yours I could see where the pin had been riding the eccentric, so the pin seems to move when I'm driving). This and the fact that I have PODs and can't make my truck smoke leads me to believe that my pump is a lemon. That being said though, I pulled the shut-off solenoid and there was no metal filings (or in the old injectors either) and as long as I don't play with the pin in the AFC the truck runs great. I'd like to replace the pump, but so far no one I've spoken to has been able to say definitely the pump is bad, and I'd rather spend the money something else if I don't need to replace the pump (like DTT transmission goodies )

So in the end I'm still stumped as to why I can't touch the diaphragm without making the truck not start and I've given up playing with it as it's too cold out and I don't have a shop to work in.

Thanks again for asking if I was rolling again though.

Cheers,

Ray



Sorry for the long reply, but I just can't shut up when I start talking about my truck