Laugh is on me - VP44? - K.I.S.S.

[lpmarkman]

Purchased one month ago, 2001 2500, diesel, 250K plus. Loving it.

Just returned from great camping trip. In the driveway, suddenly, my new-to-me truck just instantly died. What the? Ugh! Began diagnosis with basic observation that the Cummins was fuel starved. Checked fuel gauge; just under one-half tank. Dodge and TDR Forums consulted. Checked out electric signal to VP44 - OK. Oh my gawd, it's a thousand dollar injection pump failure. Settle down, settle down. What about we check the lift-pump output... uh-oh, real weak. I didn't need fuel pressure gauge to see that it was well below 5 psi, erratic, and obviously inadequate. Changed out lift-pump, bled out injectors and, after considerable cranking and roughness it fired off. Wonderful!!! What a mechanic I am I am. Chest puffed out and all that. Bolted out the driveway for a test drive and it was so, so satisfying. Really performed impressively... until about a hundred yards of home and pusssh, dead again. What the. . ? Dragged it back in the yard and started rubbing those two grey cells in my head again. I took notice that the trip odometer reflected 472 mi on that tank... hmmm? That's a lot of miles on a tank. Hmmm again, fuel gauge at just below one-half still... maybe let's physically check the fuel level with a siphon hose. . . not even mist left in the tank. Five gallons of commercial red out of my skid-steer dropped in, re-bled system and waa-la. Fifty miles since and all back in order. Yes, yes, yes, defective fuel gauge, or maybe the sender. I'll watch the trip meter for now and check that out somewhere down the road... when I tire of kicking myself in the butt. Keep It Simple Stupid!

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

YUP!



:-laf:-laf:-laf

 

[B.G. Smith]

Sounds to me like you did a good job of finding the problem. If you had taken it to a repair facility no telling what all you would have paid for before they actuall found the problem. I would bet that many a VP44 has been sacrificed when there were other problems. Hang in there, you can work on my truck. bg

 

[lpmarkman]

Appreciate the comment. Talking to a diesel friend, the thought occured to us that a dealer may have replaced injection pump, lift pump and fixed the gauge and sender. Probably comparable to what I paid for the truck. Don't want to bad-mouth dealers too much... just thinking and wondering.

 

[RGardner]

Similar experience, but I was on the road, got a tow, new lift pump, new injector pump and I really believe that I was just out of diesel. Afterward noticed that at 1/4 tank gauge stopped moving. Sometime lessons are expensive!

 

[wlowe]

Just a heads up, on 2001 trucks you can turn the key on-off three times, the third time leave the key on and the OBD codes will show in the odometer window. Most VP44's throw a code when they're dieing.



Faulty fuel sending units are a common problem on these trucks. Do a search and you will find a few upgrades/mods for fixing the problem.

 

[jwgary]

Yep, I use the trip ODO and the average fuel economy meter to calculate my DTE now. It's embarrasing when you have your wife and kids and run out pulling into a parking spot. "But it says I still have over 1/8th of a tank!"

 

[Bob Cochran]

Yepm have done this to. Truck under warranty had towed to dealer and they replace fuel tank sending unit(nothing else surprise). Yep I use trip mileage to see how much fuel I have got good at it to since I also have a 70 gallon cross bed TranferFlow. Not the one with gauge LOL. It is embarrassing!!!

 

[lpmarkman]

I'll do a search for the mods... and, thanks all for the support.