Need Injectors...soon, like Friday?

[jman]

Funny comment about the 05 and newer 6. 0L PSD. Just had an ex-coworker call me and his 06 6. 0 lost 5 of 8 injectors and one of them came apart and they can't find the pieces. Only mod was straight exhaust and Ford was trying to give him static on how the free flowing exhaust caused it. Then they found out he had pulled a 28' horse trailer and said that could have caused it since he was working it hard. He asked the Service Advisor if this was the case should he schedule an appointement every time he pulls the horse trailer to have new injectors put in. It was a high mileage unit though, I think it had 20,000 miles. He was bent out of shape and went to the Chevy dealer and told one of the techs about his problem as he was looking at a D-max. The tech told him the D-max wasn't the answer either if he wanted to avoid injector problems.



I told him injector issue were probably a way of life now unless he went back to a 7. 3L or a pre-CR Cummins. I feel bad for him, but I also told him 6. 0L engines were POS.

 

[steved]

lmills called me last night... told me one of the injectors looked like it hadn't been firing.

Unfortunately, I didn't think about it until after I talked to him... did he mean not been firing recently, or ever? I would think a CTD running on 5 cylinders would be obvious, so I'm sort of leaning towards "recently"... I hope.

That tow truck driver was funny... he owns a 2001 CTD that has 450HP and does low 12s spinning the first 1000 feet. His buddy sold him 80HP injectors for it... has multiple boxes stacked, etc, etc, etc... it was so deep, I almost looked in the truck for a set of boots... I believe he told me he was getting 25mpg too...

The whole conversation about that F550 (which BTW was touching its dually tires in the rear because my 5500# truck had it overloaded) was funny. I told him there was probably close to 8500#s there (between the truck and load), and he told me "no way, 5500#s at most"... heck, the title indicates a 6800# unladen weight!

And come to find out, I wanted a particular towing service to take the truck to MD... AAA sent me this guy who made me wait 3 hours. The other company was sitting around, ready to come out... and would have had the truck in MD before this guy even picked it up.

It was not a good day... and on top of that, lmills calls me to tell me my card won't approve... at least that was my fault, I can't read!

steved

 

[MoparDave]

Steve, Was the Dodge dealer in Hamburg?

 

[steved]

Steve, Was the Dodge dealer in Hamburg?

No, that's Outten (formerly County Chrysler)... my truck was at Savage Route 61...

(on edit: I wasn't impressed with service at either place)

steved

 

[MoparDave]

Savage is the pitts, next time your in a jam take it to New Holland. its much futher but well worth it

 

[nauidvr1]

Steve,

If your receiving the injecters from F1 with out sending yours in (a swap set) - The injectors your getting are probably out of my truck (2005) with 27,000 on the injectors. I just sent them back in to F1, on Dec 7th via priority mail, because they sent me a "swap set" to keep the down time to a minimum. I received a set of injectors owned by a TDR member from CT with 40,000 miles on them. Injectors looked brand new when Don M got done with them.



I upgraded to the Flux 2's for a little more fuel to go with the Stage 2 Industrial Injection CP3.



Bob Wagner of Wagner & Assocs. is a dealer for F1 and they have a few sets of injectors floating around that can be used for this situation, when you have to keep down time to a minimum. They were both great to deal with.

 

[steved]

Steve,

If your receiving the injecters from F1 with out sending yours in (a swap set) - The injectors your getting are probably out of my truck (2005) with 27,000 on the injectors. I just sent them back in to F1, on Dec 7th via priority mail, because they sent me a "swap set" to keep the down time to a minimum. I received a set of injectors owned by a TDR member from CT with 40,000 miles on them. Injectors looked brand new when Don M got done with them.



I upgraded to the Flux 2's for a little more fuel to go with the Stage 2 Industrial Injection CP3.

I believe they are just redoing my injectors... lmills sent them to F1 to be gone through, then he will ship them back early next week.



steved

 

[HOBrian]

Steve, after reading through this whole thing I can't believe with fuel treatment and the FASS you are having this problem. I would have thought it would have had happened to someone with less upkeep. Sorry to hear about the trouble.

 

[steved]

You and me both...

I have ran the FASS for the majority of the miles (made sure I always got/get good fuel)... always had good pressure and filters. Before the FASS, the OE filter was changed every 10k.

I have ran either Howe's (which was recently shown to do almost nothing), CRC (because Howe's didn't work against waxing last winter), or Power Service (since last winter)... I run 8 ounces of PS per 22 gallons (sometimes a little more concentrated, sometimes a little less)... but it gets additive EVERY TANK. I have 8 ounce bottles that I transfer the additive into to ensure accurate measuring... an 8 once bottle to a 22-gallon tank (that may or may not be completely empty)...

I almost wonder if that bare wire (the AC/CPS wire) caused a problem... but it never threw a code.

I'm a little disappointed... I know all things mechanical will fail, but to take all the steps to prevent it, and still have problems doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

I almost wonder if it was worth it... case-in-point: my father has over 280k miles on his 99 on the ORIGINAL VP44... never ran additive, barely changed fuel filters. 280k on an original VP44 with POOR maintenance... and I can't get 145k on a set of injectors WITH "good" maintenance.

I just had a thought and called lmills... the FASS's Fleeguard HF6604 filter has been in place for around 60k. I have a spare behind the seat and gave him the option to change it out. Now, I'm not thinking fuel pressure, but maybe filter breakthrough? The media has a 80psi breakthrough, but who knows... filters are cheap.

lmills is waiting on feedback to see what actually hung the injector up... which is good, so I hopefully know whether it was preventable or not...

steved

 

[ColoradoKing]

It'll be really interesting once they've diagnosed what caused the failure. I bought an '05 with 39K on the clock. I asked the service dept to print the service record, which noted that the engine had been replaced twice, most recently 500 miles before I'd bought it! When I asked why it'd been replaced, they couldn't (wouldn't?) say. I tried to get in to see the mechanics, but they wouldn't allow it.



I noted on the bill that the only description of symtom was "engine making loud knocking noise", then "replace engine and all injectors". It was the same entry for both engine/injector replacements.



The only explanation I could come up with was evidence that the PO had installed a power puck or other mod, and generally drove the crap out of the truck.



Either that, or with the introduction of ULSD, injector failures are caused due to its ability to act as a solvent, potentially dissolving particles trapped in the fuel filter which may have caused injector failure.



Could have been either or none of the above, but I'm sure not keen to see it happen again. I stay on top of filter changes and don't beat on the truck too often, except for an occasional "carbon burn" to clean out the injectors.



Look forward to hearing how it all worked out.

 

[HOBrian]

so I hopefully know whether it was preventable or not...



steved

Preventable?? What more could a person do, you are already at 2 micron

 

[steved]

Preventable?? What more could a person do, you are already at 2 micron

Maybe its something I did, or didn't know about... who knows??



I bet I know what the problem is, I drove it... :-laf



steve

 

[CSappington]

I think lmills is up to something He got a set of Flux 1's out of me when I lost an injector or three on my 07 with 30K miles on it. I have run fuel additive and a GDP 2 micron fuel filter and water separator from 10K on. I now have 50K miles on my Flux 1's and all is good. Oo.

 

[steved]

Well, got some news...



lmills told me that ALL the seats were bad... basically the injectors were pretty much junk, however, they were able to be salvaged. Not one was bad, but all SIX were bad. Don M also made the comment that he knew I was running additive (yes), and asked if I was running 2-cycle (NO).



lmills also told me that they showed indications of BOTH dirt and water (rust) contamination... he is finding out how long this has been "happening" to see if this was a period of time, or a single tank of fuel... the injector that actually put me in this predicament is #1.



Here's some history I dug out of my book... the HF6604 was replaced about a year ago (11/11/2006) @ 98850 miles... so the current filter has around 44k on it.



However, just prior to this change (10/28/2006), I got around a gallon of water from a Flying J in Indiana (drained the water separator several times). I cut the HF6604 apart (it had been on from 63800 to 98850 miles) and found a minor amount of water in the bottom of that filter (as in under a 1/2 teaspoon, beads)... if it made it that far...



I installed an aux tank January 07, it has a water knock-out AND a water separating filter (10 micron), then it drops to the tank and gets filtered by the FASS. It has been out ONCE since then, for the vacation to UT in September (around 5500 miles). So the fuel has been dual filtered (more/less) for just under a year.



I just don't see how I got dirt recently... water, ok; I got that from the Flying J... but dirt??? I've been running a 1 micron filter for around 80k... and dual filtration for the last 30k...



I hope his answer is that this has been an ongoing thing that started a while ago. I feel completely helpless... I did everything to prevent this, now I'm hearing that it didn't mean a thing. And then there's the rest of the fuel system...



You guys don't want to know what I'm considering... a 2500 hemi is looking better and better.



steved

 

[lmills]

However, just prior to this change (10/28/2006), I got around a gallon of water from a Flying J in Indiana (drained the water separator several times). I cut the HF6604 apart (it had been on from 63800 to 98850 miles) and found a minor amount of water in the bottom of that filter (as in under a 1/2 teaspoon, beads)... if it made it that far...

Steve,



check your email. looks to have been damage that started quite some time ago. I notice you mentioned water in the filter. So if the water made it that far, you are correct. It got past the separator

 

[Cattletrkr]

191K on my injectors...



knocking on wood...







crossing fingers...







saying my prayers...

 

[betterthanstock]

Do you still pass the fuel thru the stock filter, or not? Any WIF indicator?

 

[HOBrian]

Don M also made the comment that he knew I was running additive (yes), and asked if I was running 2-cycle (NO).



steved

I wonder why he asked about the 2-cycle?? I know a lot of people running 2-cycle

 

[steved]

Do you still pass the fuel thru the stock filter, or not? Any WIF indicator?

NO, straight from the FASS... bypass pretty much the entire OE fuel supply system.



And don't get me wrong, the amount of water I found in the HF6604 was a couple beads... there's almost two inches of open space in the bottom of those filters on the outside of the filter media. Its not like the FASS sucked up a batch of water (with its extended pickup tube in the filter) and sent it through the engine. My thoughts are that due to the volume of water, some of it stayed in suspension, passed the water separator, and got through the media.



I do have a WIF light, built into the auxiliary tank, but that tank was installed after the Flying J water incident.







And for what it is worth... and we should do a poll on this, it would scare you... have you ever seen your WIF light illuminate? I have over 600k combined mileage on three trucks, two of which got fuel from all over the country... I never saw a WIF light illuminate in the 6 years I have owned a Cummins. I however drain a partial teaspoon of water from the FASS at EVERY TANK.



Want to know why you've probably never seen it? I found this out when building my auxiliary tank: Our OE system is plumbed tank-lift pump-water separator/filter-injection pump... the FASS is plumbed tank-water separator-lift pump-filter-injection pump. See something wrong here? Have you ever seen what a rotary vane pump (like the carter used in our application) does to water in fuel? It blends it up into a nice foamy, gunky emulsified mess. And this "mess" will pass right through a water blocking filter and through a water knockout... I know, it passed right through the filter and knockout on my auxiliary tank when I was testing it. The OE fuel filter wouldn't even flinch... and because the stuff is emulsified, it won't trip a WIF light!!



Further, I have noticed (probably because I have the FASS) that the ULSD must be hygroscopic (attracts water) as I have gotten more water in my filter since they changed to ULSD than when it was LSD... just something neat to see...



Just FYI...



steved

 

[steved]

I wonder why he asked about the 2-cycle?? I know a lot of people running 2-cycle

I wondered this too...

I did a lot of thinking on this last night... yes, I have too much time on my hands.

When they ran LSD, we were getting #2 LSD in the summer. In the winter we pretty much got a blend of #1/#2 LSD fuels (winterized).

With ULSD, we get #2 ULSD in the summer. However, because there isn't enough #1 ULSD to blend for winter, we are getting "additized" #2 ULSD at the pump. It already has an additive in it from the supplier. Petro's version is "Diesel Guard", the local Amoco is "Diesel Heat", the company delivering fuel to us in New Mexico was using "PrimRose". And I witnessed a delivery driver dumping a 2. 5-gallon container of something (assumed it was their additive) into the ground tank during a delivery at a Love's last winter.

Now, we all know that not all additives are created equal (refer to the Fuel Additive Study). But we know NOTHING about them when they are mixed together... what happens then?

steved