Fed up with my fuel system

[Optikalillushun]

Past week has been cold, by coal region standards (near zero at night, 12-15* during the day). My diesel would not start w/o two or three cycles of the glow plugs cuz of air intrustion. And i can smell a faint diesel smell under the hood...im fed up with it, tired of messing with it and give up on making it right. Hasnt started normal in the cold since i bought it even with original parts, let alone the cheap ass fuggin over-seas crap. Deburred the last set of caps, fancy o-rings and lubed the fawk out em and right after i got it button up a leaker. Fix it and another leaker.

Love the truck, love driving it...hate it wont start and feel like a **** struggling to get it to start and have it sound like a carb'd truck with the choke off on a cold start till it gets the air out. Oh well least the G31 batteries, fancy starter and 3G are working

 

[icanfixall]

Sounds like you have air leaking in somewhere. Have you replaced all the hard line olives. there is a 3/8 olive on the lift pump to the filter head at the head. Then both ends of the feed line to the injection pump have a 5/16 olive. Depending on what you have for a injection pump return line you may have another olive way back by number 8 cylinder. If the return line from the pump goes into the injecter return line caps then that olive at number 8 cylinder wont be there. Sorry your having some issues. I know how it feels to work your butt off only to keep having issues...

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

I feel for you Coal *******, I spent lots of time when I was younger in cold midwest winters turning wrenches when it was below freezing. It was during this point in my life when I perfected two things: 1) being able to knock out the bulb in a drop light at the precise moment when I really needed the light to see what I was doing and 2) becoming a world champion angry wrench thrower. I once threw a wrench at the bottom of an opened Fiat hood that was never recovered. Never. I mean how far could it have really went on the richochet

That being said, I gotta ask you: do you have an electric lift pump yet? I believe this will make a lot of your air intrusion headaches subside.

Keep fighting the good fight, or give up and get a Powerstroke and learn how to fix more complicated (read more expensive) starting issues.

Seriously: hopefully it will warm up or you'll get the bugs out of your fuel system.

 

[idiabuse]

I had that week, I dont own any olives anymore, I eat them on my sub sandwich now.
Never any air intrusion again.
So happy I found the trick.


Javier

 

[Optikalillushun]

I replace the hardline olives and any rubber fuel line i could a while ago and bought many spare olives. I even went as far as replacing the hard lines with a good spare set thinking maybe one was damaged. Fuel filter heater is plugged up and not leaking, WIF sensor is new and not leaking, fuel filter isnt leaking.

An electric lift pump, no i dont have one but i wouldnt mind one, just no money for that...no job means no repairs. Truck needs calipers and front rubber lines n an allighnment first. Anywho, put an alt in my neighbors jetta last week when it was just above having the wrenches freeze fast to my hands in the snow lol, but he paid well and appreciated it. an E-pump would be swell, even if i had a leaky return cap or something it would push fuel so prime the system. Funny even on a cold start it hardly puffs out the exhaust when cold so it definatly has air issues.

Luckily its not my DD, i have a cushy 06 F150 FX4 for that. Im begining to wonder if the injectors themsevles may be suspect to a damage o-ring(s) because i tried 3 different sets of the ones Russ provides in the kits (viton?) and two return line kits. I even measured them with a mircometer for out of round or defects. This spring im gunna pull the injectors and check them for any burrs or defects n replace the copper washers.

 

[Rot Box]

Oh I hear ya- this winter has been a royal pain for my IDI as well

Something to add I found replacing the return hose from injector pump to the #2 injector with a clear/see through one really helps for troubleshooting. I pushed a lot of air out before mine (finally) fired off. Without that hose it would have been harder to tell what was going on. Good luck. It won't stay cold forever-----I hope.

 

[79jasper]

With what rot box was saying, there's a "check valve" on the filter head end of that hose.
It's known to cause the exact same problems if it's bad.

The test is quite simple.
Unscrew fitting.
Hold up to light.
If you can see light through it, it's bad.

Mine is bad, truck was hard starting.
Once I put the electric fuel pump on, it took half the cranking time. (Which was still a bit because of some bad glowplugs)

 

[Optikalillushun]

As luck would have it, g/fs bronco was a no start at work...9 degrees at 11:30pm and 25 mph winds so it'll sit till tomorrow...goody 17* high and 2-4" of snow and 20-30 mph winds...Seems like the fuel pump, we'll see...get the carhart bibs out i guess. Couldnt happen when it was high 50s in the middle of the week.

BTW, fired up my truck yesterday and it took one cycle of the GPs and about 4 seconds of cranking. Temp was 21*. Going to look at that check ball, i did check it before but i dont remember how it looked.

garage is tied up, Fairlane engine rebuild...no job but least ill keep busy!

 

[79jasper]

Well at least your truck is starting good. (Not great but better than mine was before I quit driving it, still probably faster than my psd with some the bad glowplugs lol)

 

[jim_22]

With what rot box was saying, there's a "check valve" on the filter head end of that hose.
It's known to cause the exact same problems if it's bad.

The test is quite simple.
Unscrew fitting.
Hold up to light.
If you can see light through it, it's bad.

Mine is bad, truck was hard starting.
Once I put the electric fuel pump on, it took half the cranking time. (Which was still a bit because of some bad glowplugs)

Yep. I used to have starting issues, big time. I had all the glow plugs replaced (two were bad) and I was immediately in business, or so I thought. i even bragged about my cold starts, I was so pleased. Then I had an occasion to replace a non-working fuel selector valve (turned out to be corroded wiring) which led to replacing all the metal fuel lines which were leaky. I the process of bleeding the whole thing out with some clear hose strategically placed to find air bubbles, I discovered the stock filter housing was sucking air. Who knows how long that was affecting me? Now that filter is history. I have separate new filter systems for rear and front tanks so I can run clean stock diesel in my brand new rear tank and recycled alternate fuels in my front tank without cross contamination. I can switch the supply and return separately with electric valves to purge the system and have replaced the lift pump with electric, something I should have done years ago.

 

[79jasper]

Well at least you have a whole new fuel system now. That little check valve is often overlooked.