we all know that the fuel shutoff solenoid seems to be the weakest link on our injection pumps, the one thing that leaves you stranded on the side of the road. between my father and i, we killed 4 of them in a year. now its a fairly commonplace repair to us, but we're not satisfied. he cut the arm off his solenoid and stops the engine by stalling it with the clutch, i keep on using solenoids that don't last because my rig is an automatic where i have no other way to shut down.

we spent a lot of time looking for a manual shutoff, controlled by something like a hand choke control, but found no such thing available. my dad's next idea was to contact many suppliers of diesel parts trying to find a FSS that works backwards of normal, needing to be energized to shut off the engine instead of energized to run. still, we found no such thing available. and thats when we had an idea.

we know that solenoids are very simple electrical devices, and between his electrical knowledge (07 electricians license) and mine, we came up with the idea of disassembling an old solenoid and rebuilding it to work backwards, with a spring that holds it the other way, and the electrical pushing it the other way.
if we were to build this, we would simply add a shutdown button somewhere the driver could easily reach, and we're good to go.

now if we were to start building these, how interested would you guys be in wanting one? note that we have not started building even the first one yet, so this is not a sales pitch nor an ad, just opening up discussion and asking about public interest.

so what do you guys think

 

It's an interesting idea, but I wonder if leaving the system 'open' like that with the engine off could create a scenario where the fuel system loses its prime by draining back towards the tanks? I dunno, just a thought.

I wonder why you're having such problems with the FSS? I've been running IDIs since the '90s and I have yet had a single FSS fail.

 

well, i guess thats theoretically possible if the check valves that were originally in the system aren't up to par anymore, but in the case of dad's truck we've only had one instance of air intrusion, and that was due to a loose fuel filter.

as for why we're having them fail, i have no excuse for dad's, but i've been running alternative fuels (WMO) at times, and the first one that fried seemed to have metal clinging to the magnets of the solenoid. having seen that, i quickly added strong magnets to the outside of my fuel filters and tanks to catch anything before it got to the pump. dad's truck has never burned anything other than pump fuel, so he has no excuse at all.

 

Stanadyne made a manual shutoff for the DB2 in place of the solenoid operated one...

 

phy, i remember hearing rumor about that around here, but have never been able to find a source for one. would you happen to have a source?

 

How are you processing your WMO? Maybe adding some magnets to your filter setup before it goes in the truck would keep the solenoids from fuzzing up.
Also, I think a magnet's field is decreased considerably on the other side of a hollow metal structure like a tank or fuel filter (you would know the math behind it, I'm just going by memory). Maybe getting them into the tank near the pickup would grab more gunk before it gets to your IP.

I know it doesn't solve your immediate problem, buy if your WMO still has gunk in it, you need to keep it out of your fuel system regardless.

 

my WMO gets pumped through a couple of filters before it ever hits the vehicle, and those filters have several magnets placed on them, as does the plumbing around the filters. likewise on the vehicle.
yes, the magnet is weaker on the other side, but to catch floating particles doesn't require a very strong force, and i'm using the magnets that come in hard drives. they're strong enough that i can place one on the top of my finger and another on the bottom of my finger and feel them squeeze together a bit.
on the vehicle side, i added a couple small filters before the tank selector valve, one for each tank, with the intent that if i were to have any gunk in there i could simply switch tanks and drive away.
regardless of the details of my WMO use, both of us are killing every solenoid we throw at our pumps

 

same here. with over 2 million miles on 6 trucks, and not one FSS failure . the only reason for changing the injector pumps was wearing them out.

 

The FSS forces the metering valve closed, after the engine stops it doesn't matter where it moves to, the system wont loses prime as both sides of the metering valve equal out natural in an off state.

Another idea is to block the fuel return outlet port on the pump as this cause housing pressure (which is on the other side of the pumping plungers) to increase to the same preasure as the transfer pump preasure which is used to fill the pumping pistons, when theres no difference in preasure theres nothing to fill the plungers so the engine runs out of fuel. I don't know if this will hurt the pump in the long run or not but it's another idea.

Where are you getting theses FSS? They can't be oem as they last forever as long as there submerged under fuel for cooling.

 

No, I don't have a source for the mechanical shut off, but I've read it was used on industrial & ag applications. They're on some John Deere tractors. I'd try Stanadyne, or maybe a John Deere shop...

 

The first one I killed was presumably replaced by the shop that rebuilt the pump several months before it's failure, another came from a junkyard pump, and two of the others were on the vehicles when purchased. I haven't yet ordered a brand new one, ford doesn't have a listing on one and neither do the parts stores, so it looks like ordering it somewhere online is my only option new.

 

If you had some time on your hands, just remove the solenoid and use the main throttle lever to stop the vehicle -- You'd need to come up with some way to make it idle, however.
Basically, if you remove the idle screw, the engine will die, same as if you killed it with the switch. If you were to replace the idle screw with a 'run solenoid', mechanical actuator or something like that, something to keep the throttle linkage at or above the idle position when in 'run', you'd have what you need.

I've been meaning to do this myself, if only to have an engine that requires /no/ electricity to run, but I haven't done it yet.

 

I think it'd be pretty neat to have, definitely subscribing!

 

[Raises hand] I'd be interested in one. Same reason; it would be cool to have a completely mechanical system.

Mechanical option - adjust the throttle linkage so that the engine would stall with no pedal input. Then have some kind of pull cable in the cab that would work thusly - press the pedal, pull the cable, release the pedal and a stop holds the pedal down just slightly, in the running idle position. To shut down, just push the cable **** to let the pedal return to the stall position.

 

The idea of using the throttle cable to hold idle speed doesn't seem good to me. Changes in temperature can affect cable length slightly, which in this idea would cause variations in idle speed, and would not be ideal.

I'm still liking the idea of the solenoid in the original post.