Forrest's major mods round 2
 

Round 1 has pretty much occurred in the last 1.5 years and is reflected in my sig. Onto round 2 which consists of: new PIS 175/80 injectors, 910 comp springs shimmed .030, new valve seals, fluidampr, M208 LPOP, confirming if the injector cups are sealed, military battery terminal mod, and new Gearhead tunes!

Starting point:

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Evacuating the HPOP with an air powered siphon gun. Used the small bucket with the rags on top to seal off the air nozzle through a small cut I made in the rags. Worked well. Took some time but much faster and easier than the mityvac I started to use. I had drained the coolant and fuel bowl by this time.


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Pulled injectors #7/8 to let the fluid drain into those cylinders. Removed all the glow plugs, rocker arms, and pushrods while waiting.


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Evacuating #8 and then 7. Quite a bit of fluid.


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There the injector cores be. O rings were in reasonable condition, no brittle or broken ones.


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Two injectors had these marks. What do they indicate?


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Starting to look a little lonely in there.


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Pressurized the cooling system to 15psi for an hour while I performed a quick clean on the cups and sprayed them with silicone looking for leaks. Unfortunately, my flip camera decided to not work so, I could only perform a visual on cylinders 1 through 4. The system held 15psi for an hour with no loss in pressure. I then decreased to 11psi and it held for 3 more hours. Is this sufficient to say the cups are not leaking?

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Starting the work on the first valve spring.


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Different shot.


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Comp 910 spring wire diameter. Compressing the springs by hand confirmed the Comp springs are substantially stiffer. Extraordinary scientific method.

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OEM spring wire diameter.

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1.850" height. Used .030" shims to arrive at 1.780" installed height with valve seals for 125lbs seat pressure.

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Shim and new valve seal in place.


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First cylinder finished, 7 more to go.

You are a braver man than I am. I may venture into swapping out my injectors one day, but the harmonic balancer, LPOP and valve springs are out of my ability I reckon.

Did you buy new battery cable or do you think there will be enough on the harness to install the military terminals?

Subscribed, and love to see the pictures.

Nice job and great pics!

Sous, the harmonic balancer, LPOP and valve springs are pretty easy to do. It's all in the right tooling.

Did you replace the valve stem seals to?

Subscribing...

The cables are long enough. The eyelets extend them a bit at any rate. Just finished this on a friends EX and the results are great. I will be increasing the gauge from the D side postive terminal to the P side batter since I happen to have a nice piece of cable left from a battery relocation deal I did a while ago.

The work isn't technical nor difficult. The right tools are key and I do have a good bit of experience doing this sort of work on hotrods so, I'm totally fine with it. The diesel aspect is newish to me but I've been reading up on this stuff for a year now, time to get it done.

Yes, new valve seals.


On edit, I need to clarify "difficult". Changing the springs int he rear 4 cylinders and in particular 7/8 is difficult to hold a plank over the nose of the truck that long while utilizing fine motor skills and focus to reinstall the valve locks.

Glad to see my McTool is working out great for you. :-X22 Get'r done! :)

Indeed, it works very well and simplifies this job. I got 3 cylinders done by quitting time. I hope to get the rest done tomorrow, but it is Sunday and the brown water may derail best intentions. ;)

Subscribed! Looks like a fun project.

Couple questions, maybe I missed this.
Why 175/80 injectors? What is your plan for the truck? Towing? I ask because I am looking to do an injector swap this year and am looking at new AC's but considering a little bigger.
Why new springs? Are yours wore out? Preventive maintenance?

What gauge wire are you swapping to between the batteries? I look forward to the pictures of the project as you progress.

I am on the fence about wiring up the military terminals. I think my OEM ones are OK, but the new military style would certainly be more secure and look better. I would run heavier gauge wire as well, and possibly wire in an additional 4 gauge wire from the alternator for future higher amperage models.

So much to do, so little time.

First, the primary reason to change injectors is #8 is not doing very well. It is very noisy once pushed hard while towing. With 170K, I felt it was better to change the set instead of 1 and if I'm doing that, well, it's time to upgrade. Yes, we tow a travel trailer throughout the Pacific Northwest with a number of steep mountain passes. Last year I scaled: Front axle 4,500lbs, Rear 6,700lbs, Trailer axles 5,500lbs and this was without the kayaks/canoe and racks to carry them as well as an empty fresh water tank in the trailer and room for the firewood we burned :-).

The injector decision has taken me 6 months or reading, thinking, talking to various vendors, tuners, and references from a handful of folks on different forums. :-X19 I'm not exaggerating even a little. My initial thought was to use AC injectors, but with the T500, Fuel upgrade, and finally 38R, it was evident the 175/80's would take full advantage of these mods whereas the AC's would leave a lot of torque and tuning control on the table. Still, I nearly went with the AC's as PIS is selling them for only $1650...:-X19

The springs are mainly a PM thing but with an eye towards the RPM range and boost level while pulling the mountains.

A 1.7" intake valve has a surface area of 2.26". 2.26X40pis (max for 38R) is 90.4 psi acting against the back of the intake valve. This would be a Max scenario as I will be targeting 35psi as a max for a little headroom. Given this, stock springs age and are a bit soft as designed for the stock parameters which I will have clearly exceeded. Thus, changing the springs and valve seals while there for the amount of boost and age of the engine seems worthwhile.

The fluidampr, also seems like a reasonable proactive measure as all these modifications will take the stock damper out of its designed range of effectiveness. I never could find specific 7.3 testing on this, but with my background and understanding of dampers, I believe it's a wise move.

1/0 will be used. The cable is even red. It's just long enough I believe, I'll bring it with me today to confirm.

It's a bit of a job in the sense that to properly crimp the cables on truck, you need a hydraulic crimper. You could just heat the terminals/cable with a torch and fill with solder, but I am an advocate of a proper crimp and solder. The solder only method would work very well to be clear though.

Today I finished up the valve spring replacement. I then redid the coolant pressure test with a flip camera to see if any of the rear 4 cylinders had leaking cups and again, pressure held well and in the camera replay I didn't see any bubbles. I proceeded with cleaning the cups using:

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I wrapped a very fine scotch brite type pad used in autobody around the bristles to clean the cup and the follwed up with a few towels sprayed with a little silicone spray.

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Here's what they look like after.