Yeah it's just a matter of time. I want to get this sucker hot so I can re torque the head.

I found the regulator seeping a little diesel. I pulled it appart and replaced the 3 o-rings in it. It is a cone shaped metal piece with an oring near the base. This is followed by an inner and outer spring the outer being a short stout one like a valve spring. Next is a screw adjuster with two orings near the spring for seals. Last a lock nut. The new orings went in with a little more force then before, also adjusting the regulator as well. I'm wondering if there was some sort of spring bind holding the cone shaped part from sealing as tight. The cone controls the amount of return fuel from the fuel filter side ramping up the pressure with less flow. Also a leak in those seals could cause issue by bringing air in behind the regulator when running.

I'll find out if that may have been the issue when I get my gauge.

 

Too high won't damage the VE. It will pop the front seal out and just damage the engine.

 

I would say that qualifies as "damaging" the pump. A seal that is leaking is one thing, but completely dislodged is another story.
At any rate, it's not good to feed the VE pump too much input PSI.......

 

Ok gents. So far so good. Ordered my auto meter sport comp II fuel pressure gauge Friday around 0030 and on my doorstep at 1000 hours Saturday morning. Gotta love amazon prime. Too bad I had to work Saturday night.

Any how, I have the gauge all wired up. I just need to tie things up and put my dash back together. I also need to make a bracket for the sending unit on the firewall. For now a zip tie will suffice.

And.....drum roll!!!! Fuel pressure truck off. Don't worry that's not a crack in the lens just a reflection.




And fuel pressure at idle. I actually need to turn it down a little.




I'll get everything buttoned up tonight and drive her tomorrow. I cannot immagine any issues with fuel pressure like that. Even giving it a good goose up to approximately 2k it barely twitched.

 

Congrats on getting that one fixed, now double ck it all one more time before you set sail. Nothing sux like launching the boat and half way across the lake you see the plug is left out, and then the motor quits....

 

Thanks. Won't be 100% until I driver her tomorrow. However I cannot see a 39 psi drop happening tripping the 5psi and below sending unit. I was driving just above an idle and below 20mph. I'm betting faulty sending unit. We shall see.

The in cab end is all buttoned up. I had pretty much no choice but to go with a column mount. At least it matches. The bracket gave me a place to mount the microphone for my hands free Bluetooth through my head unit as well.

Lights off.

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Lights on.




Side view. Not too bad.

 

Actually doesn't look too bad with the gauge on the colum, you need to order 1 more gauge to have symmetry. Or is that just my OCD acting up?

 

I only have one more I can order, and that's a tachometer. I'm torn between the Z series diesel tach and the pro comp diesel tach. Both have detractors. The z series pick up is clamped the the alternator with a big hose clamp and it does not match my other gauges. Yech!! The pro comp is nice but it's huge! 5" tach. I would also have to modify my balancer to get it to work. I'll figure it out eventually.

 

The members of most diesel forums seems to be made up of marginally educated hicks who have a hard time stringing together a coherent sentence, so I take the information there with a big grain of salt, but the consensus on several forums is that the fuel pressure shouldn't be above 25 PSI with several thinking that 15 is too high for either the VE pump or the P-7100.

Did I miss where you did something to enhance the supposedly leaky seal at the driven gear? Or maybe that's a bunch of hooey; I haven't put a lot of effort into researching it, but I haven't come across anything in my Cummins manuals that references a maximum pressure, only a minimum.

 

As far as I can find, general consensus is, anything less then 25 psi at full throttle for a mild p7100 build such as mine is not a good thing. The average acceptable idle psi seems to be around 40 psi no more then 50 for a mild build with an aftermarket electric lift pump. I'm going to leave mine at 40 and see how it goes. The factory setting for the air dog II df165 is 25-35 psi. At the factory setting with my 40hp overflow valve I was at 48 psi. On a broad scale I have heard of guys running upwards of 70 psi with no I'll effects. These are people doing full on drag racing and pull trucks. Also keep in mind my pressure will not go up with rpm it will go down since I am not running a mechanical rpm based lift pump.

As far as the seal goes the p7100 has a totally different seal system then a vp44. A p7100 is oil lubricated and fuel cooled. The gallery's are completely separated. The gear directly actuates the pump cam which is oil lubricated. As far as I can tell the p7100 is a lot more tolerant of high and low pressure fuel compared to other injection pumps.

 

Houston we have lift off .. As always nice work and thanks for sharing your progress in detail ..

 

Glad it's sorted out and all is well.
When I first saw your gauges all lit up, I thought, why do those gauges all have bowties on them...I need my eyes checked. Lol!

Awesome job!

David

 

Hot dang!

Nice build! I imagine most older equipment is maintained by those who build more than buy.

Those are nice shiny gauges, what about swapping in a newer heater panel? I did on my '78 and only had to file some plastic posts to fit. Swap over blower motor and fuel tank switches and done! ... oh wait, might have to swap wire around a bit because the tanks are labeled differently, but is not that hard.

 

Ok, folks. Actually took her for a drive for the first time. I ran her for about 10 miles and took a short video. I had fuel pressure steady at 40psi except for three short periods, I'm talking around 2 seconds. All 3 times I was making a left hand turn I have about 3/4 of a tank of fuel. I am starting to think I am sucking air when I turn left because my fuel guage goes to zero too. I am going to go fill her up to the brim and see if this still happens. I'm betting not.

Here's the short video. Sorry about the quality I'm holding my phone on the steering wheel. I haven't taken the time to make a mount for it yet.

 

Looks like a fun truck!