This thread hits home with me. I've spent the last year living with reman regret. Dropping another $2k on new injectors isn't an option right now. My truck has a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Some days it's smooth, quiet and responsive. Others, it shakes, lopes, hazes and takes more pedal to get moving. Both traits can be seen in a 10 minute drive, whether hot or cold. And other times it'll spend a couple of days in either personality.

AE an Torque data looks the same at idle whether in Jekyll or Hyde mode to my rookie eye.

Does anyone know what parts are kept and replaced on a reman?

 

I don't know your situation, but my injector rebuilder backed my play. He understood I was having problems with his product, so he allowed me to send back the fresh remans and charged me for the price difference between new and reman. This will not be the case in every scenario, but I worked closely with the rebuilder throughout the whole process - sending him AE data and videos of the oil spouts.

One magic PID in AE has been a huge help to me, but it's not a catch-all: IPR. When used in conjunction with many other PIDs, I get a lot of early warning signs. Dash Command doesn't even have this PID, which is a woeful shortfall of the app.

Using your AE, log this stuff:

 

Here's a parts list diagram - not sure exactly what parts (besides the plunger & barrel assembly, nozzles, o-rings) are automatically replaced during the rebuild process. Jim at Rosewood Diesel would be a person to ask.

Edit: Here's the link for a better PDF: http://www.interstate-mcbee.com/medi...ui-catalog.pdf





I hear ya and I don't disagree with you. I can understand your thought process and logic, and being a pilot I understand the correlation/comparison to aircraft & metal fatigue. The key would be to start with a set of injectors that have relatively low miles on them.

Like you said - that was quite a while ago when I did the F-250. At that time it only had 90K on it.

The injectors on my Excursion had 235K on them when they came out. Plus I didn't own the vehicle for the first 180K, so I went with new.

 

Do I log all pids at the same time?

I pressed my builder for an exchange for new, but he insisted on sending me 1 or 2 sticks at a time until I couldn't identify any moles using perdels. All said and done, I replaced 4 sticks and have one more waiting for a home. Since I bought these in November, 2013, my warranty is now over.

Off the top of my head, I can say my ICP is between 489 and 496 at idle with 9.5-10.1% DC when warm. %DC had never exceeded 42%.

 

Your situation may not reveal itself with AE, but logging all that stuff at the same time may yield clues. Remember - an intermittent injector needs to be observed over time through many running scenarios. This is where the logging capability of a scan gauge/tool can make the difference between a mysterious symptom and a component popping it's head up for detection.

 

Yes, this definitely says a lot about the Swamps folks. I explained all the troubleshooting steps that have been done, and Dave WANTS me to try the new AC's to see what happens. He's giving me full credit for what I paid for the 175's towards the price on the new AC's, which is pretty awesome in my book. Yes, I'm still down on all the time spent on this, but that's pretty generous of them.

He did allude to SEVERAL injector builders having issues with their remans lately (this isn't just us in the forum talking - they've noticed it too).

My question is how many people have had THEIR OWN factory injectors remanned, and had issues?

Unfortunately, I didn't go that route, as I didn't want the downtime. I purchased an already-done set, and sent mine in as cores. Perhaps sending my own factory injectors in would have resulted in a better product.

We can be pretty sure that the reman process itself works, as seen by past experiences with Rosewood, Swamps, Casserly, etc. So, if people sending their own factory injectors back in for reman work consistently end up with a good product, but people who opt to use theirs as cores, and getting someone else's old injector bodies, have marginal results, we could lean towards multiple reman jobs on the same injector body as the problem.

However, if that pattern isn't there (some people sending their own factory injectors in for reman work get poor results), and assuming the reman process is good, I'd lean towards the injector builders getting bad parts (out of tolerance, poor material quality, etc.), though they definitely don't do it on purpose.

There are other variables that may be at play, too, like the amount of air the injectors were exposed to, and whether they were ever starved of fuel, prior to being remanned.

 

I spoke with Tim @ PIS about the difference between a reman and new. He said that while they try to to the best they can when remanning, they are at the mercy of the poppet seat...the seat the is machined in to the injector body...and to his knowledge (if I recall correctly) nobody machines the seat in the injector body.

There may be a business opportunity for somebody to remachine the seat on these.

 

Or to make & install very small seat cushions.........

 

A few thoughts.
1) I ALWAYS suggest that a customer send in their set for rebuilding. If the truck is running what seems to be ok now, it should run as good or better when we are done. Doing the core exchange always opens up the possibility for concern of operation.

Even though we thoroughly flow test injectors, the flow bench can only do so much. It is true we will see maybe 20 injectors a year (that's injectors, not injector SETS, out of about 4000 injectors a year that we rebuild) that flow absolutely perfectly on the flow bench in every manner, yet the customer says they don't fire in the truck. We are still trying to determine the best way to close this gap to Zero, but for now only the customer can identify the problematic injector and we replace it with a 100% different unit in an attempt to get a perfectly running truck.

2) New vs Reman.
Why is it the reman shops fault that you have an issue with a reman part? It was YOUR decision to go the less expensive route rather than to go with a Brand New product in the first place. It's like anything else, a NEW part is always better than a reman part. I tell EVERYONE this that asks about new injectors. If you want the best you can get, buy NEW. If you want the next best thing, let's rebuild them.

Our niche is rebuilding. There are plenty of shops that can't, or won't, rebuild them and they are happy to sell you new ones. I sell maybe a dozen new sets a year, it's all up to the customer, we'll do either!

However, unfortunate example #1: Early last year a customer out west had us Overhaul a set for him. Note OVERHAUL, and not REBUILD, big difference right there, too. Anyway he had issues right away and wanted his truck running so we worked with him and got him set-up with a brand new set of Alliant Power injectors in May. He just had an Alliant Power injector fail on him last month.
Keep in mind that it can happen any time, anywhere, with any product.

Unfortunate example #2: Another customer years ago bought a new set because he wanted the best money can buy. 3 weeks or so after installing them, he had a nozzle fail and we had to warranty the brand new injector. But...Alliant Power said it's not their fault, he must have dropped the injector before installing it. I had to pay to overnight that injector here, put in a new nozzle, o-rings, and flow test, and overnight it back, even though we didn't build it or have our hands on it in any manner in the first place. That whole process to warranty that one injector ate up all my profits of that sale of a new set of injectors. (Very little profit selling new.)

3) Do you want to hold high ICP, with performance tunes?
If so, give me a 300k mile set that's rebuilt before a brand new set any day. A higher mileage set will have a very well established poppet seat, a new injector does not and often will not hold very high pressure at all. It sucks calling the customer who just spent a lot of money on injectors and telling them their NEW injectors only hold 2500 psi so don't expect any good performance for a few years until the Poppet gets seated properly.

Been there, done that, it's just too expensive. Even if done in Volume, if that cost was added to the cost of a rebuild, it would make the new injectors cheaper.

Keep in mind the NEW injectors and Rebuilt injectors each have their place in the market. If we put all new parts into the rebuilds, they would cost waaaay more than a new set.
So we offer a more cost effective alternative.

To each his own.
Choose wisely.

 

As always Jim, your input is very well appreciated. Thank you for chiming in on this thread.

 

agreed. very good information there Jim. thanks for dropping by.

 

While this isn't from your site, Jim, you can see how we as consumers would think we were getting "better than new:"

"Xxxxxx xxxxxx injectors are 100% rebuilt, in house, with the highest quality parts available, the most experienced staff, and a rigorous testing procedure to ensure that you receive an injector that is truly, better than new."

I do value your honesty and willingness to comment, and to give us examples of real-world scenarios. Obviously, you have a different view from some other rebuilders on the new vs. reman debate, and it's admirable that you spoke out. Thanks for the insight.

 

I have never driven a new 7.3, so I have no idea what new injectors would sound or feel like. I'd guess a decent number of us are here on this forum because used trucks, no monthly payments, and doing our own maintenance is what we prefer and or enjoy.

I've had friends with similar aged Chevys and Dodge diesels comment on how quiet my stock XLT is, both of them. And both had remans.

The '97 I only had 7 months before it was wrecked and went away, and about six months after the remans went in my e99 my turbo started crapping out. So I can't even say I've really driven a 7.3 with remans either.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, we don't know what we're missing, if our trucks run great with remans, how much better can they get?

 

Very good info here. Thank you for all the effort that went into it.

 

Good post! I tried to rep you, but I'm in jail. Thanks.