Ok so I may sound like a complete idiot by asking this but oh well, not my first time!

So to start off, I am on a tight schedule (upcoming trip to Florida for a soccer tournament and this is supposed to be the family shuttle :eek) and in the middle of a complete set of injector swap with new cups due to fuel in the degas bottle (throw in turbo rebuild, bellowed up pipes, spring and shock swap, high flow banjo/cvds, HPOP hose replacement, hutch/harpoon with added filtration, foam sleeve for AIS, and a few others that I am forgetting......yes I am paying for Clay's next vacation!). I am not the best at posting while in the middle of a project b/c I get so wrapped up into the job so an after action review will happen when all is complete.

So I read Tugly's injector cup thread along with the cup sanity check thread. Tons of good info......thanks. Pulled cups with RiffRaff tool (worked flawlessly) and cleaned bores. Now I did not see anything on the old cups that jumped out at me as saying "hey I am cracked and this is where I was leaking" which has me worried a bit. So I blamed this lack of "evidence" on my aging and impatient eyes and continued to drive on with the project at hand.

Installed the cups (side note: a bit worried now that I did not completely seat the cups since I only went to the recommended torque. I have been known to break things when I try to put to much "oomph" into stuff- just broke 3 impact torx sockets working on something else [seat belt bolt and I ended up breaking the welds on the nut to the body] and an old supervisor used to tell me not to make it "my" tight but that is neither here nor there.....just saying that I am fearful of what I do when I don't follow torque specs). I did turn the wrench a bit past the torque if it would go but not much. I wish that I had remembered from the sanity check thread to use a scribe/pick to feel for the gap but I did not. Ugh.

So to the point of this story. I filled what I could of the coolant system with a mixture of distilled water and simple green to clean the system (it was completely drained). I rented a coolant system pressure tester from a neighborhood parts store and attempted to test this evening. I say attempt b/c the gauge would not register anything. Do I need to turn the engine over by hand to "bleed" the system of air?

I am kind of under the belief that the tester/gauge is dung b/c after attemting to use what I thought was the correct adapter and getting zero pressure build, I put on the "universal" adapter (rubber expandable plug) and pumped it. Didn't read anything on the gauge but I will be damned if it wasn't pressurized b/c I saw and experienced my own version of Mt. St. Helens going off in my driveway with the adapter being blown off, hitting the hood and immediately followed with a sudsy mixture (maybe that was a hint to clean up under the hood.....who knows).

What am I doing wrong? Any and all help would be appreciated. Until then, I need to just sit back and enjoy a cold one before I break something.....getting to that point.

Thank you.

 

You have verified the gauge actually works, correct? Where did you have the gauge located during the test?

I know it sounds obvious, but sometimes simple things are over looked!

 

Rikster, gauge is located on the hose between the pump and the connection that attaches to the adapter that goes on the radiator/coolant bottle. I did not test it but I guess that I can by covering the "discharge" while having somebody pump it.

 

What is the range on the gauge? It's hard to tell in that from the picture.

 

That gauge is on a rental tool? There is no way to know what Goober did to it before he returned it to the rental place.

If you read my thread and the insanity check thread, then you would have seen my pressure test that needs no gauges, waiting time or coolant in the system. The Simple Green approach may sound like a good idea at the time, but that is a sudsing product - something you would never use in a dishwasher or laundry washer because of the foam issue. The recommended degreaser in this situation is Cascade dishwasher soap - no foam.

This is where I'll speak to you as a friend, and dissuade you from rushing. Spending a couple of hours doing some reading, thinking it through and forming a plan can save you from 8 hours of cleaning up a gawd-awful mess. I never did any cleaning of the system until after I confirmed all tests had passed and I had a working engine. If you have to pull a cup that didn't seat properly, you now have to fear a susdsing agent reaching as far down as the oil pan - bad juju. I have been under the crushing weight of an up-coming trip many times, but I always keep in the back of my mind that "shortcuts" aren't - and I'd rather do it right in the garage than redo it on my trip.

 

Rikster- PSI gauge reads 0-35. Is there a way that I am not privy to or savvy enough to think of to test this gauge?


Tugly- I appreciate you calling me back from the ledge.....advice well received. I believe that as I have aged, I have learned to walk away from something if it just is not working to rethink the strategy/plan (almost but not completely hence the 3 sheared T50 impact sockets and welded nut for the seatbelt bolt......oh yeah throw in the 3 normal T50 sockets that I sheared before the impacts- and yes I used just about every imaginable penetrant over a long period of time along with heat and cold). I will say that I do not plan on doing any shortcuts to get this thing road worthy before the trip......we will take another car or rent one before I do that. Another example of not taking shortcuts would be that while rebuilding the turbo, I could have just slapped the new parts and wheel on there and called it a day but held off until I could get the rotating assembly properly balanced yesterday. But I digress.


I have done a flush with simple green once before and followed by plenty of distilled water (enough to make Ethiopia fertile again). It seemed to work well but now that you mention the dish powder, I remember watching a DieselTechRon (RIP) video where he mentioned the same thing.......ugh another tip that I forget on the install (read here my loss of memory to use a pick to check for proper seating ). So I will just dump the water/simple green mixture and refill with more water and detergent.......when I do the flush which I will do to get the diesel out.


Now I did read your method of not using any coolant/fluid to check system integrity but if memory serves me correctly, you used an air compressor. Believe it or not but there is somebody in this day and age that does not have an air compressor and that would be this guy . Maybe I can borrow one from the neighbor and do your test. Or maybe I will just go and buy my own PSI tester so I don't have to worry about what Goober did to it before I rented it.


And finally, I would also like to say that some more evidence that research and thoughts/opinions from others does not go unheeded is that with my build plans and desires I decided to go with new Alliant AD injectors. I will delve into story in another thread since I need to get to the point of install first!