@Hit Man X came by this weekend with his stock injectors and we swapped mine out for his. My truck has run with a shake ever since I got it going. I did a compression test and had 400+ in every hole, so figured it's injectors. It also had a mechanical fuel pump where the pressure would drop to hard if you gave more than 1/4 throttle, all the way to 0 and wouldn't recover unless you let completely out of it. All the more reason I figured it's injectors.

Anyhow we put the injectors in and before buttoning everything up gave it a buzz test, then plugged in all the valve cover harnesses , then buzzed it again and it was good. Cranked it a while, batteries started to sag so used some ether to get it to fire up, glowplug relay was disabled the entire time. Once it fired up it ran far more smooth than it ever had before, and generally sounded good. So we buttoned everything up with the valve covers and air cleaner fired it up again and this time it had a very very loud clacking. It sounded completely normal 30-40 minutes before, when we test ran it with the valve covers off, this time it sounded terrible. Not like a rod knock but a more crisp clack sound, definitely in the top end, I expect the injectors themselves. Fuel pressure was good, IPR good, ICP good. Wiggled the valve cover harnesses and no change. Gave it a chance up the street and it would hardly move in 1st with the pedal to the floor. As we were pulling back in the driveway I noticed the voltage was about 12.0 reported at the OBD dongle. I did not notice if the battery light was on or not, but she would typically run mid 13's so I expect the alternator wasn't energized and I know the batteries were low.

I know the IDM steps the voltage up a lot to run the injectors so having low source voltage can cause problems... Anybody happen to know the symptoms of low voltage on the IDM and/or injectors? Would they get loud, cackle & slap, and make almost no power? I don't recall seeing any smoke but at the time it was happening I was mostly coming up with a contingency plan if the truck died on the road.

 

Also you guys should ask Eric to write a description of my abomination

 

Did you Ohm out the harnesses after it started clacking? If you pinched a wire you may not be able to see it without an Ohm test.

 

were they OBS injectors or splitshots?

 

They're OBS. It doesn't surge, and ran fine before installing the valve covers.

 

Did not, it was getting late so parked it with the charger on.

This morning did another buzz test and it failed every injector on Bank 1, and gave me a code for high side short to ground so I think you've nailed it. Pinched harness.

 

Yep, good, used injectors from mine went into his. As we figure, 90cc with unknown mileage. I put about 40k on them, shimmed armatures and always fed by 65psi of fuel pressure. I picked up his dumpy ones for cores to mail back to Bitterroot. Glad to see it was simply a pinched wire, it really sounded pretty damned good considering the HPOP had air in the circuit still too when the covers were off and looking to verify oil output from the injectors.

Did the very low battery voltage play into this at all?

The more we looked at this truck, the more hilarity it became. It is the type of thing one envisions when they hear the term 'Florida Man'. Staggering effort went into it to make it.

I was also shown how to use one of those phone apps for live data and such. Pretty neat! Grandpa found the internet.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner. Wires to #7 were caught between the gasket and the rail and smashed. These were Dorman gaskets anyway and I have some good Motorcrafts, easy fix.

Then on to see if the alternator is charging or not.

 

Solved. Swapped out the bank 1 valve cover and it runs fine now. Drives fine. Alt is fine too, I'm reading 14v at the left side battery.

Even though Eric's injectors are old and shimmed and running on borrowed time, the truck easily picked up ~40hp over the sticks that were in it. It goes pretty good actually, it's not a complete dog now.

 

good deal.

 

good deal.

 

What you don't like Dorman gaskets?

 

I think the harness was integrated into them.

The bork was on me.

 

Functionally they're probably fine. The UVCH portion though can't be disconnected. It's all just one piece wires and all. The wires are a bit stiffer and harder to deal with. It was very easy to keep the wires on the Motorcrafts out of the way. The Dormans are fiddly. Eric didn't know about the way the Dorman wires almost want to be on the head rails and I didn't think to tell him. So again I'm sure they're fine when they're fine, it's just more likely for this kind of thing to happen.

 

Hmm had to ask cause I'm currently having a bear of a time with Dorman's and like you said the wire harness is fiddly, mine will go on eventually but that most rearward glow pug wire just won't snap in to place grrr.