2mtrucks

I noticed a drip of some sort of fluid under my 1989 today...its dripping off the lower pancake diaphragm. Fairly sure its not power steering fluid. It actually feels like brake fluid . My brakes and brake booster are working fine but obviously something is wrong. Is it possible that the booster diaphragm and/or master cylinder is leaking into the vacuum hoses that connect it to the vacuum pump and then it leaks from there? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have had other 1st gens that leaked here but it never got worse or caused drivability issues. Thanks.

Jim Lane

Pull the vacuum hose off the diaphragm and see if any fluid is inside the hose.

It is probably diesel fuel leaking from the VE pump, both the control valve and the governor shaft seal will cause fuel to leak off the vacuum pump.

PapeCAT

Good day all:

Very nice recommendation J. Lane. I would like to add that if you do in fact start attempting to replace seals to just go ahead and buy the whole 20 dollar DGK121 kit from Bosch.

When my control valve started leaking on the 1991.0, I opted to do as Jim did and take the valve down to my local pump shop (Diamond Diesel) and see if they had the seals. I have an el cheapo metric O ring kit but wanted to see about getting real Bosch parts. Anyway, for Jim they handed him the o rings over the counter for FREE! But for me, they said they could have them by 0730 next morning, to which I was happy about. When I came back to get the Orings, I was shocked to find out that the (4) o rings cost almost 14 dollars. Note that I am a well known patron of this shop, having purchased a 1000 dollar reman VE along with cases of Stanadyne in the past, a barring tool to the tune of 65 bucks among other things over the years.

Buy the Bosch kit.

2mtrucks

Yes it could be fuel...I had so much crap on my hands today I couldn't tell what it was...everything stinks like 25 year old diesel truck. Should I plan on getting the pump rebuilt?