So I was driving into work on the highway today cruising along at 65 and all of the sudden my truck started to surge and lose power. Well after A few more miles all I could maintain was about 45 mph with the truck still surging. I was able to limp it home so I pulled the fuel line right before it goes into the filter housing and then started the truck and I had a healthy amount of fuel spraying out of the line, so the lift pump seems to be working. It seems to clearly be a fuel supply problem, I couldnt make any boost, but the truck still idled normal. What kind of psi should the lift pump be making, can i test it? Any other Ideas?

 

Did you try changing out the fuel filter yet?

 

I took it off and from what I could tell it seemed pretty clean. I run an FS1221 and it only has 10-15,000 on it.

 

Change the fuel filter.

 

WOW i change mine every 5000 miles so when i change my oil i change my filter as well.............. But then again i run a diferent fuel system then the dodge trucks as well. But that Cummins is a heck of a good engine!

 

I will put a new filter on in the morning, luckily I have one on the shelf in the garage. How often do you guys change your fuel filters? I was always told 2-3 times a year was plenty unless you were running wmo or something.

 

Sounds like the filter to me as well.

I change my filter every time I change my oil.

 

Let's dig a little deeper in the well.

First, the place to keep the extra fuel-filters is in the truck.

Without a fuel-pressure gauge, you are playing a guessing game; two gauges are even better, with one each side of the filter.

If the filter doesn't fix it, check the fuel-lines, both metal and rubber, all the way back; better by far is to just completely replace the whole line system; if there is one pin-hole, then the rest of the line is ready to have many pin-holes; new line is cheap.

 

I put new fuel-filters on all of our trucks once a year at the end of October; this way, we go into winter with new filters.

Especially on an older truck, you can have a catastrophic filter stoppage even with a day-old filter.

Usually what instantly stops up a filter is not molecular particles, but one big glob of gook getting sucked up in there all of a sudden.

 

The primary on my truck is over a year old and the secondary is around two years old now, IIRC. I'm not touching them until either the fuel pressure starts to drop or I just can't stand it anymore. But they are really big filters:

http://stuff.is-a-geek.net/PhotoAlbu...cs/CTD_182.jpg (10um)
http://stuff.is-a-geek.net/PhotoAlbu...cs/CTD_122.jpg (5um)

I think they need to last an average of around five years to beat the cost of changing a stock filter once a year. I'm betting the secondary will last ten. They flow alot better, too.

 

I agree with Ace why change them if the fuel pressure doesn't change. The little factory filter may need it more often but if you put the big filter upgrade on and get lucky it may last till your conscience starts bothering you. Good luck with your truck.

 

Were you get your fuel and your operation conditions really makes the difference. Down in AZ, the wife use to buy diesel at this one place in Chino Valley because it was cheep. It was also full of dirt. It would clog the can filter on the Ford in a week. On my Dodge, before the most recent filter change the last one was on there 6 years. I only changed it because it was gelled up.

 

[QUOTE=Ace;2510650]The primary on my truck is over a year old and the secondary is around two years old now, IIRC. I'm not touching them until either the fuel pressure starts to drop or I just can't stand it anymore. But they are really big filters:

Hey, Ace, Are you sure that first image isn't your compressed air storage tank?
Man, that is like a reserve fuel tank. Nice stuff.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I put a new filter on and it didnt change anything, so I put a new lift pump on and it turns out that was the problem. I should have done that a long time ago apparently, my boost pressure went from 17 psi with the old lift pump to 20 with the new one, it even blows a little smoke now! I guess its time to invest in a fuel pressure gauge so I can minitor the situation more closely in the future. Now I am curious to see how happy the truck would be with a high pressure piston pump run through a regulator, maybe I will put that on the list of things to do.

 

I'm using this as fuel pressure and manifold pressure:

https://www.surpluscenter.com/item.a...atname=engines

nice and cheap