i just want to say thank you for your excellent write-up! i am getting ready to tear into my VE this weekend for the first time (past the gov. spring anyways), and i am sure your write-up is going to be an AWSOME reference! thank you!

by the way, i need to re-seal my pump because i upgraded to a piston lift pump without doing enough research. apperently i sourced a high pressure pump. and neglected to install a regulator before the VE. it appears that the new piston pump runs enough pressure to push the front seal out of the VE!! live and learn i guess. i sure am glad i have a great reference like this to fall back on if i have any issues along the way!

 

You are welcome! I'm still updating the blog with all of the details and pics. So keep an eye there. http://rotordesign.com/1993cummins/

 

If anyone needs more info on my rebuild, and I'm not done posting everything, here is a link to all of the pictures I took. It includes even the flawed shots. But often a single pic is worth a thousand words.

http://rotordesign.com/1993cumminspics/

Last night I did a stress test and drove the truck up and over a nearby highway pass, up that steep hill at full throttle at night. Temperature gauge barely moved. Engine didn't miss a beat. I think the transmission shifted into OD at around 65mph. I will have to double check that. Quite a bit of exhaust smoke. Top speed was 72mph on that hill.

 

The guy I bought the truck from had the original front bumper that he was willing to trade for the plain front bumper that he had put on the truck. So I went out about 92 miles to see him. That was the excuse I needed to do a mileage test that was all highway. I set the cruise control to 65mph.

As I was about to leave town, I headed over to the cheapest diesel station I could find using the GasBuddy app on my phone. Very sweet app. When the filling nozzle clicked off, I looked down and there was easily a quart of fuel on the ground. Looking first at the filler tube and vent tube, they were dry. So was the tank seal. This thing has a flat bed to the tubes were right there. It was coming from the top center of the tank. It didn't look like it was from the sending unit. Great. That's the 3rd fuel leak on this beast I've found. The injection pump, the fuel line, now the tank. I'll look at the tank today before I go refill it so I can find out what my mileage was on yesterday's 200 mile run.

My previous tank of fuel that included these leaks was 90% city driving. 12.86 mpg. Yikes. I'll post this last tank's mileage once I get the leak fixed. Although it may be inaccurate due to the leak.

 

Yesterday's 207 mile run on 8.0 gallons to get the front bumper swapped netted 25.8 mpg with the cruise control set to 65mph. Nice! And that is with the leaking fuel tank lid.

Today I went out and planned on capping the vent tube that had a rotted vinyl cap. When I went to remove the remainder of the cap, the entire fuel/electrical assembly moved! The cap was very very loose!

So I found my old strap wrench and took about 6 shots at tightening the cap on the fuel tank. I drove the truck around all day, and not a drop of fuel spilled down the sides of the tank!! What a difference!!

We will see how it affects the mileage with no known fuel leaks.

I just reorganized the blog of the pump rebuild. Getting towards done.

 

Well glad to hear that all is going well. And 25MPG is nothing to scoff at...well done.

 

Thank you thrashingcows. It's been 2 years since I have owned a Mopar. This truck was a great return vehicle.

 

I finished several of the pump chapters tonight in my blog on how to rebuild the VE pump. Updated and corrected a few too. The biggest change was adding categories for each step in the rebuild process of the VE pump so each step could be found easily without going through the entire blog. Let me know of any errors so I can correct them.

http://rotordesign.com/1993cummins/

The next step is to service the transmission. I just ordered a pressure gauge just for the occasion. I'll start another thread for that.