offroad00

I had the truck out today and was driving down the road and it just quit on me. I had 1/8 of a tank fuel and thought that maybe I ran it out of fuel, so I had a friend bring me 5 gallons of fuel and once we added that the tank showed about 1/4-1/3 full, I bled all the lines and verified I had fuel to the injector pump and it just cranked and cranked and would never start. Added another 5 gallons for good measure and still nothing. Next I read the codes via the odometer and it had a P1693 & P0237, which is the boost low voltage. Has anyone had this sort of issue where the truck just quit with a P0237 code? It has been running great, just glad it didn't happen last weekend when I was on a 500 mile trip with a large load, that would of stunk, at least here I had someone to tow me home, which still hurt the pride a little. I was beginning to think that my VP-44 died again, I replaced it about 12k miles ago with a Blue Chip Special X and installed an Air Dog pump system, hopefully that is still the case. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

mishkaya

It could be several things. Have you checked for fuel from the VP44 to the injectors? Possibly a failed cam position sensor or a bad fuel pump relay (you can swap it with the horn relay I believe). Otherwise most likely the VP44...

offroad00

When you say fuel pump relay are you talking lift pump or VP44? I know the lift pump is working, I can hear it and also see it build pressure on the gauge. If it is the VP44 I will be one very unhappy camper and have nothing good to say about Blue Chip, I spent the extra money last time and put all the other safety measures in place, better lift pump system and I already had the fuel pressure gauge in place and 12k miles is pathetic. One other thing I was going to do today was make sure I did do a good job of bleeding the system.

mishkaya

In the power distribution center there is a relay that controls the VP44; if it fails the truck will not run. It could be a bad connection somewhere in the wiring harness as well. Also if the cam position sensor fails, the truck will not run. It is possible to tell if that is the culprit as the tach will not move when you crank the engine. Could also be an ECM issue. There is a way to bypass all the electronics on the truck to make the VP44 run all the time. If you do that you can find out with certainty whether it's the VP44 or not.

offroad00

I got the truck running, turns out I just didn't bleed it well enough. I took all the lines apart at the injectors except the far rear one which I couldn't get to worth a darn and after that it fired up rather roughly, smoothed out and ran fine. When I replaced the VP44 two years ago I don't recall it being that much of a pain to prime. I took it out for a drive and it ran fine so I then went and put fuel in it and got about 25 gallons in the tank so if I add that plus the 10 gallons I put in it yesterday after it quit that tells me it was really out of fuel and my fuel level gauge has been lying to me. I usually never run it below a 1/4 tank which is probably why I haven't seen this till now, guess from now on I will keep it above 1/4 tank. Hopefully I didn't create any premature wear on the VP44, I was only running about 35-40 mph for the last 5-6 miles before it quit and I was babying it along, because I didn't want to tear up my little trailer that was carrying 9 railroad ties, plus my JD X485 and box blade (slightly over its limit I would say). Only thing I can figure on the P0327 code is that it was generated from my Edge chip, because I recall it locking up sometime during the winter and I probably unplugged the wires out of the back of the box while the truck was running and the code just hasn't ever cleared, especially since I haven't driven the truck much since then. I got the battery cables pulled and will hook it back up and hopefully be good to go.

Is there a way to recalibrate the fuel level gauge and what is the best way to get all that spilled diesel fuel out of the fuel compartment?

mishkaya

You will need to replace the fuel sender most likely. It's about $75 at the dealer if I recall correctly. Easy to replace other than dropping the tank...
I usually use some simple green to clean up the diesel mess.
Glad to hear you are back up and running!

nothingbutdarts

How might one do this?????

mishkaya

You can do this by disconnecting the harness to the VP44 and energizing pin 7 while grounding pin 6. You will get a boatload of codes however as the ECM thinks the VP44 is not working. Cummins actually has a tool that does this very thing and it is what they used in the field to test the VP44 injection pumps.

nothingbutdarts

Thank You very much for this info. What years will this work on?

mishkaya

'98.5 to '02, all the VP44 powered Ram's.

nothingbutdarts

Thank You again for the information!