Jconaway

Yesterday on my way to work (in 16 below zero weather) I got about 11 miles from home when the truck sort of hiccuped while travelling 55mph. I looked at my Edge A2 monitor and the fuel pressure was at 0-1 PSI. At the time the road was either level or a slight downgrade, so it wasn't under much of a load. Seconds later she died and fortunately there was a side road which allowed me to get out of the traffic.
My first thought was the fuel had jelled. However, when I shut off the ignition the instruments were still live and the ABS and airbag lights stayed on. No matter how many ignition cycles, they would never shut off. At first my A2 gauges still showed temperature readings, but after pulling a couple fuses to check them, the A2 showed all 0's (I know the engine wasn't 0!).
The tow truck FINALLY got there almost 2 hours later (fortunately a state trooper stopped to check up on me and gave me a warm place to sit) and towed the truck to my buddy's garage. We got a heater going to make sure things were thawed out and started working on it. When we disconnected the battery cables there was a "click" which sounded like a relay somewhere in the vicinity of the injector pump. We reconnected the battery and the instrument panel was back to normal.
After this, we went ahead and installed a Holley Black pump which I had bought a few weeks ago since my fuel pressure has been running low (7-8 PSI at idle, 3-4 at steady driving speed and 2-3 under load). We cracked the return fuel line banjo bolt and bled it MANY times, releasing a lot of air. We still cannot get the truck to even fire. Finally gave up at 10PM last night and went home.
What are my chances that the injector pump is NOT bad? It's not throwing a CEL so we can't pull a code without going to a dealer, right?
One other thing we did not do is crack the injector lines at the valve cover to bleed them there. Is it always necessary to do so in a situation such as this when there is a total loss of fuel pressure?
Thanks so much in advance, I miss my truck!

vzdude

Still need to bleed injectors too if it gelled or ran out of fuel due to a bad lift pump. Usually you can crack the 3 or 4 easy ones to get to and it'll start to fire. Then tighten them back up and should be good to go. Relays can stick and do some funny things in this type of cold!

Jconaway

Thank you for the encouragement! I can use all I can get right now. My buddy has the day off work and he's going out to crack the injectors to see if that fixes it. When I installed the fuel pressure sensor a couple months ago I only had to crack the banjo bolt on the low pressure return line coming from the pump to bleed it, but then it didn't run out of fuel to the nozzles, either. Hopeing and praying...

bentwings

If there is an AutoZone near you it's possibe they will "loan" you a scanner. Do this so you at least can say you you checked codes. The IP failure doesn't always show up in codes however.

What is you fuel pressure now with the "black" installed.???

Jconaway

Will check with AutoZone on the scanner. There's no CEL lit, and I've been told that only a dealer can read it. It's definitely worth a shot, though.
I think there's still some air in the lines. Fuel pressure bounces around from 5-20 PSI. Lots of air got in the line when we had to cut it to install the Holley Black.

Jconaway

BTW, I just noticed that my signature was way outdated. It's now up-to-date, FWIW.

Jconaway

Today I called a friend who owns a repair shop where they specialize in the Cummins. He was hesitant to call it a bad VP and suggested that we didn't have the system bled well enough. He suggested doing the following.

CAUTION!!! The following procedure can cause catastrophic damage to your engine!!! Doing this improperly can blow up your engine, making for a really bad day.

Anyway, he said to disconnect power to both the primary and secondary heat grids. While someone cranks the engine, spray limited amounts of starting fluid into the intake until it starts. Once it catches, let it idle until it naturally bleeds the injector lines.
Doing this solved my problem. We had worked hours trying to get the truck running, not only loosening the banjo bolts but also cracking the injector lines at the valve cover with no luck. We never could get the least bit of fire until doing the ether trick. Fuel pressure is now great and the truck runs good.

hipsi

You might want to check your LP.. as if you crack the low pressure line to the VP and bump the starter you should have tons of fuel coming out. After you close the banjo bolt.. Crack injector line 1&3 and crank the engine until fuel sprays out (about 20-30 seconds) Close line 1 and then crank till she starts and then close line 3 and let it run until it bleeds itself clean..

If your not getting fuel to the VP then i would suspect Lift Pump has gone south..

Jconaway

The lift pump was indeed weak, but we had added a Holley Black pump and were getting plenty of fuel at the low-pressure banjo bolt. We had bled it many times on the low-pressure side and had plenty of fuel coming out but we could never could get any fuel at either 1, 3 or 4 injectors when we cracked them open. Finally we disconnected the heater grids so we wouldn't blow up the motor and used some starter fluid. After it ran a few seconds on starter fluid it self-primed itself. Been going strong since last Friday. Idling I have about 19 PSI, normal driving is 15-16 PSI and WOT only drops to a minimum of 10 PSI, and that's with the Edge Juice on level 5. Sure is nice to have my truck running again!