Not getting fuel

[R.Mojica]

So within the last month I removed my injectors and had them sent out to have the GTD nozzles installed and pop pressure set at 2400 psi. The car ran fine when I parked it about a month ago to do the injectors but now will not start. Fuel gauge was under a quarter of a tank and I had the car parked on a downward incline so first thing I did was put 5 gallons of fuel in it which brought me up to about a half a tank but still no luck getting fuel to the injectors. Cranking it with the first three injector lines loose and no fuel comes out. Fuel filter is full but I don't see any fuel in the clear hose going up to the injection pump. I have power at the fuel shut off solenoid. Battery he's good and I had a battery charger on it along with jumper cables going to my ram Cummins wich has two batteries to keep the cranking speed up as fast as possible. I'm not even getting any bubbles out of the injector lines. I'm kind of running out of ideas. If the fuel shut off solenoid is bad all of a sudden would that stop it from even bringing fuel up into the pump?

[ngoma]

Originally Posted by R.Mojica

If the fuel shut off solenoid is bad all of a sudden would that stop it from even bringing fuel up into the pump?

Not sure. The IP does cycle fuel through itself to help cooling, but not sure if the fuel shut off solenoid closes that circuit. Can you hear/feel the solenoid action when applying/removing 12VDC to it?

Did you open up or change anything upstream of the IP? Anything that could cause it to lose its prime?

It takes a really long time to get fuel out to the injectors. I ran out of fuel the other day and it took several minutes of cranking to get it to fire again. NOTE: Not continuous cranking; that will kill the starter. 10 sec. cranking, 30 sec. cool off period, 10 sec. cranking, 30 sec. cool off period, etc. Don't abuse the starter, esp. if it is the original Hitachi small one.

Flooring the accelerator while cranking helps.

If you are not seeing fuel in the clear IP intake hose you need to pressurize the fuel into the IP. The greenbook shows a temporary fuel container (elevated) (on the car roof?) draining into a temp. fuel line feeding the IP. I would attach it to the fuel filter inlet. Another method is to install a low pressure electric fuel pump upstream of the fuel filter. Forum mod v8volvo had successfully used a marine outboard motor tank hand squeeze fuel bulb pressurizer ahead of the fuel filter before. He left it there semi-permanently.

A longshot, but sometimes the sliding vanes on the centrifugal lift pump in the front section of the IP can get stuck, or otherwise not get flung outward in their slots (insufficient cranking speeds?) enough to make a good seal against the housing.

[v8volvo]

Agree ^

If the car was parked with the IP unions open, while you had the injectors out, and the level in the tank was low, it will siphon all the fuel out of the pump and empty out the supply circuit. Once the supply pump in the IP is dry, it is much harder for it to pull fuel and reprime. Positive pressure on the fuel inlet is the best way to do this. Once there is fuel in the suction pump (assuming it didn't have an issue as ngoma mentioned, but probably OK if it worked fine before), it'll prime the rest of it, and the lines, quickly.

Any of the options described will do well for this. Electric booster pump is nice since it maintains steady pressure but a primer bulb is fine if you can run the starter under the hood from a jumper, or have a helper work the bulb while you turn the key to prime. Gravity feed would probably work well but might be slower.

Failure of the shutoff solenoid wouldn't prevent the IP from priming itself and circulating fuel from the tank, it only blocks the port that allows the high-pressure chamber in the pump head from filling with fuel from the main pump housing. It would prevent you from bleeding the hard lines if it stuck but the pump would pull fuel from the filter just fine. Solenoid failure is rare, probably just needs a little help to prime the suction pump then it'll go.

I like to unplug the ground terminal from the GP relay for extended cranking to bleed to save some wear on the plugs and give some extra current for the starter as well, the plugs pull amps that reduce speed. Crank till there is fuel flowing from all 6, tighten the nuts, put the ground back on the relay, and it should start right up.

[R.Mojica]

Loostened all the lines at the injectors yesterday and pulled glow plug fuse and tried 3 or 4 10 second cranking sessions and still bone dry at the injectors. Having a friend over to help with the other suggestions you guys listed.

[NJTy180]

not sure if its the approved method around here or not, but when I was getting that 83 I bought running for the first time after sitting for years and years, I pulled the return line off and used one of those oil squirt cans filled with fuel and pumped it up until the IP was full of fuel. Somewhere there was a small screw that appeared work as a bleeder, but I can't for the life of me explain where it was.

Either way I had it fired up in about 20 mins after swapping out the fuel filter then just cracked and bled the injectors as usual.

[v8volvo]

Originally Posted by R.Mojica

Loostened all the lines at the injectors yesterday and pulled glow plug fuse and tried 3 or 4 10 second cranking sessions and still bone dry at the injectors. Having a friend over to help with the other suggestions you guys listed.

The glow plug fuse in the car (#13) also runs the IP shutoff solenoid. For that reason, you don't want to pull it when you're trying to bleed the lines. Pull the black ground wire (single spade terminal) off the bottom of the glow plug relay instead, as suggested. Just make sure it doesn't come into contact with the battery 12V+ feed wire while it's off. You need the GP fuse to be in place while bleeding.

Force-feeding the IP if it went dry will be the fix for this; cranking with the pump dry won't do it. Use one of the methods described, feeding pressure *ahead* of the fuel filter, since you want to keep the fuel clean and prime the filter and supply line too. Should start easily once the IP is full again. If it sat with the injector unions open, you'll be amazed at how thoroughly it's able to dry the pump out -- even overnight -- since the tank is much lower than the IP, especially if the fuel level is low.

If you have no way to add pressure but have a MityVac or other vacuum source, an alternative that is a little more labor-intensive is to vacuum prime the IP. For this, you need to temporarily *tighten* the injector unions (so that you don't suck air in from there), then connect the vacuum source to the IP outlet hose - union near the dipstick tube works fine. Pull vacuum and you should be able to watch fuel flow from the filter head through the clear line into the pump. Pull until you get clear, air-free fuel flowing out the pump outlet line. Then reconnect the outlet to the tank return, loosen the injector unions, and crank to bleed. Works, but takes much longer and is more laborious, partially due to the small orifices in the return banjo that make bleeding slow, and also because you don't get to add positive pressure while cranking. But it is an option if you're in a bind and this is all you have available.

[R.Mojica]

We got it running. had a friend over yesterday. we pressurized the fuel tank and cracked open the fuel return at the IP, lots of air then fuel came out while cranking. at that point I put the fuse back in as I had a feeling it had something to do with the fuel shutoff also. a few minutes later we had it running. I drove it 40 miles to work today, it was 17 degrees when I left this morning. started alright, alittle stumble for the 1st 2 minutes till I pulled out of my driveway. thanks for the help guys.

[ngoma]

Good for you! How did you pressurize the fuel tank?

[R.Mojica]

i rolled up a paper towel around the outside of the filler neck, cut the bottom off a 20oz soda bottle and suck my air blow tool in the cap side of the bottle. i have a 33 gallon compressor.