Well new to me at least!

Some of you helped me out in my other thread when looking for one. Well I finally pulled the trigger and picked one up!

It's a 2002 4x4 QC LB auto. Single owner, garage kept majority of its life, never had a goose neck or 5th wheel (which is harder to find than you'd think up here). Came with a 2in leveling kit and 35's and a hypertech 'tuner' to fix the speedo. Other then that, she's all stock. I crawled under to check for any signs of a 53 and couldn't find anything, so I might have a mexican block, but I'm going to keep checking. I couldn't be happier! I originally wanted a manual, but the wife said, if I'm getting a new truck then she better at least be able to drive it. So rather then argue, I just said 'ok' and got lookin!

Anyways, wanted to start a thread here because, since it is stock and I'm planning on keeping this truck for the long haul, I wanted to do some mini write ups of the mods and what not I get done to her. As of now, here's the order I want to go in:

1. FUEL! and lots of it!

2. Gauges

3. Steering

4. Transmission

5. More power!

3 and 4 may get swapped around depending on what's needed more and my budget but that's the general order.

 

So to start, fuel... The stock injection pump was replaced by the dealer 50-60k miles ago so it should have some decent life left, and it looks like they moved the stock lift pump. I didn't track it down exactly, just looking fairly quickly, and couldn't find it mounted on the frame, did they do in tank LP's for 02's? I'd like to fatten up my fuel lines to 3/8s everywhere possible, also looking to go with the Fuel Boss, but not sure how that works if my LP is mounted in the back in tank if that's even a thing. Any ideas or experience with this? As of now I'm looking at getting the following for step 1.

FUEL BOSS ----- BIG LINE KIT ----- MOD FUEL MODULE

As far as fuel lines, the obvious is the big line kit from Vulcan but I figured I'd talk with Eric about getting lines replace as much stock line as possible. I also threw on the modified fuel module. I saw that as I was browsing their site and hadn't seen it before. Is that necessary at all? Keep in mind I'm just looking to have fuel flow as easily as possible through the truck. When more power rolls around I don't plan on going EXTREME, but would like lack of fuel to never be thought of again after this.

I'll leave at this for now but really looking forward to wrenching on this truck and getting her setup for the long haul!

Way to tell mechanical vs. electric is easy. Mechanical will read what actual pressure is all the time. Electric ISSPro gauge will always sweep the needle full span and return to zero before reading pressure.

Alright so next up on the agenda is steering box brace and track bar. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a DOR track bar. It said in stock so I'm hoping I don't run into any long wait issues but I'm in no rush. 

Other then that I'll just be working on getting fluids changed so I can re-baseline everything and start normal maintenance intervals off those.

Alright guys have something weird going on and looking for some other opinions on what it could be. 

The jist of it is this morning, fired up the truck, no prob, fuel pressure was good. Read probably around 17-17.5 being cold I thought nothing of it, although it did sort of recently start doing it the last couple days. Drove to and from work, about 5 miles round trip (yea I live close to work ha) but still was seeing 18ish psi with hardly any decision from that. Truck made it to just about 190 coolant temp.

Well later this afternoon after being parked at the house for a few hours I got out and fire up the truck, starts fine, no hiccups, look over at the gauge after driving down the road a bit and gauge is stuck on 14psi. I have no idea why or what happend. 

Things ive checked already;

- tapping on the gauge to see if it was stuck

- turning the truck on/off

- opening the needle valve a lot!

- checked fittings at the VP, FASS and looked for leaks coming from fuel module (nothing there)

-no CELs

truck runs and starts fine, and I know 14 psi isn't bad but it's random!

I have a test gauge coming from Eric as well as some extra hose so I can do a bucket check as it seems to be an air leak somewhere but could it be anything else?

EDIT*** one extra thing of note. Before this when the gauge would build pressure to would build fairly quickly then slow up right around 15psi then gradually build up to the final 18ish psi. Now the gauge builds at the same speed but stops a turkey at 14psi. Originally made me feel like the gauge was sticking.

 

Edited March 17, 20169 yr by notlimah

So the gauge is at 14 even when it is off?

 

Check your needle valve, might have bumped closed.

No, not stuck at 14 when off. I tried opening the needle valve like at least a good 1/2 - 3/4 turn from what it was previously at and nothing changed on the gauge. I meant stuck like it doesn't move when driving and it seems to stop abruptly at 14psi when it's building pressure on start up

Weird.  

I'll do a quick video on my fuel pressure gauge. It wiggles around constantly.

Alright I got a video of what it was doing...

BEFORE

AFTER

Keep in mind the BEFORE is a cold start up, but still shows the difference in gauge behavior. Any ideas guys?

Well, one big one...  Water seperator full?  Filters full?  

Air leak on suction side?  Pressure regulator spring obstructed or stuck?  

Filters should be good. Made sure they were full when bleeding the system a couple weeks ago.

air leak suction side will have to wait until I get more hose, but possible.

regulator spring is on the sending side of the FASS right? I'd have to check that. 

It could be a gear issues internally inside the gauge. I would contact ISSPro for support.

9 hours ago, notlimah said:

Filters should be good. Made sure they were full when bleeding the system a couple weeks ago.

air leak suction side will have to wait until I get more hose, but possible.

regulator spring is on the sending side of the FASS right? I'd have to check that. 

I ment mabe full of water or crud if you got some bad fuel.  

I doubt it is the regulator, but it could be possible.  And yes, on mine the spring is on the sending side.  Ive never had mine apart though.

Mike is right too.  The gauge could just be messed up.

Just to keep you guys in the loop...

Looks like its the gauge. I tapped it before when it initially happened to check to see if it just got hung up on something but apparently I didn't hit it hard enough. I did it again this morning and tapped it right up to the 17-18psi it will typically sit at for a cold start up idle. Going to call Eric and see if the return would go through him or ISSPRO.

Thanks for all the tips though guys! I'll keep those in my back pocket for future troubleshooting.

Quick update post here...

I had to get mud flaps put on the truck  I'm personally not a big fan of flaps or flares but local law enforcement sure is!  Anyways I had a local shop fab up some brackets and mount them so I wouldn't rip them off and they'd at least look like they're supposed too. Over all I think they turned out ok, probably could've done it myself but times not on my side these days and I needed them to avoid the $195 fine!! 

Either way as long as I live up here I'll just have to learn to live with em!

The last couple days have been awesome mail call days. DOR delivered this little (read; ENORMOUS) baddie...

Really looking forward to getting this on and see how much it'll clean up my wander. I installed the VPmax steering box brace last week (sorry no pics!) and I feel it's helped a bit but there's still the side to side action so I'm sure this'll fix it. Hoping to get a decent write on that when it goes in. 

And a special thanks to Tyler aka @TFaoro for lending me his smarty for a bit! 

I'm looking forward to messing around with this as best I (and my stock tranny) can without getting into to much trouble. Thanks again Tyler! 

More to come later!

UPDATE TIME!

 

Alright well not much has been happening as far as wrenching on the truck. Things have been busy so the only tinkering I've been able to do is with the (borrowed) Smarty.

 

So far I've I tried on Catcher 3 and 5 and ended up staying with 5. It definitely livens the truck up quite a bit over stock and drops the power to kick it at very little throttle input. That in turn has made the truck a lot more easier (and fun) to drive. I think this has actually caused to truck to shift smoother from 3rd LU to 4th and 4th LU. It's also nice because I was a very low throttle input driver unless merging with traffic and things so this has really made the truck a pleasure to drive! I also got a 2 dollar turnbuckle from Home Depot and threw it on there and on my (very rare) WOT throttle runs I was seeing just shy of 30psi and never below 17psi.

 

All in all the Smarty is a great little box!

 

Next on the agenda is the DOR track bar. If you didn't already know, I like (read: HAVE) too plan things out before I start wrenching on the truck in order to keep my time out there as short as possible and so I can avert any problems. Needless to say and embarrassingly so, the DOR track bar install finally dawned on me to be real simple. For some reason in my mind I had visualize the bracket being mounted on the truck on the other side of the cross member making the instructions seem really confusing. After finally getting under the truck and holding the bracket up there and reading the instructions I finally realized that I was wrong (DUH) and that the instructions did in fact, make perfect sense. ANYWAYS, I just need to get a drill bit and hole saw so I can drill the holes and mount her up. I'll do my best to take as many pics as I can so I can hopefully help someone avoid the same confusion as me!

 

Well that's all for now, hopefully my next post will be with pics of a track bar installed!

Sounds good.  I plan the same way... as time has progressed, I make fewer mistakes.  

 

Be careful with the smarty on a stock trans.  Your line pressure and thus clutch pressure is related to vehicle speed and throttle position from what I'm told.   

Thanks man! Yea the stock tranny is always a thought. The WOT runs were mainly just for testing purposes, definitely not something that happens even often, more like rarely. I haven't gotta about level 5 and don't plan too. I was even thinking of trying level 3 and tweaking the settings some from there. Or just trying MPG mode and seeing how that went.

Interested in the track bar!

1 hour ago, TFaoro said:

Interested in the track bar!

 

Figured you would! Haha did you ever get ahold of DOR? The install looks really easy (now that I've had my epiphany) just gotta find the time to do it. I'm also thinking of taking off the leveling kit, I'm just not sure I can run my tires without it and not rub like a sob.

1 hour ago, notlimah said:

 

Figured you would! Haha did you ever get ahold of DOR? The install looks really easy (now that I've had my epiphany) just gotta find the time to do it. I'm also thinking of taking off the leveling kit, I'm just not sure I can run my tires without it and not rub like a sob.

No... trying a new steering damper first. So far I've had luck with no death wobble. Went with a Rancho and it's much better than the one that was on it.

 

If you put on the 09+ steering kit you'll need the leveling kit!

Edited March 30, 20169 yr by TFaoro