Mopar1973Man

LMAO I gotta say it's neat little van. Runs good so far. Beaty well it's not beautiful looking. Carpets pretty dirty the back seat are fur covered by dog. Mopar Van to generic. I'm sure it will name it's self soon. I'll do something with it that will be beyond the norm.

Ok gang. Put a bit of effort into the mini-van and every time I went to town and stopped anywhere the oil light would come on and chime. I ordered a cheap $20 NAPA oil pressure switch for the light. When I got under to look at the oil filter and the oil pressure switch the switch had been leaking and dropping down the lower radiator hose. After fighting that red lock tab to get it unlocked and remove the plug. You can see the oil been leaking out of the switch inside the plug. Now installed the oil pressure switch and not seen the oil light all day. Yes the light comes on for a bulb check still at start up. Now I dug even deeper and considered if this didn't fix the problem I would get a oil pump rebuild kit and rebuild the oil pump. While the pan was down I could even do all the main bearings and con-rod bearings. I found bearing kits for cheap. The best part there is nothing in the way of the pan so you could do that job super easy. But since the oil pressure switch was the answer no need to go that far now. I do need to do a few other things. Find a few used tires for the mini-van and fresh windshield without cracks in it. Other than that its a nice little mini-van it drive pretty good even on ice with wore out tires. That front wheel drive does really well. Now I'm thinking I need to name this little "beater with heater" as someone pointed out.

Plastic tubing for the vacuum lines is well rather brittle at this stage of life on any truck. It would be a good idea to replace all that plastic tubing along the cowl and down to all the device with air brake tubing. This stuff is pretty tough and works for vacuum just as well. Just need some rubber vacuum hose to fit over the air brake tubing to hook back up to nipples on devices.

Places for fuel to enter the oil... Injector body o-rings Cracked head Bad injectors (wore out or stuck open). VP44 front seal failed (excessive fuel pressure) So that being said. How many miles on the injectors if there is over 100k miles on them time to replace. If the injectors have that much mileage on them it very possible for the body o-ring to be seeping fuel back up in the top of the head. If you had 20+ PSI fuel pressure its possible to blow out the VP44 shaft seal. I know people here will tell of stories of being between 20 to 30 PSI with no issues but it does happen to blow out possibly on a weak or wore seal. The high idle shows me the injectors are wore out and popping to early and lower in pop pressure. So that would be my first thought is to change injectors or at least have what you got tested and re-popped to stock 310 bar again. Bottom line is 293 bar and thing start getting well sloppy injector wise.

I should sell mine being it sitting under my deck rusting away.

With my BlueTop I'm enjoying driving my Cummins more so being I've got a Quick Ratio steering box. This can only be done on stock or smaller tires which I've got. I'm way impressed with quick ratio over a stock box way tighter feeling and quick reaction out of the steering. Comparing mine to other customers rigs mine feels factory fresh like the day I bought but just a touch better. I stayed with Blue Top because of the case is still a sagnaw. Really easy to rebuild and adjust later on. I've gotten over 350k miles on my stock box before the input seal failed. Yeah this means you need to do fluid flushes every 30k miles.

I've done local road trips on a 1983 Honda Goldwing 1100cc. I enjoyed it for a short time till the head gasket blew.

I'll agree... The whole problem stems from the fact that all 1st Gens, 2nd Gens, and part of the 3rd Gens. The gasoline side was using vacuum for all the stuff like HVAC controls and axles (4wd) and the cruise control. Diesel don't have any way to create a vacuum strong enough. So vacuum pump were added. Once we go to the 04.5 roughly IIRC is the start of all non-vacuum control trucks. Now when you trade for electric HVAC that get expensive. Dash controls for HVAC is not cheap. Then being most of the truck is CANBus messages for control makes it tougher to work on as well. So if there is a bad wire or voltage of the message is skewed then you might be really pissed of where turning on the wipers will turn the hi beams on. Yes I've seen this before and it super tough to fix.

Whole engine harness needs to be swapped. that takes care of the ECM but you really should do the PCM as team which the Smarty can't do. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are all hydraulic shifts. Then 4th gear is electronic. The torque converter lock up is electronic. There is governor pressure sensor and the governor solenoid which is electronic controlled. Then the trans temp sensor for temperature which is relayed to the PCM as well.

Right now I'm being fussy about jobs anyways. I really don't want to work outside any longer. I'm getting tired of have the ice injure me (slips and falls), then the cold itsself which is getting old coming home to try and warm up in a shower or next to a wood stove. I'm ready for spring and getting the heck out of here.

Don't forget me in the notifications of this trip.

I've done 47RE to NV4500 conversion. Make sure to have both ECM and PCM reflashed. Now for Manual to Auto you will need to swap the electrical harness being the auto will require wiring for the auto. Converting to manual you can leave the auto wiring in but it will be short features like reverse lights being the auto plug won't work.

Here is the power distribution map.

I never liked the little screen inserts. Doesn't take much before it plugs up from debris or gelled fuel and then you stuck. Rather have the spin on filter personally. Again Raptor pumps have no return port to the fuel tank so cavitation is a real problem with these pumps. Then the adjustable regulators are problem prone too. Not like the old school spring and check ball like the full AirDog or FASS pumps have.

Electric vacuum pumps. Kind of like the argument of electric fuel pumps vs mechanical fuel pumps. Yeah I can see this being a different answer but still in all yes electric motors have wear limitations. Electric vacuum pumps will still put the same kind of load on the engine being the load is on the alternator. I will admit the old mechanical vacuum pumps are way more simpler, easy to rebuild, and the seal kits are fairly cheap.

100um water separator / pre-filter AirDog 150. Take it a step further now. I'm also running 3um on the AirDog 150 and then 7um NAPA filter in the stock can.What I started doing years ago was cutting the cans off the AirDog filter and looking at color of the media. I found that with my drawsstraw in the main fuel body not in the sender basket I get cooler fuel. Now my filters last much much longer I change both stock and AirDog filters every 60k miles. That is 4 times longer than stock. The stock setup with drawing fuel from the sender basket is much much hotter fuel which now produces Asphaltenes this is where the fuel temp exceeds 150*F and now the black asphaltenes start showing up in the fuel filters. 15,000 miles on a Fleetguard Filter 3um. My filters stay much much cleaner longer and way less issue with injection pumps and injectors. My fuel temp typically below 130*F even in the summer.

How advanced is your timing?

As for the cavitation problem was brought forward back with the Carter lift pumps since they return from the output to the input. When you fire up the pump and zero flow but max pressure the non-returning pumps would create air bubbles in the solution. So the video I watched was with a Carter lift pump. and when the pump fired up and flowed max volume and then shut off the flow the suction side line would fill with air from the fuel returned back to the input side. This was one of the things that AirDog was in design because the AirDog and FASS would return to the tank. If the pump was dead headed and no flow of fuel it would not create cavitation. Simply because the pump would be flowing 100% on the return line.

Always suggest a pre-filter before the pump and never had a cavitation issues. Pumps without a return line are very common for cavitation especially when the pump is dead headed.

Down side to @JAG1 suggestion is that returning your fuel to the sender is heated by the cylinder head and VP44 and sent back the sender. If your drawing fuel from here your fuel temps will be much much higher. Say in the realm of 150 to 160*F. Now if you ditch that whole idea and use a standard draw straw in the main fuel tank not out of the sender you find the fuel temps are much lower. Like my truck my AirDog was installed back in 2006. I've kept cooler fuel temps than about 90% of thye people here being I'm not drawing from the sender cup. Yeah I might have Empty tank and 1/8 tank slosh but still clearing over 200k on my last VP44. Being that I've only heard of one person posting up a thread about P0168 code which is high fuel temperature. But we all agree that heat is not a good thing for PSG unit on the VP44. Now I can tell you if you setup like myself your fuel temp will follow the IAT temp exactly. This is due to part I've still got my stock fuel filter housing and there is a coolant passage in the head near the fuel filter so since IAT is right near this coolant passage too the fuel and IAT tend to be very close all the time. Like this winter I'm lucky to see between +20*F to 60*F for fuel temps. Summer time I've have to be towing up a 7% grade with my RV in the Arizona heat to get past 140*F in fuel temps typically.

There will be zero gains in braided steel lines vs. rubber lines. The fact is pressure will be the same regardless of lines. You might want to cut open a rubber line and look at how it's made.

Sprout? Bush? Better be full grown money tree. Man that head is rather speedy. Wow!

Enuf Said...

Yeah I'll admit I'm in the learning curve of 3rd Gen trucks. As for working on them I've had some practice on replacing injectors. Done 2014 4th Gen, 2004 3rd Gen, etc. In most cases the truck would not start or if it did MPG is low and performance is a bit off at least to me. Just like tonight I heard a Ford 7.3L pull into a fuel station and notice the off beat lope. I ask the owner he had 200k plus. I told him he might consider replacing all 8 injectors. Yup I've done 2 sets of 7.3L Ford Injectors in this last year.

No. Again if the injectors are not changed in the 100k to 150k you take a risk of cylinder wash. More the injectors wear out you can litterially drive the truck till it no longer runs because the rail pressure is bleeding out through multiple injectors. I've seen at least 6 vehicles unable to start because of wasted injectors most times the cylinders are washed out as well with high blow by. So my advise is if the previous owner hasn't done injectors (all six) then you can bet it will be due when you buy the truck. That's another thing I fight with people just replacing the worn injectors maybe 1 or 2 to save money but the other 4 are ready to fail. Then wonder why it always having issues.