The_Hammer

The Super Tech 2-cycle oil that Walmart sells is right at $13 a gallon out the door. A rebuilt P7100 is $1500+, not counting labor. $1500 will buy 115 gallons of 2-cycle oil, enough to treat 14,769 gallons of diesel, which (assuming an average of 15 mpg) is enough to travel 221,535 miles. Would my pump require a rebuild/replacement in the next 200k miles if I didn't use 2-cycle oil? There's no way to know for sure. What I AM sure of is that ULS diesel does NOT meet Bosch's minimum lubricity requirements. Another thing that factors in (for me) is that it will take 15+ years to run up 200k miles on my truck, so overall I consider it cheap insurance.

Is it possible to repair the leaking primer pump?

Apparently I didn't check the "notify me of replies" box when I posted this. I thought no one had ever replied lol. Yeah, those solenoids must have been toast for a good while now. I found that the previous owner had a wire running from the starter relay to the FSS, completely bypassing the FSS relay. That wire ended up coming loose causing my FSS to no longer function without a literal helping hand. I now have everything properly repaired and a new relay from Larry B installed. It's a good feeling with you un-eff things back to the way they're supposed to be. That's how the L Series engines were set up in the early 80's to 90's Mack trucks. Considering where the relay is mounted it would be more like driving in to a lake lol.

I noticed my lift pump is leaking around the primer boot and was wondering if this can be repaired? The boot isnt torn and the pump itself is only about 4 years old. Am I correct to assume that this leak is letting air in the system?

I used a TYC heater core from Rockauto ($38) and an Everco A/C evaporator core ($61) from Autozone. Both seemed like quality units.

I worked as a heavy equipment mobile service tech for a company who owned about 20 gravel pits. The busiest times for me were when pits got rained out and had to shut down. I was always crawling around in mud and clay, getting completely soaked, which was extra fun after a cold front had blown in. The worst was at the landfill. I wore Tyvek suits with the arms/legs taped up to my gloves/boots but still managed to itch for days from all of the fiberglass. Sliding around under a vehicle on a piece of cardboard feels like a luxury to me now lol.

I don't even have a lift, never have. It's either a creeper or a pit.

What are these "shops" you people speak of?

Do one thing at a time to isolate the cause. See what DAP tells you before doing anything else, if the injectors are the cause there's no need to continue chasing ghosts.

Here ya go

I hate when I can see the part in my head, but can't remember what the thing is called.

Thanks! I was trying to figure out the best way to wrap it, I almost had it right lol.

Your talking about the oil cooler. It is a type of heat exchanger, but is normally referred to as an oil cooler.

I didn't want to use something with a lot of adhesion in case I needed to remove it.

You won't have a heat exchanger at all then. Dirty coolant isn't the problem, though a full coolant flush wouldn't be a bad idea once the smoke issue is fixed. It sounds like an injector issue to me. I'll be curious to see what DAP reports back on the injectors.

The heat exchanger you speak of isn't a part of the block, it's mounted to the block. If it leaks you'll get ATF in your coolant, but it has nothing to do with the truck blowing white smoke.

The fuel heater and it's wiring are gone. I've got a 16ga fusible link for the FSS, I wanted to make sure it was correct before installing it. The starter relay power wire has been replaced somewhere along the line so there isn't a link installed. The grid heater relays do in fact have links. I'm wanting to make sure everything is set up right. I've had wiring burst in to flames on a previous vehicle before, due to shoddy wiring by the previous owner.

What about a bedlined truck on 35's with 5" black mitre cut stacks?

Honestly, it not that difficult to do. It only takes about 30 minutes to get the harness out. Here are some tips from my experience; Think ahead before you start removing the harness. Are there random unused connectors floating around that you'd like to remove? Are some wires a mile too long, while others are too short? Do you want to change the way some of the wires are ran? Plan all of this out before you start, it will make things go easier. I used uninsulated butt connectors and heat shrink tubing when shortening wires, I highly recommend them. Also, make sure you stagger the connectors to keep the profile as minimal as possible. One thing you do NOT want to do is completely unwrap the entire harness at one time, it will make keeping the various plugs in the right location more difficult. Since the ends of the harness tape need to be secured, try to make as long of wraps as you can. Wrap connector wires first, tying the wraps in to the main harness. This will allow you to wrap over the ends when wrapping the main harness, eliminating the need to secure the ends of the connector wire wrap.

I think it looks much cleaner than plastic loom. Of only everything else under the hood looked that nice.

Well, my Tesa wiring harness tape came today. Good news is that this works really well, bad news is that I'm going to end up redoing most of the harness with it lol. A few things need to be said about this stuff. It is NOT an electrical tape, it's a replacement for plastic loom. It's meant to be wrapped directly around the wires and not over loom, except for areas of severe abrasion. It doesn't have a lot of adhesion to it, since it is meant to be easily removed if need be. Because of this, you'll want to make a few wraps in one spot when starting and lock the end when your finished. You can lock the end of the wrap with a small zip tie or two. A couple of rolls ($32) would be enough to wrap the entire under hood and transmission harness. So far I really like the stuff and will be using it in place of plastic loom.

Can you post a picture of your truck? The 6" factory lift is throwing me off a bit.

Ok, thanks. I forgot about ones in the grid heater wires, which are still intact.

I must have done something right, the truck actually starts and all my gauges work . I also noticed that the "wait to start" light works for the first time since owning the truck. I do have some questions about the fusible links, which the truck currently has none of. Is there supposed to be one in-line of the power wire going to the shutdown solenoid relay? What about for the starter relay? Should fusible links be two gauges smaller than the wire it's protecting?

Sounds like they're having one big SNAFU then. Harness is back in the truck. I've been shortening up wires that were always a mile too long, like the grid heater wires, grid heater relay wires, and oil pressure sender wires. Also rerouted the tps wires back through the harness up by the ABS unit. I deleted the tps in favor of a potentiometer so I didn't need the wires down by the pump anymore. Also deleted the fuel heater relay harness, along with a random relay harness that isn't used on this truck. All of the harness loops that were mounted at various points throughout the engine bay were broke, so I used zip ties to secures everything.