What can you tell me about the auto shutdown function?

[Cosmo Beauregard]

Newbie here, play nice. My son's 2001 24V 6Sp manual has started an interesting/frustrating new habit. Seems as if once the beastie gets up to temperature and your changing throttle positions I'm getting an uncommanded shutdown. I verified this phenomenon this afternoon by shoving a thumbtack through my Red/Lt. Green 12V+ wire going to my VP44 and hooking up a VOM to it. Sitting in the driveway I let it idle and gave it some light accelerator action until Barney the Wonder Mule warmed up. I opened the throttle to about 2000 rpm once it got close to 190 degrees and ran the accelerator pedal above and below 2000 RPM about 200 rpm either side of the 2K mark. Sure enough within 2 minutes the VOM dropped to 0 Volts and it died. Cycle the key back off and the beastie fires right back up. Got a Full copy of the Factory Shop Manual, 3000 pages of mis-direction. I have a hard time cipherin' whats Gas and whats Diesel ops. Any help would be genuinely appreciated.

[gassernomore]

I would check for codes first! If you don't have a tool to do that yo9u can try the key trick. BUT it has to say "done" TWICE! If not, you will have to have the codes read at a parts store. Key trick is on, off, on, off, on,on then write down the numbers that come up and repost them on the forum. That will give us some valuable info to start helping you out!P.S. When you do the key trick that is not starting the truck up. Good Luck!

[Mopar1973Man]

Welcome to the family... Don't worry no one is going to give you a hard time of being a noob. We are all a big family and help each other!

Ok... As for the ASD Relay I'm not eaxact sure how that has a effect on the engine for diesel... But on the gasser engine ASD relay controls the fuel injectors, ignition, etc. But if you look at the ASD realy on the diesel though it just loops back to the PCM...

Error codes would be a good start too.

As for the Red/green lead that is the power wire to the VP44.

As for the rest of the wiring...

http://articles.mopar1973man.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=87:dodge-ram-turbo-cummins-24-valve-engine-wiring&catid=26&Itemid=107

[Cosmo Beauregard]

First, to gassernomore thank you for offer to help. In trying to be as brief as possible, I left out some additional gremlins I was dealing with. I promised myself that I would post the solution to my problem, no matter how stupid I would appear to those who read these posts. Nothing is a bigger waste of time than to read post after post of interesting problems and then... no solution the poster just stops. Evidently the problem was fixed but rest of us were left with no answer. I feel, if you're going to ask for help, please have the decency to see it through. That's how these sites work and knowledge is gained by all. Climbing off my soapbox now... I replaced the VP44 about 6 months ago. Added the AirDog FP-150 at the same time and the Quadzilla not long after. Barney was a brand new Mule and ran great for 5 months. Then came the first uncommanded shutdown. Checked things out found my Apps had no initial switch for the Idle input. So, I went to Radio Shack and bought a microswitch mounted it at the Throttle head wired it in and it worked. Then I noticed Barney was leaking oil right under the Vacuum Pump adapter. So, I replaced the seal and O-ring, and it leaked again. Another seal and O-ring and yet another leak. So I put that project on hold to continue working the Shutdown issue. I replaced the sockets at the VP44 electrical connector, replaced the wiring harness to the VP44 connector, rang out the wiring over and over again from the PCM to the ECM to the PDC to the VP44 to the Lift Pump. No fooling, I spent 3 days and a full steno pad checking and double checking. Then the Battery Cables just looked like Fido's butt. So, I replaced them with double 00 welders cables. Not just what was there to begin with but also ran an 00 Negative Battery tie together as well. Still no joy. Frustrated You betcha'. After I sent my post went back outside to check on the Leaking Vacuum Pump. I fired Barney the Wonder Mule back up and viewed the leak from a different angle. I noticed there was oil laying on top of the adapter and all over my pretty new wiring harness. Then I noticed oil being ejected from above the Vacuum Pump. Using principles learned from Sir Isaac Newton, I looked up. DOH! the oil leak I could not fix at the Vacuum Pump was because the leak was coming from the VP44 Gear box connection! While I was pondering what type of seal that would take. I looked at the VP44 and something was definitely wrong, I just couldn't put my finger on it.... Oh, yeah! where are my mounting bolts for the VP44? All four of my mounting stud/nuts gone. The only thing holding my VP44 on the truck was the Nut and lock washer at the Injection Pump Input Shaft!! Yikes!!. Then everything made sense. Whenever the VP44 lost it's case ground the Auto shutdown relay lost it's ground and collapsed the coil holding the 12V+ on my Red/Lt. Green wire. which is exactly what I observed when I made my first post. Sorry for the length of this post. But the members of this board deserve to know what happened even at my expense of looking very, very foolish. If it saves someone else, then we as a community move forward. -Cosmo.

[Mopar1973Man]

Hmmm...

Take notice that the VP44 and the ECM both share the same ground so if the master ground from the driver side battery was weak/random then the ECM would shut down and so would the fuel pump relay, as well as the VP44. So since you mention the battery cable where replaced be sure the small cable was included back into the terminal...

[Cosmo Beauregard]

Mike, thank you for your obvious concern in helping me straightening this wiring Bird's nest out. The way it was shutting down was just as if I had shut the key off which led me to the UN-described Auto shutdown relay in the first place. All it takes is a split second of ground loss and its game over until you roll the Key through off and back up to run again to re-establish your VP44 power circuit. I figured you would have enjoyed the story having heard countless others. One thing that led me to adding the welders cables was Mother Mopar's decision to go cheap and undersize the two small Negative cables. I never understood the reasoning behind such decisions. Your amperage draw is only as good as your smallest conductor, right? By the way, I found one of the VP44 mounting studs with the nut still attached laying beside the steering gear box. I don't think I'll use it again. Evidently the Cummins produces enough vibration to really wear the hardware out. This stud is made from some pretty hard steel alloy, however the nut rocks pretty severely on the stud threads. That comes from a lot of time under some great vibration. I'll Probably go back with a new set of studs with the Red Loc-tite, but use some fiber lock nuts instead. I can live with a torque of 30 Ft Lbs rather than Cummins' 38 FtLbs with their no lock steel nuts. just something you might mention when folks are replacing things on high time engines. Thanks again for the support! Cosmo.

[keachman1]

Is this a common problem? Do I need to check my VP pump mounting hardware if it has never been apart?

[Mopar1973Man]

I don't think so... You'd be surprised how tight the bolts are typically in a VP44...