My Pete rebuild

[Rawze]

looks like your iron dropped way off vs. miles. -- that is a good sign.

[Nostalgic]

If there was ever an argument about how much a poorly reading exhaust pressure sensor affects mileage....



Not apples to apples comparison, 4.3 was fighting North Dakota's wind while pulling a parachute, and I ran 950 of the 1300+ miles empty (yes, I bounced 1600 miles home from Denver), but I still was never able to do much better than high 7's empty before. I saw 9.8, but the closer I got to home, the more impatient I got and finished it out at 9.3. Oddly enough, my readout has been accurate to within .1 mpg lately compared to paper.

[Nostalgic]

So, last Saturday evening as I was making my way out west, I hopped off 80 to run 20 west through Indiana. As soon as I made my left got up to about 45-50 my engine died. I tried to coast to better spot, but found myself with no shoulder, just about to the crest of a little hill. Hit the starter a couple of times but it was dead-dead. Hurried up and drug my triangles out, checked my ECM fuses at the battery box, fuse for the ignition switch, etc. Tried tapping the ecm, no change. Jiggled the connectors and unplugged the power/ground plug to make sure I had power and ground at the 4 terminals.

Plugged it back in and the lift pump came on! Truck started up and idled smooth. Ok, ran back and grabbed my triangles, and just as I picked up #3, I heard the truck stumble and die again. It would start for a second and die. I had Insite up and running at that point, but it would not stay connected to the ECM. I did manage to check the fuel pressure @ cranking to make sure I had pressure, but it was challenging with constant signal loss.

All in all I pissed around for over an hour before it would start long enough to get over the crest and get coasted to a wide spot off the road.

Of course, it happens when EVERYTHING is closed for the next 36 hours. I declined wasting money on a tow, and a little shop was kind enough to supply me with a battery charger to keep my electric apu bunk ac going while another neighbor was kind enough to give me a ride to/from the Love's a couple miles down the road to get a shower. Many thanks to Rawze for BS'ing with me over the weekend - pretty sure the off topic rants kept me partially sane haha.

I was shocked Monday morning to find that no one in the area had a ECM. Had to get one from Hunter's back home and have one of our trucks drop it off.

Not sure if it's been mentioned here or not, but I see that Cummins may have acknowledged the problem and modified the case to prevent shorting?

New ECM with raised area on top of case:

[Nostalgic]

Rawze mentioned possible vibration to contribute to the ECM failure, and since I have 100k on my Dorman balancer, it's getting replaced with an OE.



I still have some noise from my timing gears, so I may wait until next weekend to pull the radiator and check everything out on the front end. Light engine load, it has a rattle sound on accel. Never had any noise until I put a new adjustable idler gear on during the rebuild? Not sure if the noise could be coming from the new gear to old injector gear mesh? If so, I'm guess the only solution would be to just replace the injector and valve gears? All are non-scissor gears.

[Volvo8873]

How much was the balancer for you? I was quoted the other day for 730 dollars as I need to replace mine. Just seeing if that is a good ballpark price for myself.

and that is interesting with the ECM being different. The big red engine maker must be data mining this forum! LOL

[Nostalgic]

(07-18-2020 )Volvo8873 Wrote:  How much was the balancer for you? I was quoted the other day for 730 dollars as I need to replace mine. Just seeing if that is a good ballpark price for myself.

and that is interesting with the ECM being different. The big red engine maker must be data mining this forum! LOL

When I called to make an order, I didn't ask for a better price - usually I do. They billed me $685.

Vibratech is $100 cheaper, but Rawze mentioned that they've had as many issues as Dorman, which was around $200 from Summit.

[Chamberpains]

How much was the new ECM? She sure is shiney.

[Nostalgic]

(07-18-2020 )Chamberpains Wrote:  How much was the new ECM? She sure is shiney.

$2500 with the core charge. I'm going to try to get mine warrantied since it's only 9 months old with 1000 hrs...

[Lonestar10]

There was a recall on ecms I would get the info from your dead one see if it was part of the recall. I posted info on up sometime back on here