Took lid off pump, now no-start.

[web]

I might have done something terribly wrong but we had to do some emergency surgery on my mate's Volvo wagon. It had sprung a fairly large fuel leak at the top of the (Bosch IDI) pump. It gushed out at the throttle shaft, which had quite a lot of play, too. Hardly surprising at 475,000 km but still

So we thought we'd pull the lid off a spare pump, bolt it on and be done with it.

I couldn't find any good pics or drawings of pump internals, but I was like how hard can it be? I took care to put the lid back on the way it was, marked all the screws etc etc. Looked like a good move, the rubber seal on the "old" throttle shaft was hard and rough so we exchanged that as well and put it back together.

We were a bit too optimistic it seems. After finishing the job, it won't start Sounds like it almost wants to start but as soon as you let go of the key it dies. Giving it some throttle doesn't help. There are also small puffs of black smoke coming out the exhaust. It seems to get fuel, but is it too much or too little? Maybe we messed up timing in a big way?

I also noticed, before hooking up te throttle return spring, the shaft can be turned anywhere and stay there. Is it supposed to do that? It does seem like that, because the vertical (internal) lever can be moved around as well.

What did we do wrong? We didn't lose a spring or something somewhere did we?

Linkage seems to go together only one way, confirmed by very slight wear marks. We even did that the lazy way, by tapping out the lever shaft to free the lid... cos from the outside we couldn't see much, that seemed the best way.

We took a few pics. I'll link them instead of posting, because they are rather large (~ 1MB each)

http://jan.huijsmans.nu/tmp-dieselpomp/img_1111.jpg
http://jan.huijsmans.nu/tmp-dieselpomp/img_1115.jpg

http://jan.huijsmans.nu/tmp-dieselpomp/img_1112.jpg
http://jan.huijsmans.nu/tmp-dieselpomp/img_1113.jpg

As you can see it's a turbodiesel.

Marcel

[SMOKEYDUB]

did you bleed all the air out of the injector pump? same thing happend to me. Try adjesting the max fuel screw and play with were the throttle lever bolts onto. If you did not bleed the pump simply get a 17mm wrench and crack all the injector line nuts loose get your friend to crank the engine until a bit of fuel starts sprayin out. If you want to do it right do not stop cranking until all 4 injectors are pulsing fuel and then tighten all the injetor line nuts while still cranking. I think that is your problem. After that she should start.

[web]

So even though the bottom half of the pump was still full of fuel, and we never took off injector or feed lines, air could still be the problem?

We'll take another look at any difference in adjustment of max fuel screws (too bad we have to take off the lid again to see) and bleed the injector lines.

Lever itself was put back on the splines exactly where it was.

BTW is it normal if you take off the external spring, the throttle lever will stay in any position (within limits) ? In other words, is the external spring the only thing that pulls it back to idle when the engine is not running? I noticed that when hooking it back up.

[fspGTD]

It looks to me like all the springs, etc are accounted for.  Assuming they are all put back together right, it should work.

I agree that if get all the air out and if you did put everything back right, including having the correct throttle orientation, it should fire.  You need to prime these pumps after the fuel inside them gets drained out, cranking might not do it all by itself either, you might need a way to manually get fuel in.

It looks to me like you didn't change the position of the full load screw... that is a good way to do it, as it is fewer things to have to worry about getting right after re-assembling.  In that case, I wouldn't make any adjustments to it.

Did you mark the position of the splines on the input shaft and put them back on the same orientation?  That is another possibility.  Good luck

[fspGTD]

So even though the bottom half of the pump was still full of fuel, and we never took off injector or feed lines, air could still be the problem?

Bingo, I think this is your problem right here.  You need to prime that pump, get some fuel into it.  And cranking by itself might not do the job.  You might need to use a turkey baster, outboard inline squeeze bulb, electric pump, whatever to get fuel in there.  You can get it into the stop solenoid or out banjo opening using only gravity (IE: turkey baster).  You can also get it into the "in" banjo opening, but it must be forced with some pressure if you go in that way.

BTW is it normal if you take off the external spring, the throttle lever will stay in any position (within limits) ? In other words, is the external spring the only thing that pulls it back to idle when the engine is not running? I noticed that when hooking it back up.

Eh, yeah I think so.  You might feel the govenor bind up against the LDA stop at one point approaching wide open though.  But around idle and near light loads I would expect not enough spring rotational pressure to overcome the resistance of the throttle shaft o-ring.

[web]

Well, we got the old lid fixed at a local diesel shop for like $30 (includes seal kit, new bush pressed in and new throttle shaft).

Cut a long story short : when putting the original lid back on today, I realised I messed up putting the lever back on the splines correctly. The way I put it back last week it probably tried to idle at 100 rpm or so, no matter which way I turned the throttle lever

I should have marked it PROPERLY, instead of turning it back to a stop and memorizing the position. I thought I'd removed all external stops but I probably missed one, so when I thought I'd duplicate that position by turning the shaft back as far as it would go and then putting the lever on, I actually turned it back WAY too far. Total movement in the throttle shaft is about three full throttle lever "strokes" and it is the LAST one of the three you need! Not the first Oh well, live and learn...

With the lever on properly, I could now feel the internal springs working against the lever on the 2nd half of the stroke and beyond. That's with the external spring still off. Bleeding was not necessary at all, it fired right up and didn't skip a beat! Looks like it grabs fuel from the bottom half of the pump, and the top half is kinda return-only, with the pump filling itself bottom-up.

Oh by the way, I copied the correct position from another car. Subsequently diesel started gushing out of the other car's pump too! We hardly touched it! Come to think of it, the first car started leaking right after fitting cruise control. Looks you better not mess about with the throttle lever of an old VE pump you still need the next day! Apparently even a careful feel of shaftplay is enough to spring a large leak. Note that both cars have done around 500,000 km, but still... such a sudden leak CAN ruin your day

So after finishing the first car, we took the lid off the other car's pump too and will drop it off at the diesel shop for the same treatment; this time we took proper note of lever position though...

Thanks for all your suggestions!

[fspGTD]

Glad to hear you figured it out!  

The high pressure section of the pump draws fuel from the middle area of the main cavity by the way.  It draws fuel through a drilled hole that runs horizontally to the fuel stop solenoid.  From the stop solenoid the fuel runs down into the high pressure section.

This is sort of a schematic picture only, but you can see generally where the hole feeding through the stop solenoid enters into the main cavity:

[chrissev]

Glad to hear you figured it out!  

The high pressure section of the pump draws fuel from the middle area of the main cavity by the way.  It draws fuel through a drilled hole that runs horizontally to the fuel stop solenoid.  From the stop solenoid the fuel runs down into the high pressure section.

This is sort of a schematic picture only, but you can see generally where the hole feeding through the stop solenoid enters into the main cavity:

where did you get that description of how the pump works?  Is it available online?  I would like to read the whole thing.

[fspGTD]

It came from this book: "Automotive Fuels And Fuel Systems, Volume 2: Diesel" By T.K. Garrett, Pentech Press, London, 1991

It's on my old web site, linked from the VE injection pump information page:
http://home.comcast.net/~vwgtd/vepump.htm