Anyone want to talk VE pumps?

[CarlosA]

I am a little rusty on the workings of the VE pump but have been inside several of them and cured some issues. I need to track down some weird activity with my pump and would like to open a little discussion before I disassemble it very soon.

Even with perfect time and no air in the lines, no air in the pump I get spells of white smoke during heavy acceleration. Sometimes drive a few trips with no such problem. I suspect the dynamic advance as TylerDurden mentioned in another post.

Ok, once recently I checked timing and found that it was wildly out of time, talking like .77 or something like that, I suspect that has happened again but with nothing moving anywhere, how could this be? Is the lower control spring sticking? The previous owner ran bio almost exclusively - no veggie oil though.

I have a spare 107AG that is identical, but missing parts, and also have a new front seal & reseal kit sitting here, so i`m well covered if I find some rusty parts inside, etc. Mostly just looking to discuss some possibilities and what I should put some extra attention into.

[TylerDurden]

That .77 sounds like the CS was stuck when previously setting the timing.

[TylerDurden]

I just measured a 107AG for grins. 

The full plunger travel = .086" (2.18mm). Camplate might be worn.

I put the pump at mid-stroke (.043") and pulled the CS lever: the result was an increase of .005" (.127mm)

So... if the IP was set to .9mm or such and the CS/timing piston was stuck in the advanced position, .77 could be seen in the timing port if the piston freed-up.

[CarlosA]

Thanks for that. Good chance that's what it was (twice). So I'll tear this pump down and see what I can find.

[CarlosA]

Crazy, looks like it happened again. I checked the timing before pulling the pump. No sign of the cam pulley slipping and all the pump bolts were plenty tight so definitely seems like something is sticking. Double checked the cold start and it was in the right position.

[R.O.R-2.0]

pop the advance cover off, see if there is any change to the gauge by playing with the advance piston or cold start..

does the cold start lever change the reading of the gauge when you pull it out?

[CarlosA]

pop the advance cover off, see if there is any change to the gauge by playing with the advance piston or cold start..

does the cold start lever change the reading of the gauge when you pull it out?

Will do that on the bench later, the cold start does change the gauge in the advanced direction.

[CarlosA]

Ok so once on the bench I determined that the roller carrier binds against the wall of the pump - there is signs of the aluminum overheating, etc. My spare pump housing is slightly better and the roller carrier moves around in there by hand so I think i`m going to swap everything over to the other housing. Not sure if this is ideal nor what could cause this but glad there is something concrete to look at. The main shaft bearing is pretty worn so it would make sense to me that the whole setup would tilt over enough to grind on the wall.

[ORCoaster]

Sounds like a winner to me.  Great to have extra parts on hand.  I am in the process of rebuilding a pump myself and besides a bit of pitting here and there I think getting all the varnish like gunk off and letting the little pieces of metal in the rotary pump part actually slide out and meet the walls like they should will be enough to make this a good spare pump.  I just need to be sure to fill and seal it well before packing away.

[CarlosA]

Sounds like a winner to me.  Great to have extra parts on hand.  I am in the process of rebuilding a pump myself and besides a bit of pitting here and there I think getting all the varnish like gunk off and letting the little pieces of metal in the rotary pump part actually slide out and meet the walls like they should will be enough to make this a good spare pump.  I just need to be sure to fill and seal it well before packing away.

Yep I was very surprised to see how clean this one is considering the condition of the tank.

If you look around a bit you can find allen set or grub screws that will go in in place of the banjos for a nice long term seal. Use the permatex thread sealant on the threads.

[CarlosA]

Alright so not only did the rotating carrier assembly bind but also the spring loaded plunger at the bottom of the pump. I assume both of these caused the pump to be running at odd timing all the time.

I swapped everything over to another housing only to find that the housing has a 1/8" deep wear groove at the front where it bolts to the engine bracket. So I went crazy cleaning up the binding pump and got everything moving very smoothly, we`ll see how it goes. At the very least this pump will need new bushings soon. I detected about a .005" movement. I`m going to run it for now and just see if the car does better before I throw another pump at it.

[CarlosA]

Alright reseal of the pump went good and it runs better now than ever. Only thing I can`t tune out of it is a little bit of smoke under heavy throttle - whitishblack in color I guess. Got the timing at .85mm - it didnt run good at all at .95mm and even with the cold start advance the smoke is the same so i`m not going to worry about it.

[theman53]

Might be the injectors. Fresh ones may run right at the normal advance.

[CarlosA]

Might be the injectors. Fresh ones may run right at the normal advance.

Yeah after tweaking it more today and getting it dialed in a little better i`m starting to suspect the injectors again as well. They are very fresh and dialed in with a pop tester but who knows, maybe they changed in the past few weeks.

I`m going to pop them again and also do a compression test even though everything is fresh and new.