cummings diesel injection pump

[encantotom]

hi all,

this is not a newell question but figured you experts would have an answer. a friend of mine had his electric fuel pump stop working on his coach with a cumings 300hp engine. the garage he had it towed to while he was out in it said after replacing it there was a 50% chance the injection pump would fail quickly at a cost of ~2k. his coach ran fine, but just wouldnt start when he was at a campground, so total time of trying to start it was in the minutes. that is the most the pump was running "dry" if you will.

any experience on this with any of you? i told him dont worry about it and if it happens, worry about it then.

when it happened i had told him i thought it was a fuel problem and was likely a plugged fuel filter, but at least i was close.

thanks

tom

[fulltiming]

Tom, I would think that fuel filter and fuel pump would be likely if it was cutting out under load. With a starting problem, I would look for a leak that is letting air in the line when it sits. If it runs fine after it starts, an injector pump would be way down on my list of places to look.

[encantotom]

thanks michael.

i didnt ask my question clearly. they determined the fuel transfer pump was bad and replaced it. that is why it wouldnt start. it runs fine now and my friends are going to pick it up friday.

that said, they are trying to infer that injection pump will have had its life shortened significantly and are saying there is a 50% chance it will fail quickly.

so my question was if a handful of times trying to start it with no fuel getting to the injection pump really harms it that quickly. doesnt seem to make sense to me.

later

tom

[fulltiming]

Agreed. While it is not good on an injector pump to try to pump air. I would not replace the injector pump on the basis of a couple of hard starts.

[HoosierDaddy]

There may be a little more wear on the pump because of lack of lubrication provided by the fuel. I think it would run poorly before the pump would totally fail. I'd see how well it runs before getting into the IP.