Fuel Leak / Injector Pump / Bosch Governor / Cover Plate

Ok... the old insulation is out and now we need to install the new insulation.

Remember when the old insulation was pulled out it had been glued in and it left a thin layer of foam that the new insulation will not stick to.

The plan is to stick the new insulation to a piece of lauan plywood and than fasten that to the engine housing.

Because of the rear frame of the dog house there is no way to get one piece (2 feet X 56 inches) into the dog house and up on the ceiling. I will create three panels and install one of them at a time.

This insulation was installed before the engine was installed and I cannot reach far enough into the dog house to screw a screw straight up into the ceiling. I can however reach far enough in to screw screws into the frame of the dog house.

So what I will do is screw a piece of 90 degree angle onto the rear cross member of the frame of the dog house to use as a lip to set the three panels on.



Here is the angle



There are two screws that protrude through the ceiling of the engine compartment that needed to be cut off.



Here is the 90 degree angle installed on the dog house frame.



On to building the panels, three pieces of lauan cut to size.



This is a test fit of the lauan pieces, I have spaced the leading edge up with a piece of wood so that when the pieces are installed it will be flush with the ceiling.



I ordered the insulation yesterday and it was here (I had to pick it up)



Here is the insulation out of the box and laid out across the panels.



Now the insulation has been cut to size and stuck to the plywood.



That probably would have been good enough but I used graffer's tape to go around the edges. one piece on top and the edge and a second piece on the edge and back so that the edge actually has two overlapping layers of tape.



Close up.



This stuff is TOUGH stuff. very hard to get off the roll and sticks like you would not believe (thing supper duck tape that can take heat).



Here are the new panels laying beside the old piece of insulation.



So the crowning moment, here are the panels installed. The front slides into the ledge, and then the panel is held up to the ceiling and self drilling screws are used to hold the panel in place (yes I looked to see where the screws would end up, there is a four inch dead space between the top of the dog house and the cabinet in back of the bed. Also remember the old insulation was screwed in place, in fact I used the same screws I took out to put the new insulation in. I also protected the new insulation from the screws with more gaff tape.



In this photo you and see the panel edge sitting on the ledge.



The proof I is in he pudding. I test ran the engine with the RPM raised to 1,000 for 15 minutes and there were no leaks.



I'd like to say this project is done, but it isn't. In the process of removing stuff to get excess I found this.



It was a light for the engine bay, it has power all the time, had no lense or bulb and was connect with a but connector. Obviously the previous owner had been in here, I keep finding stuff like this. I cut it out, I cannot leave this like this.



In my opinion the only way to insure a quality connection is to sober it.



And to use heat shrink tubing to seal the connection.



The light is installed with an on/off switch.



It throws a lot of light, this is what it looks like when the camera meter does not see the bright light.



All done right, no, hot really, the wiring job done on the fuel shut off solenoid is really bad. Do you remember way back when where I described the problem that started this whole problem. if I had done the install myself I wouldn't have spent the last to days installing new insulation. The only thing with the install of the fuel shut off solenoid I will end up not doing is bolting it onto the engine.

I will address that tomorrow and post it in my Fun / Projects / with my 1997 America Dream thread, follow me there.

NinerBikes wrote:
To properly tighten the injector lines on a Bosch pump and injectors, like on your Cummins, you must loosen both ends, at the injector pump, and at the injector, and THEN snug them up gently first at injector, and then at injector pump, to align them properly, with a special 17mm crow's foot, or flare nut wrench, then bring them up to full torque, about 17-20 ft. lbs.

The flanges on both ends must be aligned on the seats perfectly, otherwise you will get leaks due to lack of proper alignment of the high pressure fuel line tube.

This is the only way to do it right and assure not getting fuel leaks. It's following proper procedure that prevents leaks such as this. You may have etched the fuel line flange from fuel leaking for so long that a fuel injector line may need replacement, worst case scenario.

Check your work, warm up the engine with a drive, fully, then give a few full throttle up hill driving applications under full load, then check and verify there are no fuel leaks at the union nut joints on the injector pump and the injectors.

I would do half of the fuel lines, loosen and retorque them, do a drive, so that all the air bleeds out of them and the motor is running on all cylinders, then do the other 3, rebleed them at idle until again running on 6 cylinders, and then do a thorough test drive. Doing half and half prevents having to do a complete rebleed of all the injector lines and abusing your starter battery and motor. It will run on 3 cylinders until the other 3 lines bleed themselves of air and start running again.

The lines were tighten by the mechanic at the Love's Truck Stop in Bowling Green last year with the Cummins shop foreman on the phone while it was done. The procedure was discussed between the mechanic and Cummins, and Cummins reimburse me when I returned to Rochester, NY.

I di not believe they leak at all now, and the problem was all a result of the insulation being saturated.

See the fix below (currently working on it, the post).

To properly tighten the injector lines on a Bosch pump and injectors, like on your Cummins, you must loosen both ends, at the injector pump, and at the injector, and THEN snug them up gently first at injector, and then at injector pump, to align them properly, with a special 17mm crow's foot, or flare nut wrench, then bring them up to full torque, about 17-20 ft. lbs.

The flanges on both ends must be aligned on the seats perfectly, otherwise you will get leaks due to lack of proper alignment of the high pressure fuel line tube.

This is the only way to do it right and assure not getting fuel leaks. It's following proper procedure that prevents leaks such as this. You may have etched the fuel line flange from fuel leaking for so long that a fuel injector line may need replacement, worst case scenario.

Check your work, warm up the engine with a drive, fully, then give a few full throttle up hill driving applications under full load, then check and verify there are no fuel leaks at the union nut joints on the injector pump and the injectors.

I would do half of the fuel lines, loosen and retorque them, do a drive, so that all the air bleeds out of them and the motor is running on all cylinders, then do the other 3, rebleed them at idle until again running on 6 cylinders, and then do a thorough test drive. Doing half and half prevents having to do a complete rebleed of all the injector lines and abusing your starter battery and motor. It will run on 3 cylinders until the other 3 lines bleed themselves of air and start running again.

I must take my hat off to you - good investigative work kept you from throwing parts and money at the problem...

Update with pictures as promised.

With Cummins unwilling to look and see if the problem resulted from the leak from last year and the pump costing $8,450, I needed to resolve this myself.

The first thing to do was to eliminate the possibility that I had a high pressure leak soaking the insulation.

I covered the top of the engine from the very rear of the A/C compressor to the very front of the engine with an oil absorbent rag. The injection pump is in front of the A/C compressor and the governor is in front of that, so the whole engine and suspected problem areas were covered.



I then closed up the engine compartment and drove the Motor Home about 15 miles, or twenty minutes, the route went from my storage place to my driveway. The route has several hills where the Motor Home has to work to get up them.

Backed it into my drive way and opened up the engine compartment and found no spots coming from under the rag, only spots where it was hard up against the soaked insulation.



So to orientate you, here we are looking at the rear of the engine.



Move in a little closer



Now it gets interesting, and when I was looking at this I did not realize what I now think it means until I saw the pictures. This is the area above the injection pump where we had the leak a year ago.



And a closer shot of the area.



This area is completely dry now, but to me it looks like the area was hammered upward. This area is directly above the connections that were loose a year ago. I believe this damage is a result of fuel under pressure beading the heck out of the insulation.

This insulation was originally glued in place and than had seven screws with large washers holding it in place.

To get to the screws out the air purge/expansion tank needed to be removed



I had actually had this tank out before as it had developed a leak and I took it out and had it soldered up.



Now I have room to get in to remove the screws holding the insulation in place.



Now I can remove the insulation.



I think there is a little fuel in the insulation.



This is the area that was directly above the governor and the area where I found the drip.

I actually found what might have been a good substitute for this insulation, but I elected to order the correct "under Hood" insulation. It should be here by 10:30 tomorrow. I purchased some lauan plywood that I will mount the insulation to. The original insulation was glued in place and when I pulled it down it left a thin layer of foam that the new insulation will not stick to.

I will have to make several small panels so that I can fit them up over the engine.

As I was dead in the water on this project I flushed the water system, and filled the fresh water tank. I had taken pictures of the valve settings last winter before I winterized other wise I would never have been able to figure out how they should be set now. They still make no sense to me.

Robert is coming over tomorrow to explain it to me.

The hot water heater fires up, which is good. My electronic gauges for the gray and black water no longer read once they are more than half full and the 3/4 mark on the fresh water tank does not light up. Yet another project.

So that is where I'm at right now. I hope to get the panels made up tomorrow and maybe installed.

Just a quick note. Talked with Cummins this morning, when presented with I pay if you find anything that can explain the insulation being wet other that the incident last year and you pay if that is the only explanation. They were unwilling (as I expected) to accept that.

I did not take it to them.

I spread a oil adsorbent diaper from the front to the rear of the engine and drove it from storage to my drive way (about a 20 minute drive, with hills).

Only the top side of the diaper had any oil/fuel on it.

Old insulation has been removed, and only the area above the injector pump is saturated.

That is so saturated that when the insulation was laid on the driveway, there is a small rivulet of fuel running away from it.

Pictures later tonight

hardint wrote:
Why not go to Cummins or a diesel injection shop, purchase a new oring and install while you have the cover off ??JMO

Pull your Bosch pump and have it completely resealed properly. If one seal is leaking, the others are not far behind. I've done this on numerous VW TDI's from 1996 -2003 model years with the Bosch VE pump series.

The worst thing you can do is switch back and forth between diesel fuel and biodiesel, which wreaks havoc with the seals. Stick to one fuel you can get, all the time, D2.

So to tell the story here I need to go back to last year.

I find no record of ever talking about this, but I'm sure that I have somewhere.

Last year I was having problems with the engine not shutting down right after the key was turned off.

Turned out that it was a rather common problem with the 8.3 Cummins engine, and I found a rather good article on it here Fuel Shut Off Solenoid Replacement

There is a new and improved solenoid produced by Cummins.

So while it was there for general maintenance I had them replace it.

I solved the problem of the engine running after the key was turned off.

This was done right before last years race at Bowling Green.

Just out side of Bowling Green last year we pulled into a Loves for fuel and found the back of the Motor Hone covered in fuel and the front of the trailer also covered in fuel.

I called Cummins and in concert with the Loves mechanical the fuel lines to the injector were tightened (they were lose), we got the Motor Home, trailer and engine washed at a Blue Beacon and were on our way.

No more problems.

Now I told that story to tell this one.

I have been having a small drip for some time and on each general maintenance a Cummins I have asked them to look for the problem.

This thread was started because I found the drip on the bottom of the injector, and though I had found the source.

First I thought it was a hose running along the left side bottom of the engine, than found the drip on the bottom of the injector/governor.

Today the weather broke and I spent a good deal of time looking at the problem. The quote of $8,450 for just the pump was an eye opener.

So in poking around and moving wire harnesses around I discovered hidden in the depths of the engine on top of the governor another spot of fresh oil/fuel.

I should mention at this point my noise does not work well and when I took some of the oil/fuel from the bottom of the governor I detected no fuel smell.

So a long shot with the wire harness pulled to one side.



This was well hidden, but certainly gave me hope that it was not coming from the injector pump.

Let's get a little closer.



So where is this coming from, we are now above pretty much everything mechanical.

Directly above this is the air intake running to the turbo on the far side of the engine, and above that completely out of sight unless you bend down into the engine compartment and look up at the top of the dog house is a foam insulation pad.



It is kind of hanging like insulation does with age, but there is some wetness on the intake pipe.



So ... could this be where the oil/fuel is coming from. How is it getting wet?

I looked from the rear of the Motor Home being a contortionist with a flash light an the telephoto zoomed out the way out and on the back side of the air intake there appears to be to fresh streams of fluid.



Sorry for the poor photo, I took many and this was the best one I got.

Note the injector line are dry.

I have two schools of thought now.

One is I have a pin hole leak in a line that is soaking the insulation.

Two is when the lines were loose from the install of the fuel shut off solenoid (and I have no idea why they would have to be loosened to install the solenoid (unless they were in the way of the install)). When the back of the Motor Home was soaked and the front of the trailer was covered in fuel this insulation was soaked also. If this is the case once again having service done for me as proven it is best to do it yourself even if you do not know what you are doing.

The wiring to the solenoid is poor (wires cut to short so they will not fit into the wire loom).

I will be going to Cummins tomorrow and have them look at this, if there is no high pressure leak, I hope they step up and replace the insulation and clean the engine.

It is a hope, but suspect I will not have the result I hope for. I have been very happy with the other work they have performed so will burn no bridges over this.

Thoughts?

deandec wrote:

jtfcons wrote:
A couple of thoughts.
I would put a catch pan under the drip area and try to determine whether this is motor oil or diesel oil. If motor oil, the following is a possibility.

The 8.3C mechanical engine has an injector pump driven via a chain drive (possibly gear) at the rear right corner of the engine. The housing enclosing the drive has a gasket that mates with the engine block at the rear of the housing. This gasket is a known to leak a small amount of engine oil when it ages, hardens, etc. This leak would show up at the mounting flange area of the pump and could be viewed from below depending on the amount of junk in the way. There might also be some oil visible at the top rear of the engine along the line where the head and block meet. In my case, this leak never seems to make it to the ground, at least I have not observed any accumulated oil. Replacing the gasket is a pain requiring removal of the pump, etc. $$$$, therefore I live with it.

About 7 years ago I paid Cummins West $220 for a diagnosis to repair this leak. Their estimate was north of $2,350 plus the $220 or $2,570.

I fixed the Gear Cover Leak based upon the following post by a member of RV.net.

The fix was a small spray can of Permatex Form-A-Seal Leak Repair - NAPA #765-2650 @ about $5.00. I sprayed the area (couldn't even see the leak behind the pump) with brake clean several times (soaked it real good) and then applied the Leak Repair exactly as the directions said by letting it run down the crack from above the leaking area (actually used a watch to make sure the timing was perfect).

This has continued to be a successful repair.

I would be bother by this forever. If it needs a pump it will get it.

jtfcons wrote:
A couple of thoughts.
I would put a catch pan under the drip area and try to determine whether this is motor oil or diesel oil. If motor oil, the following is a possibility.

The 8.3C mechanical engine has an injector pump driven via a chain drive (possibly gear) at the rear right corner of the engine. The housing enclosing the drive has a gasket that mates with the engine block at the rear of the housing. This gasket is a known to leak a small amount of engine oil when it ages, hardens, etc. This leak would show up at the mounting flange area of the pump and could be viewed from below depending on the amount of junk in the way. There might also be some oil visible at the top rear of the engine along the line where the head and block meet. In my case, this leak never seems to make it to the ground, at least I have not observed any accumulated oil. Replacing the gasket is a pain requiring removal of the pump, etc. $$$$, therefore I live with it.

About 7 years ago I paid Cummins West $220 for a diagnosis to repair this leak. Their estimate was north of $2,350 plus the $220 or $2,570.

I fixed the Gear Cover Leak based upon the following post by a member of RV.net.

The fix was a small spray can of Permatex Form-A-Seal Leak Repair - NAPA #765-2650 @ about $5.00. I sprayed the area (couldn't even see the leak behind the pump) with brake clean several times (soaked it real good) and then applied the Leak Repair exactly as the directions said by letting it run down the crack from above the leaking area (actually used a watch to make sure the timing was perfect).

This has continued to be a successful repair.