So finally after 10 years, I’ve got our shop/people in place enough that I don’t have to stick around to go on the 4th of July vaca up to silverton, co. 9 days up in cold weather (compared to phx lol), fishing, hiking, wheeling, beautiful sites and good friends/family.
Anyhow, let’s get into how the trip there and back went because it’s never problem free on a 9 hour drive
.
Friend of mine and I were convoying up together. He’s got a deleted 2012 cummins dually and it’s always a battle between him and I with Chevy vs dodge/ram. Over the last 12 years, sometimes he’d beat me, sometimes I’d beat him. Well we have both slowed on the drag racing while empty and now basically race up hills while loaded with trailers. He passed me in the old limo last year when I got hot and blew a boot, so he had payback coming this year.
We left out of phx at 6:00am. First stop was flag for fuel, then gallop for lunch, Cortez for fuel and end up in silverton by the end. We headed up our first grade and the new limo would just slowly walk away from him up the hill while he was on tune 2. I had the banks off as it just didn’t make the difference I wanted other than use more DEF, so it was stock. He wasn’t too thrilled with that. We laughed and continued on. On the last grade to flagstaff, he got on the radio and said the truck was throwing a code and rail pressure was low. I stopped for fuel and he stopped at napa for a fuel filter in flagstaff. He brought a 100 gal transfer tank to fill up from, I was stuck on 36 gal which don’t get far at 7-8mpg lol. Took about an hour in town before he was ready to rock.
Fuel filter in, seemed we were in good shape. Clicked off miles to Gallop, NM. Went this way as the suggestion from my dad because its 4 lane up to shiprock vs two lane from tuba city to Cortez. It’s also longer but I didn’t care if we could hold 75 the whole way. Gallop was pretty much shut down due to the virus and we couldn’t get in anywhere for a quick bite to eat so pulled up in pep boys parking lot and made lunch in the trailer. I needed fuel but all the stations at the junction and prior were PACKED with trucks and rv’s. I just kept thinking I’ll find a station that’s got more room... nope. We said screw it and see if I could make it to shiprock for fuel, otherwise I’d just get fuel from my buddies transfer tank.
As we drove up the 4 lane, it was not nearly as smooth as I had expected. I was watching semi’s coming the opposite direction bouncing like they were running the baja 500. We were all over the place as well even at 65. 55-60 was about the best we could run for 100 miles. During this time, I throw a check engine light. Truck is running fine so we keep on. Then about 20 miles from shiprock, my buddy radios his truck is dieing and only has 5k rail pressure. We get off the road ASAP on a little farm road and start looking. After talking to him, he said rail was sticking at 17k, then 26k, then drops out, then runs right. I figured FPR was going. Popped the plug out and held 26k rail. Ok, let’s limp it into shiprock and call to see if we can find a FPR along the way. Least it’s easy to change. I check my codes and they are all for injector timing faults or out of range. Cleared them hoping it was just the crap road causing it and wait to see if it came back on. Truck sounds like a LB7 at this point at idle but runs great, f it, let’s keep on!
We get back on the road and make calls. No one has an FPR in Cortez or Durango. He calls DDP and they 2 day air one to the trailer park for us. At this point, we figure if it keeps hanging up, we will wire a switch in that cuts power to the fpr so it hopefully unsticks and gets full rail on hills. Fill up in shiprock (had 20 miles left per my dash lol) and we keep on trucking. Cruised through cortez, made it up the hills to Durango with no issues from either truck and set off for silverton. Seemed both trucks were running just fine at this point. Made it there at 6:30 Colorado time (5:30 our time), 11 hours, not bad.
Our time in silverton was awesome. No issues all 9 days other than my heater circuit board got water on it and shorted out at 2:00am. I had a spare as it’s a known issue so hour later, heats back on. We threw a new FPR in my buddies cummins and thought we had the issue licked.
Daughter reeled in her first fish off my pole and was all kinds of stoked on it. Course she wouldn’t hold the fish lol. My boy wasn’t too enthused either. We ran a few passes, check out the old mines and machinery and had to make a stop at the coors waterfalls for pics. Very low snow this time of year, didn’t get a whole lot this year.
This leads up to yesterday to pack up and head home. We left at 7:00am co time and headed back. Stopped in Cortez for bathroom breaks and headed towards Kayenta/tube city this time. I’ll take the nice roads and 2 lane over that other crap. We were trucking along at 70 and were 4 miles out when my buddy calls, cummins just died... he told me to get to Kayenta and he’d try to limp it in. I filled up and waited in the Napa parking lot there. He coasted in with the truck off. Damn it... we think fuel filter again so he goes to buy one, they don’t have one. Great. We will the cap to look at it and see there ain’t much fuel in the bowl. Hmmm. We both start to suspect the stock intank lift pump is dieing. It’s acting like a gas fuel pump where when it gets hot, it stops moving fuel. We left the cap off the fuel filter and I had him cycle the key. It filled very slowly. So back to Napa to see if they have a lift pump... nope. So we start to think outside the box. I think we should grab an external fuel pump for a gasser and put it in line to get fuel to the cp3. Find out the stock lift pump is not flow through but screw it, let’s try it. Napa has 0 fuel pumps of any sort whether intank or external other than for a carb. Seriously???. They really don’t have much!
So I think, I have a spare fuel pump for the tracker in the back of it, let’s drop it in the transfer tank and use it to send fuel up, then pray it don’t over pressure the fpr and spike rail to 26k because it pushes 80psi when dead headed. Buddy agrees but instead thinks we should just t it into the fuel line and just use the pump on a switch for hills only and hope the stock lift pump keeps enough fuel up for flat ground. Let’s try it!
By this point, it’s been an hour of figuring out what to do and wives and just doing what they can to let the kids run around in the trailer with the a/c on. They have had enough of sitting in cars lol. So we use a conduit cutter to split the steel fuel line, get 20ft of 3/8” carb gas line (no fuel injections line there), some hose clamps, a brass t and my buddy pulls out a tone of wire he has in a spare bag with a switch and fuse. We wire it up, plumb it up and have it on in 30 mine. The pump dropped right into the fill hole of the transfer tank and I zip tied it about an inch off the bottom. Then shoved rags in the fill hole. Damn thing worked and didn’t peg the fpr! So he tops off the transfer tank and stock tank was left at 1/2 full. We were thinking the excess fuel was pushing its self back into the stock tank, hence no fpr issues. Couldn’t confirm but left it half full just in case.
Headed off down the road and he left the pump off. Made it to tuba city where we hit a hill and it dropped rail, he hit the switch and in 5 sec, rail was right back up and he was back up to speed! Shit yeah it worked! He left it on and could see fuel percentage on his cts was increasing in the stock tank. So he’d only use it on grades. By time we hit flag, there was one long grade up 89 and he actually made it 90% of the way up without using the back up pump. Thought we were free and clear but his stock tank was now at 94% full.
So we stop at conoco for me to fill up and we have to drain his stock tank. Intank fuel pump is hardly moving any fuel back to the transfer tank so my buddy realizes he can reverse the polarity on the transfer tank pump and make it suck fuel. We jam the rest of the 3/8” line into the tank, hook it to the transfer pump and reverse the polarity. Drains that tank to 1/2 in a few min! Couldn’t go lower as the hose was hitting something and wouldn’t go down more.
So we head back off again but now the stock lift pump is all but dead. By camp verde, it will barely hold rail on flat ground and stock power level. He hits the back up pump for verde hill and he makes it to the top still doing 50mph. This is a win! Things go smooth till about 20 miles from phx where we hit one small grade and the truck just dies half way up. Come to find out, the transfer tank was 1/4 full at this point and all the fuel was at the back away from the back up pump. We suck fuel from the stock tank back to the transfer tank (was at 84% there) and it’s enough to get our asses back to town. 350 miles, our roadkill rigged up lift pump worked!! He stayed at his parents last night and was headed back home to Tucson this morning running the same setup.
Source: https://youtu.be/F3BHrNe43g8
We both have done rigged things like this many times in the past like power steering lines on rubicon trail, buddy loosing brakes/pinching the line and using trans fluid to get him home, welding wrenches to parts to fix a arms, drive shafts, tie rods. But this was a feat we both got quite a sense of accomplishment from going that far and getting family’s back home safe!
As for my code issues, they turned back up again just outside of flagstaff. They start with P01D7 and continue on for all injectors. I have a feeling I’ll be taking her in for all injectors to be replaced. I followed the gm trouble shooter and it’s coming back to that. Great, 5150 miles on it and need injectors. Going to dig into that a little more before taking it back in. Has a nice lope at idle now too.
Anyhow, let’s get into how the trip there and back went because it’s never problem free on a 9 hour drive
. Friend of mine and I were convoying up together. He’s got a deleted 2012 cummins dually and it’s always a battle between him and I with Chevy vs dodge/ram. Over the last 12 years, sometimes he’d beat me, sometimes I’d beat him. Well we have both slowed on the drag racing while empty and now basically race up hills while loaded with trailers
. He passed me in the old limo last year when I got hot and blew a boot, so he had payback coming this year. We left out of phx at 6:00am. First stop was flag for fuel, then gallop for lunch, Cortez for fuel and end up in silverton by the end. We headed up our first grade and the new limo would just slowly walk away from him up the hill while he was on tune 2. I had the banks off as it just didn’t make the difference I wanted other than use more DEF, so it was stock. He wasn’t too thrilled with that. We laughed and continued on. On the last grade to flagstaff, he got on the radio and said the truck was throwing a code and rail pressure was low. I stopped for fuel and he stopped at napa for a fuel filter in flagstaff. He brought a 100 gal transfer tank to fill up from, I was stuck on 36 gal which don’t get far at 7-8mpg lol. Took about an hour in town before he was ready to rock.
Fuel filter in, seemed we were in good shape. Clicked off miles to Gallop, NM. Went this way as the suggestion from my dad because its 4 lane up to shiprock vs two lane from tuba city to Cortez. It’s also longer but I didn’t care if we could hold 75 the whole way. Gallop was pretty much shut down due to the virus and we couldn’t get in anywhere for a quick bite to eat so pulled up in pep boys parking lot and made lunch in the trailer. I needed fuel but all the stations at the junction and prior were PACKED with trucks and rv’s. I just kept thinking I’ll find a station that’s got more room... nope. We said screw it and see if I could make it to shiprock for fuel, otherwise I’d just get fuel from my buddies transfer tank.
As we drove up the 4 lane, it was not nearly as smooth as I had expected. I was watching semi’s coming the opposite direction bouncing like they were running the baja 500
. We were all over the place as well even at 65. 55-60 was about the best we could run for 100 miles. During this time, I throw a check engine light. Truck is running fine so we keep on. Then about 20 miles from shiprock, my buddy radios his truck is dieing and only has 5k rail pressure. We get off the road ASAP on a little farm road and start looking. After talking to him, he said rail was sticking at 17k, then 26k, then drops out, then runs right. I figured FPR was going. Popped the plug out and held 26k rail. Ok, let’s limp it into shiprock and call to see if we can find a FPR along the way. Least it’s easy to change. I check my codes and they are all for injector timing faults or out of range. Cleared them hoping it was just the crap road causing it and wait to see if it came back on. Truck sounds like a LB7 at this point at idle but runs great, f it, let’s keep on! We get back on the road and make calls. No one has an FPR in Cortez or Durango. He calls DDP and they 2 day air one to the trailer park for us. At this point, we figure if it keeps hanging up, we will wire a switch in that cuts power to the fpr so it hopefully unsticks and gets full rail on hills. Fill up in shiprock (had 20 miles left per my dash lol) and we keep on trucking. Cruised through cortez, made it up the hills to Durango with no issues from either truck and set off for silverton. Seemed both trucks were running just fine at this point. Made it there at 6:30 Colorado time (5:30 our time), 11 hours, not bad.
Our time in silverton was awesome. No issues all 9 days other than my heater circuit board got water on it and shorted out at 2:00am. I had a spare as it’s a known issue so hour later, heats back on. We threw a new FPR in my buddies cummins and thought we had the issue licked.
Daughter reeled in her first fish off my pole and was all kinds of stoked on it. Course she wouldn’t hold the fish lol. My boy wasn’t too enthused either. We ran a few passes, check out the old mines and machinery and had to make a stop at the coors waterfalls for pics. Very low snow this time of year, didn’t get a whole lot this year.
This leads up to yesterday to pack up and head home. We left at 7:00am co time and headed back. Stopped in Cortez for bathroom breaks and headed towards Kayenta/tube city this time. I’ll take the nice roads and 2 lane over that other crap. We were trucking along at 70 and were 4 miles out when my buddy calls, cummins just died... he told me to get to Kayenta and he’d try to limp it in. I filled up and waited in the Napa parking lot there. He coasted in with the truck off. Damn it... we think fuel filter again so he goes to buy one, they don’t have one. Great. We will the cap to look at it and see there ain’t much fuel in the bowl. Hmmm. We both start to suspect the stock intank lift pump is dieing. It’s acting like a gas fuel pump where when it gets hot, it stops moving fuel. We left the cap off the fuel filter and I had him cycle the key. It filled very slowly. So back to Napa to see if they have a lift pump... nope. So we start to think outside the box. I think we should grab an external fuel pump for a gasser and put it in line to get fuel to the cp3. Find out the stock lift pump is not flow through but screw it, let’s try it. Napa has 0 fuel pumps of any sort whether intank or external other than for a carb. Seriously???. They really don’t have much!
So I think, I have a spare fuel pump for the tracker in the back of it, let’s drop it in the transfer tank and use it to send fuel up, then pray it don’t over pressure the fpr and spike rail to 26k because it pushes 80psi when dead headed. Buddy agrees but instead thinks we should just t it into the fuel line and just use the pump on a switch for hills only and hope the stock lift pump keeps enough fuel up for flat ground. Let’s try it!
By this point, it’s been an hour of figuring out what to do and wives and just doing what they can to let the kids run around in the trailer with the a/c on. They have had enough of sitting in cars lol. So we use a conduit cutter to split the steel fuel line, get 20ft of 3/8” carb gas line (no fuel injections line there), some hose clamps, a brass t and my buddy pulls out a tone of wire he has in a spare bag with a switch and fuse. We wire it up, plumb it up and have it on in 30 mine. The pump dropped right into the fill hole of the transfer tank and I zip tied it about an inch off the bottom. Then shoved rags in the fill hole. Damn thing worked and didn’t peg the fpr! So he tops off the transfer tank and stock tank was left at 1/2 full. We were thinking the excess fuel was pushing its self back into the stock tank, hence no fpr issues. Couldn’t confirm but left it half full just in case.
Headed off down the road and he left the pump off. Made it to tuba city where we hit a hill and it dropped rail, he hit the switch and in 5 sec, rail was right back up and he was back up to speed! Shit yeah it worked! He left it on and could see fuel percentage on his cts was increasing in the stock tank. So he’d only use it on grades. By time we hit flag, there was one long grade up 89 and he actually made it 90% of the way up without using the back up pump. Thought we were free and clear but his stock tank was now at 94% full.
So we stop at conoco for me to fill up and we have to drain his stock tank. Intank fuel pump is hardly moving any fuel back to the transfer tank so my buddy realizes he can reverse the polarity on the transfer tank pump and make it suck fuel. We jam the rest of the 3/8” line into the tank, hook it to the transfer pump and reverse the polarity. Drains that tank to 1/2 in a few min! Couldn’t go lower as the hose was hitting something and wouldn’t go down more.
So we head back off again but now the stock lift pump is all but dead. By camp verde, it will barely hold rail on flat ground and stock power level. He hits the back up pump for verde hill and he makes it to the top still doing 50mph. This is a win! Things go smooth till about 20 miles from phx where we hit one small grade and the truck just dies half way up. Come to find out, the transfer tank was 1/4 full at this point and all the fuel was at the back away from the back up pump. We suck fuel from the stock tank back to the transfer tank (was at 84% there) and it’s enough to get our asses back to town. 350 miles, our roadkill rigged up lift pump worked!! He stayed at his parents last night and was headed back home to Tucson this morning running the same setup.
We both have done rigged things like this many times in the past like power steering lines on rubicon trail, buddy loosing brakes/pinching the line and using trans fluid to get him home, welding wrenches to parts to fix a arms, drive shafts, tie rods. But this was a feat we both got quite a sense of accomplishment from going that far and getting family’s back home safe!
As for my code issues, they turned back up again just outside of flagstaff. They start with P01D7 and continue on for all injectors. I have a feeling I’ll be taking her in for all injectors to be replaced. I followed the gm trouble shooter and it’s coming back to that. Great, 5150 miles on it and need injectors. Going to dig into that a little more before taking it back in. Has a nice lope at idle now too.
