Today was a day of frustration and triumph, it was a day that at moments had me furious, and at others ecstatic. Early this morning I dove into my truck and tore it apart. I yanked the plenum off, yanked the injectors out, then had a scare that they might have sent me the wrong ones.
In the picture above you can faintly see the puddle of fuel that literally leaked out of the old injector, those puppies were beyond toast. All of them were leaking.
Here you can see the new and the old injectors side by side.
I was worried they would not work, I called 50 motorsport where I bought them and was assured that they were the right ones. The metal clamps that held the injectors to the rail would not fit these new Lucas injectors, so I had to Omit them, but 50 told me this was standard practice and not an issue.
I was then able to get my truck put back together and while I as in there I replaced the fuel pressure regulator, which was toast because before when you would switch the key on the pump would not stop running, it functions as it should now. Before I lit it off however I wanted to swap out my O2 sensors, I bought a pair at the parts house this morning, got down there, pulled one of the old ones out, and sure enough they gave me the wrong parts.
The good news my shop is less than 1/8 mile from Advance, so I was easily able to walk over there. They had to go to another store to get me the sensors I needed, but they did it in about 45 minutes, I was pretty happy about that.
Finally I got the truck put back together and it runs great. It idles so smooth where as before it would surge, I just had one last thing to fix, and that is where my day got stupid.
Some knuckle head had the vent line for the fuel filler break, so they just taped it up, and left the hose barb at the filler neck uncapped. Thus what would happen when you put gas in is that you would fill about a gallon, the tank would build pressure, and shoot a couple of cups back on the ground.
With Gas being damn near 4 bucks a gallon again, I really did not want to go through this every time I needed fuel because I literally was dumping a gallon of gas on the ground every time I filled up. That gets expensive fast, and I can only assume I was losing more as the fuel sloshed going around a corner.
Thus I went to advance again, reached under the truck to pull the line, I was able to get the hose clamp off, but the hose would not budge. Laying on the ground I was able to reach up with my pocket knife and feel around, I started cutting on the old hose, then wham. Pressurized gasoline raining down on my head. I had managed to cut right through the main fuel line.
Luckily I was able to close my eye before the gas got in it. I went in the store, the guy at the counter helped me back to the bathroom, I washed my face off, went back out to the truck, started pulling the bolts off of the bed.
It took me about 20 minutes, I losened the bolts on the passenger side about 1/2 an inch, I removed all 4 on the drivers side. I then placed my floor jack on top of the duals, used a block of 2x4 to span the distance to the wheel well, then I jacked the bed up.
When I got it as high as I could before the block of wood hit too extreme of an angle, I turned around and used my receiver hitch as a spacer to set the bed on, readjusted the jack and jacked the bed the rest of the way up giving me access to the tank.
This was actually a rather effective trick. I have 3 hitches that I carry with me, I placed all 3 between the bed and the frame in case the jack let go, this gave me access to the tank.
Finally I was able to get the POS vent line hose off, and I got the fuel line patched.
My solution was to take a 4" long piece of 3/8" tubing, and 4 high pressure hose clamps, I put 2 on each side and sucked them down as tight as I could with out damaging the clamps. Turned the key on, no leaks, fired the truck up, no leaks, watched it for 10 minutes no leaks.
Broke everything down, put the bed back on, cleaned up leaving no mess behind, went to a good friends house, had a shower, ate pizza and watched some of game of thrones 2nd season.
It was a long day.
In closing the truck is running like a champ, I drove it about 50 miles tonight going to my friends, and I was amazed by the power, the truck really woke up by doing the mod's that I did today. I am very happy with the result.
As well it looks like my fuel mileage is up around 14mpg which is pretty good considering I romped on it a coupe of times.
In fact the truck surprised me, I went to change lanes on 59 headed into down town Houston and of course the self entitled special person in the car behind me in that land had to accelerate to cut me off, I dropped the hammer because I needed to get over to take my exit, and I was shocked by how hard the truck accelerated, it literally lurched forward and squatted the back end from a 65mph rolling start.
I <3 my 7.4 Big Block. It is so nice having it running right.