turbotona

Hi all, I will first warn that I am a complete n00b when it comes to diesel engines. I am an automotive electrical technician, so I do know my way around a vehicle quite well, I just have extremely little experience with diesels, especially ctd's. I just bought the truck (96 2500 ext. cab longbed) a little over 2 weeks ago i believe. may have been 3 weeks, i really cant remember right now. anyway, i have put about 2000 miles on it already, so i do not believe this was a known problem before it was sold. i was out last night, and as i let off the gas from roughly 35mph, the engine died. i let it stop and put it in park and restarted it. it seemed to run ok then, so i figured i would just see what it did afterwards. looked at the fuel gauge, and it was below 1/4 tank, but no low fuel light yet, and decided i was going to head to the gas station soon. maybe 1 mile later it did the same thing, i stopped and started it back up, then i decided i was heading home with it. looked at fuel gauge and now low fuel light is on, but wasnt on just a couple of minutes before. maybe half mile away this time it died. i started it back up while it was rolling, but i had to give it some gas to get it started (either that or it was a coincidence). It ran like crap then. barely any power at all, it seemed to me like it was fuel related but as i know nothing about diesels, i could be wrong. i then sat for about 5 minutes and called my dad to come out with his truck and a tow strap. while i was on the phone with him, it started back up, and drove like crap again, and about 5 starts later, i finally managed to get it about 3 houses down the street and into a church parking lot. My dad came out and we went and got fuel to put in it and it didn't help. I would crank it at least 5-10 times before it would even try to start, and then it would just sputter for a second or two and die. I went to the shop today and grabbed the DRB and scanned the engine computer. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary in the data screen and there were no codes.
Does this sound like a bad lift pump or should I be checking filters or what? I don't think it actually ran out of gas, when i test drove the truck the low fuel light was on, so i don't think the gauge is that far off that it would have ran out of gas yet. And if it is teh lift pump, what options do i have for replacement? i would like to beef up the engine a little in the near future. nothing too drastic, this is still a daily driver and tow vehicle for my show car. Is there another pump i should go with? or is there anything performance-wise that i could be doing along with the replacement if that is what i need to do?

huckstep

Fuel filter is first thoughts. No telling how long it's been since the prev. owner changed. In the meantime you can try draining it to get you going.

The fuel filter on your truck (nice choice btw is right in front of where the driver sits. It has a drain tub coming off the bottom of the filter. At the top of the drain tube is a ring shaped plunger gizmo that you push up on to drain the filter. If you want good karma you should catch the water/fuel mixture that comes out.

If that fixes your problem you may not need a new filter, you just may need to drain it once in a while. But if you don't know how old the filter is you may just replace it for peace of mind. I believe specs are to replace the filter every 30k, mine was the original oem when I bought my truck with 150k miles on it so I'm guessing replacing the filter every 50k will still be safe.

Good luck.

Baja

A fuel filter check is always a good idea.
The lift pumps on these things are mechanical and rarely go bad, they are pretty strong. There is a plunger on the side of it that you can manually operate. You can go under the truck, the LP is in front and above the starter. Look for a small rubber bellows covered plunger. From under the truck push it about 1,000 times, a hassle, and see if that doesn't help start the truck. If it is it easy at first, then you are pumping air, harder later, pumping fuel. You can access the plunger from the topside, but a 24" stick is necessary. If this helps and the truck starts, there are still a few problems to check. A air leak in the line would be my first step.
You can check if the solenoid switch is going all the way up. If not, you are not getting fuel to the engine. Hopefully someone will chime in with a picture of the left side of the engine and the placement of the solenoid and lift pump will be clear. On the left side, look behind the injection pump, down a bit and look for a rubber bellows boot with a cylinder on top. That is the switch. With the ignition on, the rod that the boot protects should be ALL the way up. Watch it as someone else turns the ignition on.
Try those things and other ideas that are given to you and see what happens, good luck. This should not be a difficult technical fix, although it can be a time consuming one.

turbotona

Thanks for the help guys. I went out and cranked it a few times and didnt start. then pushed that button about 100 times that Baja mentioned, went in, cycled the key a few times (i have heard conflicting stories of whether this thing has any kind of electronic fuel pump that this would help, so I did it just in case), cranked it, and it started. drove it about a mile or so, put more fuel in it, and it is doing good so far. when i pull the gas cap, i hear a suction from it pulling air in, due to this i assume there are no leaks in the fuel lines. is this an ok assumption? i drained the fuel filter a little to see what was in there by pushing the plunger on the filter, looked like good clean diesel fuel. i had ok karma by catching probably 2/3 of it, the other 1/3 was lost while trying to figure out where it was coming out at. My only thoughts are maybe the fuel was low and sloshed around, letting some air get into the system. i really dont know. for all i know though i may be back later telling what it did this time if it messes up again tonight, but i hope not. any insight as to why this may have happened?
Thank you all for your help. The descriptions you gave helped a lot for someone who doesnt know their way around a ctd yet

infidel

The fuel level gauges on these trucks are well known to be highly inaccurate.
You very well could have run out of fuel and sucked up some air.
Pumping the primer purged the air.

smokeum99ta

Replace your fuel cutoff relay. That should fix it, if not its only $20. http:www.fostertruck.com/dodge/default.htm

dieseldemon

If you heard a suction when you removed the filler cap the cap vent is plugged replace it.