Dirty-Max injectors

mna0121 · Jul 18, 2014

My mom has an 04 Dmax 4x4. Wednesday it died in the middle of an intersection she was turning in. It was low on fuel, she was headed to fill up when it happened. She called AAA, they brought fuel but it failed to start so they towed it to the Chevrolet place. They are saying all eight injectors are bad. I have asked several friends and not one believes this is possible. My dad has a good friend that runs a parts house, he said he has only once sold more than one injector at a time and that guy had seven bad so they replaced all eight. We are thinking more like fuel control mod. or something like that? Anyone ever heard or had this situation happen?

TBItoy · Jul 18, 2014

Re: Re: Dirty-Max injectors

Since a it doesn't have a lift pump, if you run a dmax out of fuel, you have to prime the **** out if several times, and then it'll crank and die, so you continue pumping the **** out of the primer to get all the air out of the system.

LightBnDr · Jul 18, 2014

Re: Dirty-Max injectors

X2.....It is necessary to prime the low side of the system to start after runnin out fuel. I used to fill the filter to the brim then pump the button till it got hard then have someone crank it while I pumped constantly. It would keep from dying from an air pocket.

If its a late 04 it'll be an LLY and ain't no way she has bad injectors on both banks. If its early 04 it has an LB7 that we put 8 injectors in all the time or at least 4 to cover an entire bank because you gotta pull half the head apart to access them.

mna0121 · Jul 18, 2014

It is the LB7 and we are past the prime problem, that we are well aware of. Females probably should not own diesels, my mom especially. So you are saying it is possible for the LB7 to need all eight? This thing will not run/ start at all!!!

Mattman347 · Jul 18, 2014

Has it been having trouble starting hot or is this the first problem?

Jacksonwolf39 · Jul 18, 2014

Get a rag and dip it in gas and throw it in the air box and she should crank. Could be injector pump.

mna0121 · Jul 18, 2014

First time ever. She has ran it out before and is a PITA to get started but we always manage. The kicker here is the Chevrolet dealership/ shop says "all the injectors are bad", that is hard to believe? My dad is on the way home with it. Has anyone dealt with Injector Warehouse? If I have to pull them I am going to have all of them rebuilt. I know everything has to be removed to access the injectors, good thing it is not her DD. Injector Warehouse????????

Sawzall · Jul 18, 2014

Very hard for me to believe that all 8 failed at once.

jdsharp81 · Jul 18, 2014

even if they were all bad, it would still crank. the best thing to do is to find someone with an edge insite or some sort of monitoring device that can read and display the engine info. you need to know desired frp (fuel rail pressure) vs actual. duramax needs at least 4k frp to crank. i would definatly make sure that you are primed ( primer should be hard to press if you are ). Just remember that a diesel only needs fuel to start, so somewhere your are lacking that. not likely, but if you blow a fuse for glowplug moduel, it will not send power to ficm to allow fuel to pass through. ( that would be last case though )

fuel system componets on lb7
primer
ficm ( fuel injection control moduel ) square looking box on passenger side of motor towards front
cp3 ( fuel Pump ) in engine valley
fpr ( fuel pressure regulator ) on cp3
i cant remember if the lb7 has an fprv ( fuel pressure relief valve )

I would go with the gas on a rag, not good for a newer diesel, ok on an older tractor without all the sensors, but not on todays diesels

Jeff69 · Jul 18, 2014

Re: Dirty-Max injectors

My dad has an 04 duramax it got to where he had to prime it every so often and I think it had a small crack where the fuel filter was under the hood now that's fixed but he had problems with the injectors and was told he needed new ones for it and friend told him to put one gallon of Lucas fuel injection cleaner in it to a half of tank of fuel and drive the hell out of it. Anyways that fixed it so every so often he put a gallon in it and he bought it with 70,000 miles on it now as over 410,000 never replaced any injectors now water pumps transfer cases and rear carriers that's a whole different story. Good Luck with your mother's truck

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jdsharp81 · Jul 19, 2014

search on ebay for duramax filter head gaskets. there is a kit to replace all the o-rings in the head. its under 20 bucks and while its apart, remove the spring and check ball.... look at nicktane's website for detailed instructions. also as stated above, its a good idea to put some sort of lubrication into every few tanks you fill up. todays diesel is very "dry" compaired to the older they use to make. I use two stroke ashless engine oil when i fill up, or trans fluid.

yankster · Jul 19, 2014

There's no way that all 8 injectors failed at the same time. They way it shut off and won't restart sure sounds electrical to me.

LightBnDr · Jul 19, 2014

Re: Dirty-Max injectors

Sorry I wasn't totally clear. I used to replace all eight just out of liability if I had one low performing injector in a bank or I would do all 4 on that bank even if it were just one blowin fuel into the crankcase.

We did that out of liability because if you explained to a customer that only one was bad and they said only do that one, it would come back a month later with another bad injector or 2 with a pissed off customer and you'd wind up discounting the labor or doin it for free.

So sometimes they say all 8 just to cover themselves but I have never seen all 8 fail equally at the same time.

mna0121 · Jul 20, 2014

Thanks y'all very good responses. The truck is now running fine,, here is what happened. It was out of fuel but the computer said it had 50 miles till empty. Mom was on her way to get fuel when it died in an intersection. AAA got it out of the intersection and took it to the dealership. Estimate was between $5000- $6000, they said all 8 injectors were bad and needed to be replaced. I posted up and y'all answered just as we expected, no way!!!! My dad and brother in law went and got it while I was at work. They stopped and put10 gal. In it, once home they primed the pump and once fuel appeared at the bleed it fired right up. Daddy said dirt and dust wasn't disturbed on the priming pump. They didn't even try to prime the pump. Thank y'all, y'all helped save my folks a bunch of cash and yes we do feel stupid about this whole situation. :dblthumb:

TBItoy · Jul 20, 2014

And that, folks, is why you can't hardly trust anyone to work on your truck!

At least until your diagnose it yourself...

patooyee · Jul 20, 2014

I didn't want to be debbie downer from the very beginning but I was going to quote the part where you said you took it to the dealer and say that was your first mistake. I don't care who you think you know, how good friends you are, even if they're family. You get ****ed no matter what 100% of the time at the dealer, zero exceptions. Yes, I have seen family members intentionally **** family members who think they are getting the hookup many times. I would rather buy a monkey and give him a wrench and let him bang on my engine for half an hour than let a dealership touch my personal vehicles. There is no such thing as an honest dealership any more. Hardly any honest shops either.

zukimaster · Jul 20, 2014

Yep! I had a Ford diesel that i bought one time, it would just quit going down the road, and would not start back till it sat for a few hours, carried to ford place, they said oil pump was bad, wanted 1500+ dollars to fix it! I said bullshit! because it had fine oil pressure, carried it to a shade tree ford guru, as soon as i started telling him what it was doing, he knew what it was, A bad oil pressure switch, cost like 56 bucks at the time! fix it no problem! guess its always good to get a 2nd opinion when your talking about lots of money!

LightBnDr · Jul 20, 2014

Re: Dirty-Max injectors

muddinmetal · Jul 20, 2014

patooyee said:
I didn't want to be debbie downer from the very beginning but I was going to quote the part where you said you took it to the dealer and say that was your first mistake. I don't care who you think you know, how good friends you are, even if they're family. You get ****ed no matter what 100% of the time at the dealer, zero exceptions. Yes, I have seen family members intentionally **** family members who think they are getting the hookup many times. I would rather buy a monkey and give him a wrench and let him bang on my engine for half an hour than let a dealership touch my personal vehicles. There is no such thing as an honest dealership any more. Hardly any honest shops either.

**** you JJ. I have always thought you were a stand up guy, but I don't appreciate this ^^^ I work at a dealership and I decide how much the customer pays for their repairs and I have never ****ed anyone. My pay SUCKS because of it, but I can sleep at night. Don't put us all in that boat

TBItoy · Jul 20, 2014

muddinmetal said:
**** you JJ. I have always thought you were a stand up guy, but I don't appreciate this ^^^ I work at a dealership and I decide how much the customer pays for their repairs and I have never ****ed anyone. My pay SUCKS because of it, but I can sleep at night. Don't put us all in that boat

Are you the guy that would have done the troubleshooting on the truck in this case? I doubt it, a tech would have come told you what it needed I bet (or turned in a work order, etc). And you would have ****ed someone over, unknowingly and unintentionally. But ignorance doesn't absolve you from responsibility.