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Chased a fuel pressure drop for two days on a 3126 Cat.
It ended up being a tiny piece of trash in the check valve at the transfer pump. Bled the system like ten times before I pulled the pump and actually looked at it. Anyone else ever had something that simple turn into a whole weekend project?
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phoenix_martin401d ago
Oh man, 'two days on a 3126 Cat' hits way too close to home. I had a similar deal on an old DT466 where it was just a speck of grit stuck in the injection pump's return line fitting, and I must've swapped every filter and sensor on that engine before I found it. Makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time when the fix is basically free but the labor to find it is brutal.
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jordan_hill1d ago
@phoenix_martin40 I think we've all been there with those tiny little grit particles that somehow cause a week's worth of headache. I had a John Deere years back that would lose power climbing hills and it turned out to be a fleck of rust in the fuel line the size of a pinhead. After I replaced the whole fuel system twice and nearly pulled my hair out, my neighbor just blew air through the line and it fired right up. Made me feel like a fool but also relieved all at once.
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the_holly1d ago
That speck of grit nonsense is the worst kind of mechanical gremlin... it's almost like the engine knows exactly how to mess with you. I've been there where you're swapping parts and every single one of them checks out fine, but the problem is still there staring you in the face. Makes you want to just sit down and have a good cry in the toolbox before you even think about pulling another fitting apart. The relief when you finally find it is real though, mixed with that sick feeling of knowing how many hours you just burned for nothing. It's the kind of repair that sticks with you long after the job is done... in a bad way.
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