2002 Ram 2500 Loss of Power

Recently the power from my 2002 Diesel has become inconsistent. If the truck sits for a day or two, it take a mile or two before it feels normal as far as power. While driving this first mile or two, the engine just seems to lug. This is with no load in bed or trailer. This has a manual trans, so you can normally feel the torque through the gears as you shift. I use this truck mostly for commuting. Today while coming of the Interstate after about a 20 trip, the same symptoms again. These cleared up and I was able to drive home. Call the dealer, asked for a possible explanation of cause. He was at a loss. The truck has 65,000 miles, could this be a fuel filter problem?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Regards, John

Reply to
John A Reichert
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We had same problem.It was the lift pump. Later we had to replace injector pump because of driving with bad lift pump. So get fixed ASAP

Reply to
wcmj

Seconded... get the fuel pressure checked. And find another dealer.... any dealership who doesn't immediately suspect a lift pump when confronted with unexplained power loss on a 2nd gen 24V has little to no diesel experience.

Reply to
Tom Lawrence

Thanks for the comment. What is the lift pump's function?

Reply to
John A Reichert

Tom, Thanks for the advice.

Reply to
John A Reichert

It's a 12V electric pump, mounted to the left-rear of the engine, that sucks fuel from the fuel tank, and feeds it to the injection pump. The injection pump is a high-pressure, mechanically-driven, electronically-controlled pump that supplies fuel to each cylinder's fuel injector. It relies on a constant supply of diesel fuel for lubrication.

If the lift pump starts to fail, and can't keep up with the demand for fuel that the injection pump needs, you experience a loss of power. You also starve your expensive injection pump of the lubrication it needs, and the pump eats itself up, resulting in a repair cost of over $1,000.

So, find a place that can service a diesel vehicle, and have the lift pump tested and replaced, if necessary - the sooner, the better.

Reply to
Tom Lawrence

Other posters suggested the lift pump. I had guages installed on my 2001 w/100k miles and immediately noticed the pressure (should be 5 psi or more) would go down as low as one psi - again, no load, no trailer.

I replaced the lift pump myself. Cost around $200. Now it is 15 psi at idle and does not go much below 10 psi.

I understand the lift pump is no longer sold (I had to go to Cummins). The fix now is what Cummins originally reccommended, a pump in the tank. so you run yourself low on diesel fuel and for about $500 (what I paid for the EGT and lift pump pressure guages w/installation), they replace the lift pump with a pump in the tank which apparently solves the problem permanently.

OTOH, you can buy the same lift pump from CarQuest, but with a different wiring. So you would need to splice the wiring from your old pump to get it to fit.

In the meantime, you may be starving the last two cylinders of fuel and damaging them, not to mention the main injection pump which costs around $2k to replace.

Get it done real soon! If you replace it with another lift pump, get the gauges so you know in advance next time.

Charles

John A Reichert wrote:

Reply to
Charles

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