repl lift pump on 96 cummins RAM pickup with electric one

My lift pump failed on my 1996 Dodge Ram 2500 4wd with the 12 valve Cummins. I want to substitute an electric lift pump. Although easy to install after the fuel strainer/heater by splicing into the rubber hose, I don't want to pump through the old one as the diaphragms might fail and contaminate the oil with diesel.(oil is not contaminated) The fittings on the output of the mechanical pump look kind of funny and non standard. Looks like a bushing out of pump and then some kind of connector to the fuel/water separator. The original mechanical pump specs say 25psi is put out; not sure what would the low end be if I get a substitute electric pump. Any comments on how best to hook into the fuel water separator or the electric lift pump in general used with this truck?

Reply to
desperado
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more on first post. as a ps to my initial post, I forgot to ask if anyone knows if I did any damage to the main P7100 injection pump by cranking so much. It took me a while to do the testing to figure out the lift pump had failed. I see there are very expensive aftermarket kits with there own heaters and fuel filters that will go directly between tank and high press pump. I would like to use the stock heater and fuel water separators and bypass the mechanical pump with an electric one. Not sure of the specs but I would think 100gph at about 15psi would work. I want to plumb a fuel gauge onto this setup too. I am not sure what kind of fitting comes out of the mechanical pump, whether pipe, or o ring boss or flare. that is my big problem right now until I can take the old pump off.

Reply to
desperado

I don't know the specifics of the 96 Cummins/Ram installation, but electric lift pumps are pretty common on other diesels and I have heard/read about plenty of people converting Rams to electric lift pumps. 100 GPH seems like massive overkill to me- you probably only need about 15-20 GPH unless this a super-boosted over-fuelled smoke-belchin' pullin' truck.

Maybe one of these would work:

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I'd also poke around some of the diesel forums to see what others recommend. TDR used to be a great resource, haven't looked around there in years, though. You probably have to join to use the "search" function, but IMO a good forum is well worth it.

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desperado wrote:

Reply to
Steve

thks for the reply Steve. You are right on the gph. The truck is just a regular old stock daily driver and the manual I have says while cranking, you should get about 1 liter per minute out of the pump which is about

15gph. excess fuel is returned by a line on the filter canister back to the tank. Looks like a lot of pumps to choose from on that website. It sounds like a simple job, but sometimes the simple ones can come back to bite, like I am not sure about check valves in the pump as there are 3 in the mech one; don't want the fuel to siphon back into the tank so I might have to add my own check valve. The truck ran fine when I parked it to change the fuel filter. the only thing I noticed in last couple of years was a slight decrease in mileage. I am sure the lift pump was bad and the main P7100 IP was pulling fuel through its internal pump. Fortunately, this model pump is lubricated by fuel oil from the engine; I heard the later pumps were lubed by fuel oil and failed shortly after lift pump failed.
Reply to
desperado

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