PCM or VP44 or Apps?
 

Ok, so I was driving my wife's truck last night and forgot that the fuel gauge is not calibrated correctly and it ran out of diesel on my way home. Cursed a little bit, and started hiking to the gas station when I got picked up by a good sam. got a couple gallons of diesel, put it in, bumped the key a few times and cranked and got nothing. I popped open the fuel filter, it was full and pressurized. cracked a couple of injectors, bumped the key a few times and again, nothing, no fuel at all coming out of the cracked cylinders.

Key trick pulled p1388 and p1693.

tried a few more times and nothing

got it towed home, disconnected the batteries to reset the ecu, and tried again with the same results only no P1388 code.

I called my buddy who came over and hooked up his modis scanner. the computer was reading the APPS at zero no matter where the pedal was positioned.

the computer also would not auto pickup the vin off the truck then after about 10 minutes it quit reading the truck altogether, hooked it up to the other cummins and it read fine, also on a honda.

At the start of this I figured I had burned the VP up running it out of fuel, but I wanted to check to be sure cause they are pricey.

Now I dunno.

will a burned up VP44 Still spit fuel?
is the APPS F'd up and not sending a signal to the VP and that's why I'm not getting fuel
is the PCM F'd up and not sending a signal to the VP
should I send it down the road to the crusher?<-(not really an option)

I seem to remember seeing a post regarding a bad ground on the connectors but I cant seem to find it anywhere so if anyone has any educated guesses or a link to some help I'd appreciated it

throwing parts at it would be expensive in this case so I'm trying to avoid that as I'm ballin on a budget

thanks

I ran my truck out of fuel once too. I also thought I had burned the vp as I wasn't getting any fuel coming from the cracked injector lines. I kept bumping it for 15-20min before I finally got fuel to the injectors. Closed em off and she started up. I did have to replace the lift pump a couple days later cause the fuel pressure wouldn't get above 8psi and would drop below 4psi under light throttle.

I had to bump my starter like 15 times to get fuel to the injectors, your gonna want to crack 1,3,4 injector lines and bump untill you see something. The apps not reading can be because your reset your ECM and PCM when you pulled the batteries. Ive ran into the problems where the scanner does a stupid vin lock, I just pull the batt and try again...

Check out this write up from Blue Chip Diesel. A lot of good info and vp44 trouble shooting procedures. VP44 Diagnostic Let us know what happens

update:
Now fuel is squirting but truck still isn't starting, my buddy reminded me there was also a intake air heater code. any way to test either the heater or the relays? couldn't find it in my FSM

yea put a multimeter to the heater grid connections and should be around 12 v I believe

The air heater wont cause a no start. Did you bleed 1, 3, and 4? If not bleed those. One cylinder wont start it. There will still be air in 2, 5, and 6 and you will have to crank on it for a little while especially if the lift pump is weak. Once it does fire it might run rough for a little bit. If it still wont start try the vp44 diagnosis link I added. Could be a dead vp.

Yea you need at least 3 cylinders with fuel to em or you will not start. Like bryce said its gonna run rough for a bit, but what mopar recommends is that your run the rpms up to 1200 for several minutes... Also a bad lift pump can also lead to a no start because it cant feed the injection pump espically if you ran it outta diesel there no siphon effect anymore..

It may take quite a bit of cranking with the injector lines loosened to get it to fire

You dont want to start it with the lines cracked. Tighten the lines one at a time when you get good fuel flow to them.