Talking with an old diesel tech at a parts counter made me rethink my approach to injector timing

I was at a Fleetpride in Phoenix last Tuesday grabbing some filters, and this older guy, must have been in his 70s, was waiting too. He saw me ordering a timing kit for a 5.9 and just goes "you planning on actually setting that, or just throwing parts at it?" Kinda caught me off guard. He started talking about how these newer guys rely too much on the scan tools and don't check mechanical timing by hand anymore. Said he caught three trucks in the last month that had the timing off by a few degrees because someone trusted a sensor reading. Made me realize I've been doing the same thing lately. Anyone else have an old timer call them out on something basic like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_sanchez671mo ago

Did that old guy happen to have a faded Cummins hat and look like he'd been elbow deep in oil since the 70s? I had a similar thing happen at a NAPA in Tucson maybe six months ago. I was swapping a VP44 on a '99 and an old farmer type watched me for a minute, then asked if I checked the lift pump pressure before I got that far. I admitted I skipped it and he just shook his head. He walked me over to his beat up F-350 and showed me how he uses a cheap fuel pressure gauge tee'd into the line every time before he even writes a quote. Made me feel like an idiot but honestly that's probably saved me a comeback or two since then.

charlesowens1mo ago

Nah, checking things twice is just wasting time. @spencer_sanchez67 you'd be fine.