Remember when you had to yank a fuel pump by feel with a screwdriver?

I started turning wrenches in 2007 at a shop outside Nashville and back then pulling a mechanical fuel pump on an old 5.9 Cummins meant fishing around blind with a flathead to pop the pushrod back. Now with these electronic pumps on the newer trucks (like the L5P Duramax I had to swap last month), you just plug in a scan tool and the computer tells you exactly what the rail pressure is doing. It saves a ton of time, but part of me misses getting greasy up to my elbow and figuring it out by touch. Anyone else miss the old mechanical simplicity or am I just being nostalgic?

2 comments

2 Comments

angela437h ago

Hold up, l5p duramax? No way, you swapped one of those? That's wild. I mean those things are basically a rolling computer with a motor bolted to it. I still can't get over plugging in a scan tool and getting rail pressure like it's nothing. My old shop had a 2006 with a mechanical pump and I swear I spent an hour just trying to find where the pushrod went.

amybarnes16h ago

Man, that blind screwdriver trick is a lost art for sure, and now it's all just plugging in a laptop instead of using your hands.