General: Cummins VT 903

Thanks again, bender.

I tried sending them an e-mail a few days ago, but their server is throwing a 500 error and their administrator's e-mail address no longer exists. I'd hate to bug the guys at the shop whining about their server issues.

I guess I'll just pop my head in when I'm getting ready to leave Anheuser Busch Monday morning.

 

Do you know of any good parts suppliers? I've seen inframe kits floating around for $3000 or so, so I know the essentials are still out there, if only in small volumes.

Any tips for cross referencing parts?

 

Oh, so you were talking about the VTA 903. Last count I saw, they'd only delivered 3000 of those engines to various military units by the year 2001. Since they are still in service with no civilian access to the production line, its effectively a defunct engine.

The military can crank them up to 600-1000HP to run in tanks and light artillery because they rebuild them every few hundred hours of operation. That's how I got my hands on a field manual.

The V 903 was used in semis, farm tractors, and boats throughout its production as the VT 903, V 903M, VT903M, and VTA 903 from the late 60's to early 80's, and as soon as cummins pulled it out of class 8 production, the military came in and threw them a contract for a few thousand.

Thanks for the tip on Krupp. I'll see if I can get to any of their parts from this side of the atlantic.

 

Got to drive the truck a little while a few weeks ago, and it raised a few questions.

When I pull out the tractor brake (yellow) it tends to dump all of the air in the system out a valve on the back of it. I've got the dash open, so I can feel with my hand that that its losing air over 10psi out of one of the ports on the valve. Should I just replace the valve or is the problem likely elsewhere?

Back to something a bit more related to the engine...
The truck has a boost pressure gauge. Its an old liquid filled gauge, and its leaked a bit under half of the liquid. It says I'm pushing about 13lbs of pressure at 2500rpm. Does that sound about right?

How informative would a dyno run be on this truck? I've got some documents that say its rated at 350hp, and some that say its at 290hp, so I'm hoping that it'd at least clear that up for me, and set a baseline if I decide to do work on the fuelpump later on. What else would I be looking for in the results?