Originally Posted by Diesel911

I used to work in a fuel injection Shop. Some fuel injection pump makers use a dimension as you are asking about and use a dial indicator nor in the case of the old caterpillar pumps you used and depth micrometer.

My knowledge dates back to about 1979.

Back then you used the drip time method to time all of the elements. The #1 element was timed so that begin injection matched up with the make on the front splined collar and a mark on the housing of the front bearing. You can see that on your own pumps.

If that was off you adjusted that in the case of the MW fuel injection pumps by changing the size of the shim pack under the element flange. On the other types of Bosch inline fuel injection pumps you changed that by changing the thickness of a plate that is on the tappet that pushes the plunger.

After you find that the rest of the elements are timed again with the drip method but you attach a degree wheel to the drive collar and rotate the camshaft X amount of dresses and set the begin injection on each of the rest of the elements as described in the previous paragraphs.

If you are doing the above to a used fuel injection pump the drip method is more accurate because of wear on the camshaft, rollers, roller bushings and the roller pin. Any sort of wear on those means a dimensional measurement is not going to be accurate because the wear is not going to be equal.


At that time most of the other makes of inline fuel Injection Pumps accept caterpillar used the drip method.

Timing the engine to the #1 element assumes that there is no individual element timing issues with the other element.


Note that I was fortunate to have a Boss to teach me the ropes and that my first diesel mechanics jobs was in that fuel injection shop because a lot of the problems with diesels be involving the fuel supply and fuel injection system.