Injection Pump Timing

[Sir Rondo Normal]

So I'm about to dive into the murky waters of injection pump timing. My engine is a Volvo MD17C and the manual says to use a Wilbar Tube. I've never heard of such a thing and information seems to be very scant on the interweb.
Can anyone shed some light on this mysterious thing called a Wilbar Tube, or maybe offer an alternative?

Thanks very much

Ron

[markpl]

This will tell you how to use this tool:
http://www.bluemoment.com/manuals/Wo..._VolvoMD5A.pdf

[DougR]

A Wilbar tube is a glass tube with very small inside diameter and marked with graduated lines on the outside. The tube is mounted in a plastic housing with a threaded fitting on the bottom that is the same thread as the fitting on the high pressure fuel lines. To use the tube, you remove the high pressure fuel line for the appropriate cylinder from its connection at the injection pump and thread on the Wilbar tube. Then you roll the engine over a few times until you see fuel moving up in the center of the tube. As you rotate the engine in its normal direction of rotation the plunger in the injection pump will rise and when the plunger top closes the internal fill port, (port closure), pressure will immediately build in the pump and the fuel in the Wilbar tube will start to move upward. This corresponds to the start of injection and is the same point at which the timing marks on the flywheel and timing tool should line up.

Sometimes a glass Wilbar tube isn't used but a steel tube is used instead. The steel tube looks like a short straight piece of high pressure injection tube with a steel washer braised on its top, and the washer has a very small hole drilled in it. The timing procedure is the same as the Wilbar tube, but instead of the fuel moving up the glass tube, the fuel begins to exit the hole and flow onto the washer, and the beginning of the flow is easy to discern.

Depending on whether the timing is early or late you add or remove shims/gaskets from below the flange of the injection pump to alter the timing.

DougR

[Sir Rondo Normal]

Oic, right on. Thank-you. I was imagining something along that line based on the directions in the manual but I guess the ID of that tube as it relates to the graduations on it (the volume of fuel in it) would be critical to the timing and therefore it would be unlikely that I could make one. Any idea where I might find one online?

[DougR]

The ID diameter of the tube and the graduations on the tube are only critical for measuring fuel flow quantities. For timing purposes you are only interested in the point of time when fuel begins to move in the tube. That's why the steel pipe tool I described works equally well. These tools were Volvo part # 9993198. They are out of production now but maybe you can find one.

If you go to a fuel injection pump shop with one of your high pressure lines you should be able to buy a piece of straight high pressure line with the same fittings as yours and make a tool yourself.

If you PM me with an e mail address I can send you a picture of 9993198 and you can duplicate it.

DougR