How To Get More Miles Out of Your 7.3L Powerstroke Injectors! | Shim Kit Install

[@f-j-Services]

Should be a $1500 truck but at auction it would probably go for 2300 or 2400 maybe 2500. Looks decent. A wash and a wax would really clean it up, no idea what frame looks like or even if it is 4WD, auto or 5speed, still a truck definitely worth having and to keep going strong.

[@paulsperformance]

No rust just beat up from being worked. She’s a 2wd automatic but the transmission has been rebuild. Only downside is the motor being so worn out from the all the miles. Been a great truck though which is why we are keeping it going.

[@dorkin_aint_easy]

i've dug around a bit and found conflicting arguments about shimming the solenoid. My brain tells me that by doing so you're going to pull the gap between the armature and solenoid wider than factory spec. Why would the poppet valve move further up over time? If you look at a diagram the poppet valve is under spring tension so as the solenoid fires it pulls the poppet up compressing the spring. Unless the spring is under full compression the poppet valve shouldn't wear in the upward direction. Maybe I'm wrong and it does, but I would love to get to the bottom of this mystery haha.

[@paulsperformance]

It would move down overtime. Hopefully I didn’t misinform In the video as sometimes I get off tangent explaining. The gap between the armature plate and injector body gets smaller over time because the armature plate bolts directly to the poppet valve which is spring loaded down into the seat. The magnet pulls the plate up compressing the spring and opening flow of high pressure oil. What happens over time is the seat/poppet tip will wear causing the poppet to go down further into the seat which in turn reduces the gap of the plate above. This is NOT a good repair by any means but in some cases like this truck it can help get some more life. I wouldn’t do this to a nice rig or anything that’s worth fixing in my opinion. In other terms this is 100% a RIG as I would call it but this truck in the video has a lot of miles and is being used as a farm rig until it dies lol.

[@dorkin_aint_easy]

​@@paulsperformance I understand why you'd shim between the poppet and armature and and whats happening when that gap gets too small. The question I have is why do people shim the solenoid? I would think that you'd only need to place a shim between the poppet and the armature and you'd leave the solenoid as is (no shims).

[@paulsperformance]

Well the magnet gap I believe has a higher tolerance. Also without having absolute precise measurements you could overshoot the armature gap a smidge which could cause the plate to make contact with the magnet which in turn would cause issues and check engine light. I assume the shim kit makers are just trying to prevent that from happening.

[@dorkin_aint_easy]

@@paulsperformance Ok, yeah that makes sense and is easily the best explanation I've heard. I think if you can get a snug .004 gap with a quality feeler gauge you should be good. Adding 0.005 worth of tolerance for the solenoid seems excessive IMO, but maybe they're giving a large margin of error since its a DIY bandaid. Dealing with a ton of calls and emails regarding Check Engine lights after install would be a nightmare haha. Thanks!

[@paulsperformance]

@@dorkin_aint_easy yeah I assume in the early stages they had a lot of issues with DIYs having issues so they tried to make it dummy proof is my assumption.