Airdog installation

Yesterday my airdog 150 arrived at around 11am. After a quick lunch I began sorting everything out. The kit is fabulous!! I bought a couple things before starting the install, such as black paint for the frame, blue thread sealer, dielectric grease, and hose clamps for all the fittings. I know you technically don't need hose clamps but I've blown more than one air compressor hose and a hose clamp always fixes the problem...

Everything went together really well and it was pretty easy except for the fact that it was 20 degrees outside, the wind was blowing at about 20 MPH, and the driveway was a sheet of ice where I was working, making for a really cold ass.

I mounted the bracket first, then connected the new hose to the vp44. I went ahead and took out the factory fuel filter because it was kinda in the way. Then I cut the hose and fabricated the end connections. Next I cut the tank fill up tube to install the fuel return line. Got all that taken care of and then ran the hose from there to the air dog... now for the part that everyone hates..

I really didn't want to drop the tank and since there is a nice sized gap between the bed and the tank because of the way my truck is put together, I was able to get away with just using a 90 degree drill attachment I bought at Home Depot. I also bought a 1" hole maker thingy... It called for 1 1/8", but they only had 1" and 1 1/4". A few rounds with the dremel and the hole was big enough... I brushed off as much of the shavings as I could but the hole part went in the tank on me... oh well, it floats right? I was hoping it would stick to the bit like wood often does.

After installing the draw tube and making all the connections I bolted the airdog in place and tightened all 3 hoses in place...

Now for the electrical stuff... They made this really easy... the wiring harness looks like a huge spider with like 5 or six really long wires coming off of a main box... you only need three of these wires, the rest are for other things you can plug up to the system such as a low fuel pressure warning light... all I had to do was simply unplug the old lift pump and plug in the new clip, run another connection to the pump and plug it in, and finally connect wires to the battery terminals.

I just let the pump run a few cycles and then hit the starter for about 20 seconds and she started coughing to life. Right away I could tell the idling was smooth; there was no doubt she was getting enough fuel... all the fuel line connections were ok but the breather connection on the filler tube was leaking... after repositioning the clamps and tightening them really tight the leak was no more.

I finished at about 5pm... So it took about 5 hours including 2 hardware store trips... not too bad.

I took her for a test drive on the interstate and sure enough everything's good as new. All my bucking symptoms are gone and the power is back where it was, it might be just a little better even. Now I can rest assured that my vp44 is getting enough pressure... and I've placed the first foundation stone on which to build more modifications... When I read about the vp44 before I got my truck I told myself that I wasn't going to do any big upgrades until I took care of the fuel pump... Now it's time to add power... time for a Smarty next!!!