Rebuilding Compuvalves

[Airliner]

I was filling up last night and ran into a guy that works for CNG Technologies in Sandy. He was telling me that for $200 they will attempt to rebuild a failing compuvalve. Has anyone had any experience with this? He said they were successful about 80% of the time. $200 versus $2000 (that I paid) with an 80% success rate seems like a pretty good gamble. Has anyone had any experience with this?

I guess when you consider the "new" compuvalve I bought from Ford was remanufactured, clearly it's possible. I don't need a new one anytime soon, but it'd be good to know it's possible.

[alliedmotors]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

Contact info? Can't find a listing.

[Ted1207]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

Contact info? Can't find a listing.

They are now in Centerville, Ut., and can be contacted at 801-637-4570 or 674-2958. They rebuilt my compuvalve for a little over $200 and it was a good job. Their shop is not very standard, they rebuild cars also???

[locosmotion]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

His name is Brandon he's a good guy. Seems pretty knowledgeable too. I have rebuilt my compuvalve and another without too much effort. Plan on devoting a Saturday though.

[legion]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

His name is Brandon he's a good guy. Seems pretty knowledgeable too. I have rebuilt my compuvalve and another without too much effort. Plan on devoting a Saturday though.

how did you rebuild it
did you just pull it out and monkey with it or did you find some info to help you? Was it just a simple project of cleaning and lubricating?
From what i know CNG is naturally full of particulate mater so it makes sense to me that we will have to get used to cleaning these things
Mine just conked out
thank heavens gas has come down, but i still like CNG

[cngmike]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

I was talking to a rep from GFI He told me that none of their equipment is considered rebuildable. It is viewed as limiting liability.

[cowboy]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

why say something is rebuildable when if its not you can sell a new one and make more dollers and we all know no one wants liability

[Franz]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

GFI maintains that their Compuvalves are not field serviceable. They do not sell repair or rebuild parts and do not endorse anyone performing any disassembly or internal cleaning. As for selling a new one, they are not being made anymore (according to an inside source). Anyone sending one in for repair may NOT get it back! When we bought the last two "new" ones, the dealer charged us a core charge (?) until we returned the old ones!

Our sister department has had at least four Ford pickups Compuvalves missing for close to 6 months now. Two of them have had them replaced and were dead on arrival. One truck has had 4 Compuvalves replaced in 140,000 miles, and the current one has problems at certain engine loads, and it will be the last one we will install.

Warranties are almost non-existent, most of the time, the owner has to pay for a new replacement and "hope" GFI or Ford will warranty the replacement. For the record, we have NEVER had one approved for warranty replacement, even when they were under the emission age and mileage period, the claim was that it was a contaminated fuel issue and therefore not a warrantable item (it says so on the owners manual).

Franz

[Adrian]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

GFI maintains that their Compuvalves are not field serviceable. They do not sell repair or rebuild parts and do not endorse anyone performing any disassembly or internal cleaning. As for selling a new one, they are not being made anymore (according to an inside source). Anyone sending one in for repair may NOT get it back! When we bought the last two "new" ones, the dealer charged us a core charge (?) until we returned the old ones!

Our sister department has had at least four Ford pickups Compuvalves missing for close to 6 months now. Two of them have had them replaced and were dead on arrival. One truck has had 4 Compuvalves replaced in 140,000 miles, and the current one has problems at certain engine loads, and it will be the last one we will install.

Warranties are almost non-existent, most of the time, the owner has to pay for a new replacement and "hope" GFI or Ford will warranty the replacement. For the record, we have NEVER had one approved for warranty replacement, even when they were under the emission age and mileage period, the claim was that it was a contaminated fuel issue and therefore not a warrantable item (it says so on the owners manual).

Franz

I've had 2 Compuvalves on 2 different trucks replaced under the emission warranty for free.

[TZAZ]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

His name is Brandon he's a good guy. Seems pretty knowledgeable too. I have rebuilt my compuvalve and another without too much effort. Plan on devoting a Saturday though.

Sure would like to hear some details from your rebuilds .

[locosmotion]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

You are your own warranty. Like the guys said above messing with compuvalve's is not for the faint of heart. If you cant change a clutch don't try to rebuild your compuvalve.

Steps to rebuild:

1. If the car/truck has a high pressure shut off, turn off the gas.

2. Disconnect the red power connector (P26 on most) before disconnecting any compuvalve harnessing.

3. Remove skid plate and compuvalve from car.
Tools Needed:
-Have an 11mm or 7/16 socket with an extension ready.
-3/4" and 5/8 line wrenchs or in a pinch standard open end wrenches.
-set of american allen hex wrenches.
Its easiest once you have the skid plate off the car to crack the feed and return lines before loosening the mount bolts for the compuvalve.

4. Once off the car. Remove the bracketry that surrounds the compuvalve with allen wrenches. Be careful not to lose the cooper o-rings that are in the gas fittings. They will fall out!

5. Wipe the collected dust off the compuvalve paying attention to not let any in the open gas ports.

6. The hard part:
Removing the dust shields from the coils while making sure the whole solenoid doesn't unscrew. I start by using a light ball pein hammer and punch. I tap lightly around the face/nut where the nut holds the dust shield on. I go around each dust shield and nut a couple of times. The purpose here is to make the nut easier to remove by upsetting its contact with the shield.

Most compuvalves will have slots from the factory ground in the top of the solenoids for a screwdriver so you can hold the center solenoid while using an appropriate sized box wrench to loosen the dust shield nut. I have seen compuvalves without these slots. You will be best served to cut these slots with a dremel and cutting disk before attempting coil removal.

7. Once these stubborn nuts are removed the dust shields should pull off the solenoid. The coil portions of the solenoids will be loose and ready for removal but wont just fall off because of the wires holding them all together. Rotate each coil until the whole harness and all 4 or 5 coils come off at once. Remember which coils you had to twist to remove the coil set as you will need to reverse this on assembly. You may have to cut a zip tie to get the coils removed from the unit.

8. The solenoid valve core will now be exposed and you can remove each one with that screwdriver slot ground in the top. BE CAREFUL EACH SOLENOID HAS A SPRING AND VALVE CORE THAT WILL FALL OUT. Keep each valve core separate and make sure to re-install in the hole it was removed from. I use an egg carton or plastic organizer for this.

9. Remove the injector assembly: Remove 2 allen bolts. Pay attention and scribe numbers on each injector and on the compuvalve to make sure you get the injector back in its correct location. Also pay attention to wire routing as it needs to fit back where it was. Use some wd-40 on the spray end of the injector or you will have a hard time getting the injectors out of the aluminum compuvalve. They just pull out but work them a bit with wd-40 before hand and it will be alot easier.

10. You have a choice: At this point the compuvalve can be washed with alcohol and re-assembled. I usually choose to continue and remove the electrical components at this point so I can wash the valve body out with something more harsh. I have also found that the electrical section can become loose especially on the Ford trucks where it sits high up on the engine with lots of vibration.

11. Removing the electrical: Remove 4 screws in the bottom black section of the compuvalve. You may need an impactor(not an air tool) to get these loose if your compuvalve has seen lots of weather. If not a large phillips will do the trick. After the screws are out the black piece will be held in place by a surrounding o-ring just use a small flat blade to pry slightly on each corner until the black cover falls away.

12. The circuit cards (2 of them top and bottom) can be seen. You can remove the circuit cards if you have the special square security bit. I got mine from Harbor Freight. Remove the bolts holding the top card to the bottom. The top card plugs onto the bottom card via pin connections in a daughter card fashion. Be careful, go slow and dont stress the cards while you remove them. The bottom card can then be removed from the manifold after removing a few other screws. There are a couple of sensors/o-rings that will pull out of the aluminum section when you remove this part. Pay attention to order and you will be fine on re-assembly. You should be able to tell at this point if the compuvalve circuitry was loose. Loose screws and or black aluminum dust underneath the cards is a dead give away.

13. Skip 13 for superstitious reasons.

14. Look the cards over for burnt parts or other damage. If they look good assume they are.

15. On the end opposite the gas inlet/outlet there is an aluminum plug with 2 holes in it. A bike spanner wrench used for bicycle wheel hubs will remove this plug and O-ring giving direct access to the fuel rail portion for cleaning. It just un-screws.

16. Make sure there are no ruber parts remaining in the aluminum portion you have been removing parts from. Remember the large gasket around the electrical portion too. At this point I start spraying liberal amounts of Brake Cleaner in the manifold and in each orfice until it runs out clean.

17. Make sure it's clean and dry then re-assemble/re-install in reverse of these directions.

-Phil

[quest01]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

My f-150 had idling issues and it would not run on cng. There is a kit from ford for low flow injectors that cost around $400 that seem to fix most of these problems. The only way to order it is if you have the part number. My truck would run great till it idled then switch to gasoline. If started on gasoline switch to cng then quick off then on of the ignition switch it would run fine till idled then stall. Part number can be found on a service bulliten.

[boomr]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

If I take the compuvalve off and send it to them, will the truck still run on gasoline? I have a 2001 f150

[jblue]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

If I take the compuvalve off and send it to them, will the truck still run on gasoline? I have a 2001 f150

There are people who have been able to remove the compuvalve but it involved plugging several holes to get the engine to run on gasoline.

[boomr]

Re: Rebuilding Compuvalves

I think I have decided to send in my compuvalve next week to Brandon at cngtechnologiesofutah.com I just spoke with him on the phone and he was a very nice guy. VERY helpful. He said that the truck should run with no problems on gasoline with the compuvalve removed. He said you just need to use a rubber glove and plug a suction line??? I am going to have my mechanic friend help me with this on Tuesday.