removing fuel plungers

I'm trying to remove the fuel plungers in my d23j and i have the rack off and the bolts out that hold the plunger closest to the driver seat.I pryed it up carefully but i can't seem to get the bottom thing out of the grove of the lower piece.Any ideas?Thanks,Tim:

Try lifting the pump body just high enough to clear the locating stud and tip it sideways. Try both directions as they seem to only come out one side.

Be careful when removing & replacing the plunger in the pump body. They are machined & lapped to very close tolerances and can be damaged if inserted crooked.👍

The pump lifters are raised by a cam and pulled back down by a spring on the cam follower. I've never had the problem you face, but I believe you can select a pump that is at or near the bottom of it's stroke and lift it against that spring enough to unhook it from the follower. Pumps at top of their stroke might be a bit tougher.

I can see no problem with heating the pumps a little bit--repeat, a LITTLE BIT, not too hot to lay your hands on--with a propane blow torch. It might soften crud up enough to let the pump plunger move a little. Just handle them carefully. They are a very precision piece of machinery.

Do not switch pumps with plungers. They are matched sets. I've always tried to remove the pump and plunger together. I'm sure you know that you have to slide the plunger side ways out of the yoke.

Hi Team,
any plungers stuck at the top of their stroke are often only removable IF the lifter yoke is orientated just at the correct angle to the pump body.

Usually I have had success by dousing the plunger and down in the fuel line port with my favorite loose juice and then tapping downwards gently with an aluminium drift on the chamfer of the lifter stem to get the plungers to move down. Do not get brutal here or you could break the lifter yoke and then need to replace it along with needing to do a lifter adjustment. If you can get a thin lever ontop of one of the lifter yoke arms you may also get movement by gently prising.

If you cannot get one out due to the above conditions not being met, you need to carefully mark the lifter screw/yoke position, on both the yoke and lifter, so you can re-orientate the yoke back to the original position or you will lose the factory set lifter height.

DO NOT turn the screw any more than needed to disengage the plunger, ie, more than say 90-100 degrees, in or out, so you can keep tabs on where to reset the lifter to after you get the pump out and freed up.

If you feel you can do a lifter setting adjustment--fairly technical--then by all means screw the lifter screw out of the lifter and then do the lifter setting later before refitting the pump. We can guide you thru the adjustment proceedure or you may be able to find a previous post of said proceedure in the Search function.

Hope this helps.

Cheers and Happy New Year
--plenty of fireworks in the local streets here at the midnight hour and beyond until about 4.30 am, so, not much sleep here abouts--very quiet now at about 10.55 am. Seeing as fireworks in private hands are banned, something does not add up MMmmm

Eddie B.