Robert Bosch type VE Diesel injection pump Page 1 of 3

Robert Bosch type VE Diesel injection pump

For many home mechanics the
diesel injection pump is a bit of
a mystery. The Bentley and
Haynes repair manuals
doesn't describe its internals,
because it's not serviceable
except by a few diesel
specialists. Learning some
basics of how it works and
what its internals are could be
of interest to the diesel owner,
and the knowledge certainly
can't hurt when
troubleshooting fuel injection
problems, even if one isn't
about to take the pump apart.

The purpose of the fuel

injection pump is to deliver an
exact metered amount of fuel,
under high pressure, at the
right time to the injector. The
injector, unlike in a gasoline
engine, injects the fuel directly
into the cylinder or a
prechamber connected to the
cylinder.

The VE in the name of the Bosch pump used in the VW diesels and many other small diesel
engines stands for "Verteiler", which is German for distributor or divider. The other common kind
of injection pump is the inline pump. The difference between them is that the "Verteiler" VE pump
has one fuel metering plunger, and a mechanism (the "Verteiler"/distributor) to send the fuel to
the right cylider. The inline pump has one plunger for each cylinder.
The Bosch VE
has
comparatively
few moving
parts, but
what does
move does so
in a complex
way. The
figure to the
left is from a
Yanmar
pump, which
works and
looks the
same as the
Bosch . On
the leftmost
end in the
picture is the
fuel feed
pump. This is a vane pump, just like the vacuum pump on the VW diesel engine. Its purpose is to

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Robert Bosch type VE Diesel injection pump Page 2 of 3

suck fuel from the tank and deliver it to the metering pump. All the things shown on the right in the
figure have to do with the metering, timing and distribution of fuel delivery. The figure below
shows this part in detail.

The plunger (right

middle in the figure)
in the VE pump both
rotates along its axis
and performs a
reciprocating
translation in and
out. It is the
translation that
performs the high
pressure pumping,
while the rotation is
responsible for
metering and
sending the fuel to
the correct cylinder.

The cam disk is

rigidly attached to
the plunger. The
drive shaft rotates
the cam disk. The
cam disk rides on four rollers (only one shown in this picture), and has four lobes. Thus for each
revolution the plunger will pump four times. Note that with this arrangement the plunger stroke is
constant. The metering (regulation of how much fuel is delivered) is done not by changing the
mechanical stroke, but by spilling some of the fuel through spill ports, and thus changing the
effective stroke . This is done by uncovering a spill port under the control sleeve at a particular
angle of rotation. The other purpose of the rotation is to deliver the fuel to the correct cylinder.
This is done by having four four delivery valves (only one shown in the figure), one for every 90
degrees of rotation. During a full revolution the plunger makes four strokes, one at 0, 90, 180 and
270 degrees. During each stroke the delivery port in the middle of the plunger is connected to a
particular delivery valve.

To understand the function in some detail lets consider one stroke. During the backward motion
of the plunger, the rotation uncovers a fill port (to the right in the figure, just below the magnet
valve (solenoid)), and the plunger barrel is loaded with fuel. At bottom dead center the fill port is
closed. On the forward pressure stroke fuel is pressurized (to over 120 bar). At this time the
Plunger barrel is connected to a particular delivery valve through the channel in the center of the
plunger, and a port in the side. When pressure builds up to the delivery valve opening pressure,
the valve will open and deliver high pressure fuel to the injector.

When the desired amount of fuel has been injected the spill port opens (located under the control
sleeve in the figure), and the pressure quickly drops. This causes the delivery valve to close.
During the rest of the stroke fuel is "spilled" through the spill port instead of being injected into the
cylinder.

The position of the control sleeve controls at what angle the spill port opens, and thus determines
the amount of fuel injected, in other words it controls the metering. The control sleeve is moved in
response to a combination of accelerator position and engine speed. The latter is determined by a
mechanical governor.

Other functions

Some other functions of the fuel injection pump are:

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Timing The timing is adjusted in response to engine RPM. At higher RPM s, the fuel
pressure from the vane transfer pump is higher. Pressure changes effects a spring loaded
plunger, and the resulting movement will move the cam rollers to either advance or retard
the timing. There is also a cold start device which advances the idle timing manually.

Governor A mechanical governor limits the maximum speed of the engine to 4800 rpm in
the bus/vanagon application and 5350 rpm in newer passenger cars. It can be seen just
above the cam disk in the middle figure.

Stop A magnet valve or solenoid (shown in the figures) opens and shuts off the fuel channel
between the feed pump and the metering pump.

Aneroid An air inlet pressure sensor is used to determine maximum amount of fuel
delivered on injection pumps for turbo engines. On newer ('89 and later) naturally aspirated
engines a similar arrangement is used for altitude compensation.

Misc. Internet postings about the diesel fuel injection

Martin Jägersand Comments?

http://www.cs.rochester.edu/~jag/vw/engine/fi/injpump.html 26/09/2010