On the 6.2 I herd about the little plastic wheel falling apart and was wondering around how many miles this will happen? Also where do you get a steel replacment and is it a pain in the butt to put in?

Yes, but only on the early injection pumps. You are going to be hard pressed to find a low mileage 6.2 that has the original injection pump still on it that has the flexring in it. The flexring was used in 6.2 injection pumps that were isntalled on engines prior to 85, after 85 they got the EID. The flexring was composed of an elastic material that would harden and break apart with exposure to diesel fuel and heat. So most of these pumps didn't make it past 50k miles or so. The updated pumps got an EID installed in them, and this can only be done by a pump builder, so it's not something the common shade tree mechanic like us will do. You can tell some injection pumps that have been updated by looking for a metal tab with a an "E" stamped on it, usualy attached to one of the injection pump's top cover bolts/screws. Some builders install this on other locations..

I have an '82 with 61000 miles on it. What are the symptoms should I be looking for when this fails or about to fail? In other words, would it suddenly fail? I would like to take care of this when I rebuild the pump, then again maybe not.:smoke2:

Symptoms are that the engine won't run more than a certain RPM, will die constantly, you'll know when it fails. Another thing to add is that when it fails the scatters it's pieces throughout the injection pump so the pump needs to be gone though to restore it into service.

You can also remove the top cover on the IP (without pulling the pump) and see the junk floating around. Mine was black particles about the size of a grain of rice.

If you see "pepper" in it the flex ring is bad. Really needs a pump overhaul with a new EID installed. Have them get you a a DB2-4544 pump. That's the heavy duty pump that puts out slightly more fuel and advance.

Rebuilt 6.2 pumps are getting pretty inexpensive, all but obselete these days.