Believe it or not, no one has ever told me different.
IP question
- Thread starter IDIBRONCO
- Start date
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
Today's adventure wasn't very long. The truck ran fine during start up and warm up. After the fast idle kicked off, I went for a drive. I made it about 5 blocks before running out of fuel again. I got it primed back up with my emergency e pump. I turned around and headed back to my hose and managed to keep it running until I got into my driveway. Since I'm not in the mood to touch it again today, I'm planning to drive it over to where I work tomorrow and install my Holley Blue.
ROCK HARVEY
Full Access Member
I have 2 suggestions:
You might try checking whether your fuel tank is venting properly. When you start having fueling issues, unscrew the gas cap and listen for a “whooshing” sound. Or try loosening the gas cap when the issues show up and see if they disappear. If your tank’s not venting you might slowly be creating a vacuum as you use fuel, and eventually the pump can’t overcome the vacuum.
The second test you can try is zip tying a jug of fuel in the engine bay and running temporary feed and return lines to it. It will rule out issues with the lines/valve/etc. I had to do this to get myself home when my showerhead disintegrated and clogged my selector valve. This may not work great for you though because it sounds like sometimes your issue takes a while to show up.
You might try checking whether your fuel tank is venting properly. When you start having fueling issues, unscrew the gas cap and listen for a “whooshing” sound. Or try loosening the gas cap when the issues show up and see if they disappear. If your tank’s not venting you might slowly be creating a vacuum as you use fuel, and eventually the pump can’t overcome the vacuum.
The second test you can try is zip tying a jug of fuel in the engine bay and running temporary feed and return lines to it. It will rule out issues with the lines/valve/etc. I had to do this to get myself home when my showerhead disintegrated and clogged my selector valve. This may not work great for you though because it sounds like sometimes your issue takes a while to show up.
Old Goat
Full Access Member
>>>> 
Goat
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
I tried that last summer on the way home. It didn't make any difference except to make a mess when transferring fuel into the front tank.
Yes, it usually takes a while to show up. Since the other night, I can't drive more than a few blocks to get another container to even try this.
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
So I dropped that ball on this one again. I didn't get back to it until today after work. I was already convinced that it was time to install my Holley blue, but Kansasidi had me curious so I decided to cut the hard line between the lift pump and filter, even though I cringed at the thought, and install my Auto Meter fuel pressure gauge to check the pressure of the lift pump. When I got home from lunch, I moved the truck into the grass so it would be softer to lay on than my concrete driveway. It's a good thing that I did. After lunch, I removed the hard line so I could take it to work and make the cut. As I was laying underneath, removing the nut on the bottom of the line, I looked up and saw a drip of fuel on the bottom of the lift pump underneath the rubber inlet hose. That's far enough away and enough higher than the nut that I knew that it wasn't from me loosening the nut. I was also about 90% or more sure that it wasn't from the rubber hose. I cut the line at work, cleaned it up to remove as many of the metal shavings as possible, and took it home after work. Naturally, both nuts on each part of the line wanted to fight me and not start. I finally got both parts installed back in place right before sun down. I quickly put some rubber hose on the the pieces of hard line, attached those to a T, installed the pressure sender, and hooked up the gauge. I left everything under the hood since it was after sun down by this time. I started the engine and just touched the power and ground wires for the gauge to the battery terminals. I was surprised that it was showing 3 PSI on high idle. I put the ground wire underneath a ground wire close to the battery so that I didn't have to hold it. I held the power wire on the positive battery post so that I could work the throttle with my other hand. I revved the engine to (guessing) 1800 RPM and held it there. After a minute or so, the pressure started to drop. I held the RPM until it got to just above 0, which didn't take another minute, and let the engine idle. PROBLEM CONFIRMED! So now, I can get onto installing the e pump and permanently installing the gauge. Then I should be able to drive the truck anywhere I want to again without issues.
Ive had similar symptoms lately. I think I found my issue though. The fuel filter managed to spin itself free and finally fell off the filter head. I had just pulled into the fuel station when it died. Prior to that I was losing power and it had to be sucking just a small amount of air. Since I put the filter back on nice and tight, no power issues. I had replaced the filter and installed an electric lift pump before the symptoms occurred. After the electric pump install I had more power from what I can only assume was a more consistent flow of fuel. Climbing grades was made easier and EGTs were much lower.
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
Now that's scary!
Your mechanical lift pump may have been getting weak too. Another possibility is, depending on which e pump you installed, that you now have more fuel pressure and it advanced your timing.
Glad you got it figured out
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
Me too. I almost had myself convinced that the IP was bad. If that was bad, I was going to buy injectors too. That would have taken up all of the money that I have saved up to buy another project. The drip also explains why I haven't been getting as good of mileage lately too.
Cant Write
Full Access Member
How do you track you mileage if your odometer is broken?
Do you have an app or a specified known route?
Earlier I was gonna mention if you could drive it with your emergency e-pump engaged and see if the problem cleared. Glad you got it figured out!!
Now the real question, what’s your next project that you’ve been saving for?
Do you have an app or a specified known route?
Earlier I was gonna mention if you could drive it with your emergency e-pump engaged and see if the problem cleared. Glad you got it figured out!!
Now the real question, what’s your next project that you’ve been saving for?
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
This is it. It's also why I don't know my exact mileage.
I've tried that in the past when I wasn't getting enough fuel and it didn't seem to make much difference. It's close to 20 years old or more (I can't remember) and wasn't a top quality pump when I bought it. It probably doesn't have the volume to let me drive down the highway even at 50 MPH. It did work once when the previous lift pump went out back in 2015, but I stayed in town.
Nothing real special. I'm looking for a ex cab brick nose with a decent body, decent interior, and a good title. I've found several without titles. I'm wanting to do a body swap onto another frame so engine, transmission, and 4X4/4X2 doesn't matter. Paint doesn't even matter. I can paint it if need be.
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
I forgot to mention that it has to be a long bed.
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
I mounted that gauge yesterday and I got a lot closer today. All I have left to do tomorrow is to finish wiring in the relay and reroute the fuel lines. I also found out that there are more than one Holley blue pumps. One of them actually does call for a returning regulator. Apparently that's the one that I bought. It came with a regulator and I didn't look at it very closely. I don't have any more fittings to hook a fuel line to so I had to plug one of the outlet ports. I'll have to buy another fitting next week when there's a parts store open. I also didn't get to mount a filter before the pump either because, once again, I didn't look closely enough and mistakenly thought that the filter head I bought for the filter came with the fittings to attach a line to. I'll have to buy those next week as well. I probably won't do a lot of driving until I have this all sorted out. Disclaimer: neither picture is great, but I was in a hurry.
Attachments
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
No overall success today either. I got the mechanical lift pump bypassed and started the engine. I was getting 6 PSI with the pump running and the engine off. After I started the engine, I was getting 3 PSI again and it dropped even faster when revved than it did with the mechanical pump. I drove it back over to work to lift the bed again since I was thinking that there must be a hole in the pickup tube under the sender and I just didn't see it the last time. When the sender was out, I couldn't see any cracks or holes. I used regulated air at 1-2 PSI to blow into the pickup while I blocked off the other end with a finger. No leaks that I could tell. I decided that maybe something had gotten lodged inside my emergency bypass hose that I put on in Colorado last summer. I turned the air up to 75PSI to blow back through the line to where it attaches to the stock steel line. There was a mess, but I couldn't tell that anything else changed. Next, the idea occurred to me to remove my emergency e pump. At last I was getting 4 PSI at an idle. It would drop to 2 when revved, but then would return to 4 after I let off the throttle. I put everything back together, drove the truck outside and started putting things away. After idling for 10 minutes or so, I came back outside to drive home and the gauge was showing 0 PSI. I made it back home, but now am completely stumped. My only guess at this point is that maybe, the Holley is being affected, somehow, by not having the regulator being returned. Tomorrow, I'm going to get a ride to town so I can pink up things that I didn't have on hand including what I need for a regulator return. One more thing that I forgot to mention, just to rule it out, I removed the stock plastic line from the pickup on the sender, attached a rubber hose to the sender, and ran that directly to the Holley. Nothing changed there.
