Thread: TD5 fuel pump maintence and repair tutorial

Hi all,

Given some fuel pumps are failing and as our vehicle age, I decided to show how to maintain / replace the pump itself and the filter to prevent premature failure and secondly, should it fail when your in the middle of nowhere this tut may come in handy.

A cost effective option on how to change out the motor 'pump only' option that I intend to follow in my future travels rather than folk out my first child for the cost of a complete assembly. I've ordered a pump for approx $130 dollars to be used as a spare and more on that when it arrives. I am glad I did this at home given I found that after approx 60K of travel, the pump filter was 20%-30% blocked from debris. So I'm confident these pumps will fail given the suction filter will just increase the load on the pump (and hence relay perhaps). And that's with just highway fuel stops here.

1. I have a 2000 Disco TD5 auto with 209K (5 seat) and I just had to remove the rear black luggage strip and to my surprise I could lift the carpet up as just under the courtesy bins to get access to the pump cover. Later finding out why with a date stamp on the pump at 6/06 from perhaps the first owner having this changed at around the 150K mark from service records. Back to the carpet, this is not a bad way of putting two hidden cut lines in the carpet if you ever need easy later. Perhaps I didn't need to order that extra pump however I'm glad I did for a spare given always generally towing van in inner country.

2. (Remove fuel assembly from vehicle tank) Just refer to your manual on how to remove assembly from tank observing a full clean, vacuum and or blower to prevent ingress of contamination.

3. (Fuel Gauge remove) With the pump assembly out on the bench, the lower section of the assembly body is just a cover with bottom screen (course filter) with a build in simple valve assembly inside it. To remove you have to first look at the fuel gauge card and just finger press on the single top tab thus the card can move downwards on its 4 tracks say 10mm and slides completely free. You can remove completely by disconnecting wires but I didn't as is fairly tight for fingers unless necessary. It stays with the upper section anyway so will not be moving much as we concentrate on the lower removable body here.

4. (Lower body section) again fingers only is sufficient to lift off the three tabs around the top of the outer body. There is one final tab that is slightly internal and accessed by a small screwdriver and just next to where the fuel gauge tab was. It looks like a slot of about 8mm when looking from top down in the plate. A small blade screwdriver will ensure the disconnect. Remove the cover to expose the pump filter. Its pretty strong plastic so easy as.

5. (Pump filter) The pump filter just pulls off and have a look at the crap and I wish we had twice the size filter. Clean and replace. This is the problem area and only max 60Klms use here.

6. (Lower section body valve and screen cleaning). Okay, by hand again you can remove the bottom screen which then slides out a side screen. I then carefully removed what appears to be a simple limiting valve arrangement and I am glad I did given build up of internal crap. It looks like two side tabs however the third thick side is also a locating tab. Just take care as is more fragile. I just used needle nose pliers and a small blade screwdriver again. Just take your time.

7. If you study the bottom exposed pump and upper plastic housing it is a simple expand and push the motor into the plastic housing and located by its upper tin lip located in the plastic. I didn't need to remove as my other motor has not arrived as yet.

8. Full resemble and bleed system taking care to be as clean as possible.

So the upshot is I'm comfortable with now with an emergency repair and I am concerned with the small filter size against the amount of debris and in my view, is one reason why they are failing given the additional loading on the motor.

9. I had my fuel gauge between the bottom 2 and 3 white lines and I measured the depth of the standard tank at 80mm. Which is just shy of the top tin can section of the motor. So for cooling I'm taking a guess here for me that where possible I will be filling at the second white bar mark given full pump cooling however as we all know out bush this is not possible.

10. I put a torch into the tank and noted a couple of white floaty bits and generally the tank is acceptably clean.

When I get the other pump from overseas, I'll rig up a test bed and put a pressure meter on it given its a copy, but then again, I want to see if its actually a VDO or a VDO build in disguise here.

I trust this might help out. Cheers Geoff

Folks, just reading the other thread re electricial earth on pump and lower voltages can cause failure of pump as well so worth a check just prior to inspection cover on. One way I use is to place two household pins through the pump wires and after startup when all settled down, measure volts under load at pump and then at battery terminals to check difference. If no load the voltage is always identical so pump must be running.

Just a final electrical check given you have just overcome two of the main risk areas.