Thread: Todays dumb Q. Fuel (?) problem

It is a pretty common problem for the lift pump to die. Usually the injector pump sucks up enough fuel to keep the engine going (but power is severely reduced).

Or you have an air leak somewhere.

Originally Posted by moorey

There looks like a big filter coming out of the tank, I drained it to see if full of water. A bit of water, but NO diesel in there....
I assume the pump is the one in the engine bay bolted up the front drivers side. I opened to screw on the bottom, and there was no water, but 'seemed' to be full of diesel.
Assuming (maybe incorrectly) the one near tank is filter only, should always be full of fuel.....the fact that there wasn't any, suggests what? Line from tank blocked? Fuel pump stuffed?
Anyone had this or can diagnose by bad discription?
Also, I got wife to turn on ignition while I listened for fuel pump. Didn't hear anything. Should I? If that helping with diagnosis
Much appreciated in advance

The "filter" near the tank is a sedimenter, it has no filter as such. It should always be full of diesel. It should be a regular part of your service regime to drain any crap off the bottom (water, dirt, etc).

There is a spin on type of filter in the engine bay which should also be full of fuel at all times.

There is no (factory fitted) electric fuel pump. On the RHS of the engine there is a cam driven fuel lift pump which is designed to suck fuel from the tank to feed the high pressure mechanical injection pump. As noted above, it is not uncommon for the lift pump to fail.

First up change the fuel filter if you haven't already.

Get a screwdriver and check the gauze at the top of the lift pump. If it is clogged clear the guff and hope the problem is solved.

You've already checked the sedimenter, good idea to pull it off and clean the bowl to be sure.

Now check if the lift pump is working - take wire off the fuel injection pump - starter solenoid wire or whatever. Get a bottle, undo the fuel line from the lift pump, line into the pump, turn over the motor, if there's fuel in the bottle the lift pump is working. I'm sure the other folks'll have a better version of this.

If you've got a dirty load of fuel you either drain tank and start again or do stuff above and hope that there isn't enough stuff in there to clog the new fuel filter.

Always carry a spare fuel filter.

hth

Cheers,
Simon.

if your sedimentor is that full of water other stuff will float right by it and wind up trapped in the gauze strainer in the lift pump... undo the inlet side (towards the rear of the pump) and there should be a little plastic cylinder in there thats the in pump strainer be clogged to...

as a temporary fix you can fit an electric pump between the sedimentor and the lift pump. ( I call em rattlers and you can get em from super cheap for about $40ish from memory) but when you do let it run for about 5 minutes without the engine running and check the oil..

if its rising stop the pump and do one of 2 things...

1. bypass the lift pump or
2. rebuild/replace the lift pump.


If thats the problem you have some other options that will help prolong the life of the new pump..

Thanks all. That gives me a good heads for trouble shooting. At least if it doesn't work I can take it to the Mech without tooking likr a TOTAL moron.
Cheers blokes.

Mech replaces the lift pump, still no good.
Has a good look at old pump, says it had been rooted and not working/broken for some time by the looks. Extra load on injector pump has killed it too now
Just to clarify, i had no loss of power over the 2 years i've had it, and no change in economy.
Shouldn't I have known the lift pump had gone?
I didn't thing the injector pump would/could do the job on its own

Last round of discussions about lift pump vs injection pump is that you only notice the loss of the lift pump unless your on a huge front to rear incline - I think over 30 degrees.

My suggestion, if you have the time and don't need the 130 for a couple of weeks, is to fiddle about with it first yourself.

I did a horribly expensive round of all this stuff, and wasn't completely convinced that the injection pump needed fixing to the extent that the mechanic thought.

There's a short irritating list of things to do with the fuel system. Bugger of a job and expensive for a mechanic to do it, just a bugger of a job for you to do them. None of them are complicated, but they are the messy toilet unblocking type jobs that no one wants to do.

Reason I'm suggesting it is 'cos the first time the sudden fuel starvation/stops for no reason thing happened to me the mechanic said injection pump needs fix. I said can't afford it, check all the other stuff again, and shortly after that, for no specific reason the system came good and was fine for months. The next time I had problems it was fuel ****ing out of the injection pump and I immediately, and stupidly, decided to replace the injection pump.

Could have fixed that problem with a $30 seal.

The fuel starvation problems returned after the new injection pump was in.

These fuel problems, from what I've experienced, seem to result from a combination of factors such as:

A couple of small air leaks in the fuel system
a load of bad fuel
a dirty fuel filter
sediment in the fuel tank
a dirty sedimenter.
blocked breather in fuel tank
dent in the fuel tank leading to fuel starvation when tank is on last quarter.


Because it seems to be small problems in combination it is difficult to point to one single thing.

If you go and do the dirty stuff and it doesn't work, you'll at least know that it really is the injection pump.

And you'll have a clean fuel system.

And somewhere in the past there is a thread that covers all that needs to be done.

Cheers
Simon.

IF the pump on the bottom of the injector was doing its job correctly no you would not have noticed any failure untill one of 2 things went west...

1. the pump itself or
2. the regulator/bypass/prime valve for the pump

Had you ever run out of fuel with a cactus lift pump you would have known about it, the pump on the injector would not have had enough go about it to reprime the system..

ditto a big long hard offroad climb..

if its the regulator gone and you get lucky replacing the lift pump will get you back on the road temporarily but you'll get some funny running.

as the pump is a vane type rotary pump you might get away with a seal and vane kit DIY for <$40 if your ocmfotrable stripping the pump off and retiming it after, on a scale of 1 (change a tyre) to 5 (rebuild an automatic transmission) doing the pump in the injector is about 3/5 on par with say installing a new cam and manually timing it then redoing the dizzy to suit the cam for all the petrol lovers.


best of luck.