fuel pump plug?? catastrophic failure or??

tblume · 06-29-09, 09:04 PM

here's what caused my 'crank-no-start' problem friday; the plug at the top of the pump "melted?" or disintegrated enough that the power pin in the plug was not doing its job.

so, um-

how close to catastrophic was this failure? anyone seen something like this? my LH low beam looked very similar, no crumbling but blistered and charred (

?!)and was an intermittent problem till I massaged the pin and 10K miles later no problem. was the plug in the fuel tank arcing or did it just give up quietly without potential explosion?

and yes, I am ordering the bracket with the plug in the morning, as I can't locate just the pigtail.

tblume · 06-30-09, 08:03 AM

bump for front page exposure; I really want to know if this is something I should be more worried about.

update: ordered the bracket/wire/plug from Mr. Dan. When asked about the nature of a plug like this in a tank of fuel he replied, "it's a hyphenated word, begins KA and ends boom"

concretejungle · 06-30-09, 08:31 AM

ummmmm..... wow, that's not good! Especially melting, electrical parts that close to gasoline!! WTF?

I have yet to see that.

landtank · 06-30-09, 08:35 AM

from my explanations, the fuel concentration within the tank won't ignite without oxygen. The nature of motors themselves gives off sparks from the brush contacts. I wouldn't worry about an explosion.

alia176 · 06-30-09, 09:03 AM

look closely at the two wires that powers up the pump, do you see any chafing on the wires themselves?

tblume · 06-30-09, 02:37 PM

no chaffing on the wires, the hot pin was blackened, and the plug in the picture where it is still somewhat intact was crumbled and brittle. you have a theory alia?

alia176 · 06-30-09, 09:29 PM

it seems that the power wire tends to get chafed on the fuel pump bracket. This has happened to few mudders so I was merely curious if this was the root cause. Otherwise, a locked rotor pulled a lot of amps and melted the connector. I can't imagine why the pump rotor would lock up though!

tblume · 06-30-09, 09:48 PM

sock was stained but fairly clean, pump works with my modified female spade terminals, I ordered the bracket this morning. I don't think the pump froze, or was plugged, like CDan said, 16 years is a long time to be in a gas tank.

oh well, not a DD so I am not out transpo, so I got that goin' for me; which is nice.

TrickyT · 06-30-09, 09:56 PM

Very unusual. It looks like the plastic connector has incinerated. It could simply be an electrical connector failure where a small resistance in the connector caused heating which caused the resistance to go up which caused more heat which resulted in more resistance which caused...; repeat until failure. Or, as Ali says, the pump bearings froze, locked the rotor and caused a high current draw and that overheated the connector. Since it's the connector going directly into the pump, I can't see how chafed wires are involved here. Also, as landtank says, air/fuel ratio is wrong for an explosion. Sorry, no TWA-800 here.

TrickyT · 06-30-09, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tblume

Sock was stained but fairly clean, pump works with my modified female spade terminals, I ordered the bracket this morning. I don't think the pump froze, or was plugged, like CDan said, 16 years is a long time to be in a gas tank.

Agreed. R&R and move on.

alia176 · 07-01-09, 01:47 PM

Agreed, new pump and move on.

I do keep a spare used pump in the spare kit for just in case.