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- #21
Ah, where we were? Air in the fuel lines... ugh. Ok
So I did a bunch of experiments.
I investigated under the hood and everything looked fine. I decided to start from the back. I became worried it was the fuel pickup, so I got some fuel line from and strapped a gas can to the back of the trucking went for joy rides up and down my the hills of my local neighbor hood. I can tell you doing hard pulls up residential streets and stalling out halfway op got me a lot of hard looks from the local blue hairs... same results. At least it's not the fuel pick up. It would go for a while, then stumble and die.
I was going to replace the lines with nice Viton fuel lines, but decided to go down to my local auto zone and grab a roll of 8mm line and just redo the lines going away from the tank to hedge by bets along with new clamps. Took me less than an hour to do the whole truck. I felt great about it! "This must be it!" I proclaimed to the sky! Then I went to the grocery store pretending it was fixed and it died half way there like an a******.
It couldn't be from the tank to the water separator. To be sure I I strapped a gas can with a couple of gallons of fuel to the bumper, pulling fuel straight from the lift and as what I had come to expect, no change.
It was time to have a look at the lift pump. I decided to grab some carb cleaner and look for leaks, spraying connections to see if I sensed any change in idle. I did get a couple of positive results but it was completely random. I was convinced I was going crazy because I couldn't replicate it, so after burning through what must have been a half can of carb cleaner I started to take a close look at all of my soft lines. The soft line from the lift pump to the fuel filter isn't made anymore, and mine had some mild cracking. I decided to coat it in black RTV and wrap it in tape just to make sure that somehow it wasn't sucking air. I know, not my proudest moment, but we were now 2 weeks into this project and I was feeling pissed and desperate. As predicted no change... Before I did that I went down to a little custom hose place in Burbank. The guy said he could make a replacement with a different, modern fitting for a little over $200. I knew it wasn't the hose.... but if I had any results at least I knew I could get a replacement.
Other bull**** I tried: bleeding the injectors by cracking the lines while at idle. That was fun but changed nothing... on it went. I would tighten something then just let the truck idle in the driveway until it started stumbling and eventually die. My wife works nights for part of the week, so this process went on for days...
So I did a bunch of experiments.
I investigated under the hood and everything looked fine. I decided to start from the back. I became worried it was the fuel pickup, so I got some fuel line from and strapped a gas can to the back of the trucking went for joy rides up and down my the hills of my local neighbor hood. I can tell you doing hard pulls up residential streets and stalling out halfway op got me a lot of hard looks from the local blue hairs... same results. At least it's not the fuel pick up. It would go for a while, then stumble and die.
I was going to replace the lines with nice Viton fuel lines, but decided to go down to my local auto zone and grab a roll of 8mm line and just redo the lines going away from the tank to hedge by bets along with new clamps. Took me less than an hour to do the whole truck. I felt great about it! "This must be it!" I proclaimed to the sky! Then I went to the grocery store pretending it was fixed and it died half way there like an a******.
It couldn't be from the tank to the water separator. To be sure I I strapped a gas can with a couple of gallons of fuel to the bumper, pulling fuel straight from the lift and as what I had come to expect, no change.
It was time to have a look at the lift pump. I decided to grab some carb cleaner and look for leaks, spraying connections to see if I sensed any change in idle. I did get a couple of positive results but it was completely random. I was convinced I was going crazy because I couldn't replicate it, so after burning through what must have been a half can of carb cleaner I started to take a close look at all of my soft lines. The soft line from the lift pump to the fuel filter isn't made anymore, and mine had some mild cracking. I decided to coat it in black RTV and wrap it in tape just to make sure that somehow it wasn't sucking air. I know, not my proudest moment, but we were now 2 weeks into this project and I was feeling pissed and desperate. As predicted no change... Before I did that I went down to a little custom hose place in Burbank. The guy said he could make a replacement with a different, modern fitting for a little over $200. I knew it wasn't the hose.... but if I had any results at least I knew I could get a replacement.
Other bull**** I tried: bleeding the injectors by cracking the lines while at idle. That was fun but changed nothing... on it went. I would tighten something then just let the truck idle in the driveway until it started stumbling and eventually die. My wife works nights for part of the week, so this process went on for days...