Mysterious problem solved

Dec 27, 2004 5 Replies
B

I'm posting this to get it into the usenet archives. Hopefully, this saves someone else some headaches. :-)



I have a 96 half ton chevy express van. The problem was that it would occasionally die leaving us stranded. The problem acted like a bad fuel pump. After towing home, it would mysteriously start the next day and run for a while longer, maybe a month.



We towed it to the mechanic hoping it would break for him. Sure enough, after towing there one night, it started for the mechanic just fine the next day. After several days of perfect operation, I stopped back by to pick it up. I started the van and it died. I didn't even get out of the parking space. The mechanic was still there and ran out with some test equipment.



It turned out to be a bad fuel pump. It would quit working whenever the ambient temperature would drop below maybe 15 degrees. I've never seen a fuel pump do this before. I always thought that once they died, they were dead for good. A new fuel pump fixed the problem.



brian



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W

It would be nice if everyone did this, many here do, more than a few don't. Whitelightning

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D

I've got a 95 S10. Around 75000 miles it would start fine after sitting over night but if I shut it off within 5 minutes of starting I couldn't restart until an hour or so passed. If I didn't shut it off the engine would run fine. Ambient temperature wasn't a factor. The fuel pump was the culprit. In fact I could duplicate it's behavior on the bench.

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S

I had a similar problem with a 78 dodge power wagon. My friend and replace the motor in the truck along with that came things like new fuel lines. This made my trouble shooting really fun. I could drive the truck around town and then all of the sudden it would start acting like it was out of gas. I would have somebody come pick me up after spending time trying to get it started. I'd come back the next day and it would be fine. The truck did this for about a month until I finally took it to a shop to have them look at it. turned out to be that when the body shifted just right it was pinching off the fuel line.

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