Just stalled out my ford vic with 4.6 liter motor. With ether it starts - is the pump on this car a common problem ,and is it worth doing on a car with 238K on it? Ran fine until now- any help is appreciated. thanx, bob d.
Electric pumps always fail sometime. Many forget when we drove cars 70 or 80 thousand miles and junked them - and we replaced the mechanical fuel pumps much more often over the life of the vehicle.
It's just harder now, the tank has to be dropped out. Get a repair figure & decide if it's worth it!
Rob
Why are they buiding them like that? Why not provide an opening in the trunk to change it? My 79 Celica was like that (i dunno about my other cars, didn't have to change the pump in those)
Dropping the tank to change something that took 10 minutes before is not consumer-friendly...
Actually, the pump in a CV doesn't require removing the tank. The pump/sender is mounted through the front of the tank facing the axle. It's a bit tight and I prefer doing it on a lift, but if you get it off the ground enough, you don't have to R&R the tank. The reason for :good:access in earlier "in tank pump" cars is for the reason you described. They were prone to failure. Once the design proved itself, there was no need for access during the expected life of the car. These days, fuel pump failures normally occur near or long after the expected life expectancy of a vehicle. In my experience, long after most times. You should expect to drop the tank on a 12-15 YO vehicle with a bad fuel pump. Just as you would expect to pull the motor on the same vehicle with a rod knock. I'm waiting for the "low pressure" pump in the tank of my 84 Lincoln Mark VII to fail. I rue the day it happens, but after 24 years it's still doing what it's supposed to do. That car carries me through a 100 mile per day commute. If the pump died tomorrow, I don't owe it a dime at 148K miles and would count myself lucky. I'd whine about the downtime and likely the bill, but when all is said and done, it was a minor blip in the cost of ownership of that vehicle.
Yeah, it's probably why I never had to change a fuel pump except on one...
If it's anything like my friend's '78 Continental, those cars just don't seem to break :)
Have you tried resetting the inertia switch left side of trunk?
Lugnut
Hey Tom - I did one of those on my '84 T-Bird Elan. Not too bad as long as the tank is about empty. I just backed her up on a good set of ramps. Some access thru the trunk, BTW, big rubber plug. More aggravating was when the fuel line coming from the pump rusted a couple of pinholes thru. I smelled gas and couldn't find it. When I did find it nobody could get a sending unit for a week. I sealed the entire tube in epoxy and changed the fuel filter. I drove that car 185k before it gave up and still miss it...
PoD
Hi! Yes, I found the inertia switch, and it worked! I will always remember this- thanx for all the advice. bob
Cheaper and easier than a fuel pump!!
Lugnut
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