Turn A Corner-Run Out Of Fuel

[garysleeman]

This is a crazy problem with my truck. I had what I thought were IP advance issues and sent my pump back to Accurate Diesel and it came back with no problems found. Installed the pump and started driving again. The truck (was) is breaking up with white smoke under power and started stalling after I made turns. I would sit at a light, idle ok and when I made the turn it would die, especially if I was going up hill after the turn. I've even had it die going around a bend at 50 mph! Sometimes I am able to put it in neutral and start the motor when coasting but that doesn't work when going up hill. I thought it was my biodiesel and cold weather. Siphoned out the biodiesel and replaced with dino, the cold weather is gone (till Tuesday) replaced the primary fuel filter, put a clear return line on the IP. I looked under the hood after an episode this morning and I am seeing air in the return line while I am cranking the motor and immediately after it starts. No obvious sign of where the air is coming from. Any ideas?

[BobND]

Check the whole length of the fuel line for rust pitting or other damage.

Most likely, you'll have to drop the fuel tank, and check the fuel pickup tube and filter sock.

[NH2112]

I've been having fuel problems on and off for the past couple years, have dropped the tank probably about a dozen times, blew the fuel lines out, cleaned the sock, etc, etc, and I finally had enough of it. This time the engine would run fine for maybe 5-10 minutes after a cold start, then would stall on braking or decel or the idle speed would go way down. It would even lose RPM when I climbed into the cab with the engine running. So I drained and dropped the tank, pressure washed inside and out, drained and let the residual water evaporate, and used a mirror and light to check for rust flakes (finding none.) I added star washers to both sides of the fuel pump ground connection and made sure I got it real tight, and took that stupid sock right off the end of the fuel pickup. I blew both the supply and return lines out from the engine end, heard a SPLAT that I don't think was attributable to just fuel in the lines (fungus, maybe? It blew all over the place so I couldn't tell) and put the tank back in place. The engine now runs like it did when I installed it last November - lots of power, and wants to drive out from underneath you when you give it fuel. I'm going to let my primary fuel filter stop the stuff that the sock used to, it may be more expensive to replace them but I won't have to drop another fuel tank to clean slime from the strainer.

[garysleeman]

As it turns out my problem was a clogged secondary filter. I had just replaced it in January and had not put many miles on it, tried to do a post-mortem on it but destroyed it in the process. I won't embarrass myself by stating everything I did before I found the filter to be the problem but I will say I'm glad I didn't sell the IP I had a $10 price tag on a flea market I was at last summer. When I installed the new filter I also temporarily put a translucent poly fuel line on and was surprised at the amount of air that was in coming up from the fuel pump. I was also surprised to find that even with the air the engine ran ok. I traced the source of the air to my primary filter which is a stanadyne FM100 30 micron. I played with the locking ring and the air disappeared (mostly). Maybe this filter isn't made to used in a vacuum situation?