A sad sad day

[rommaster2]

Ok well today i was attempting to take my falcon down to get the vin inspected so i can officially register it. I get to the gas station, everything is working great, put some gas in, then i realise i forgot something so i head home. As i'm nearing my neighborhood the engine just dies. So me and my friend coast as far as we can (in the residential) and pull over to inspect. Well electrical problems were my first thought, but all was fine there, so we checked out the carb.

Gas wasnt getting to it, we checked by unplugging the fuel line and turning over the engine, no gas poured . So then we get it home, figuring its clogged or something, starts right up, seems to be running fine, ok just jitters i hoped. So we drive it again, it gets about halfway to the dmv, and decides to die again, this time on a two lane country road without any real shoulder. So we pull off the road (note in a ditch ) and check, its the same darn problem.

Well we were wondering if it was the fuel pump, so we tried to limp it over to a nearby friends house to borrow her electric fuel pump and hopefully get my car home (i'm now thouroughly freaked out about cops hassling me because i'm not registered). So we get there, barely, basically we had to turn over the engine till it would get gas (quite the guessing game, very intermittent) and then give it gas to start it then run till the "primer" gas ran out, then repeat. After installing the electric fuel pump (ghetto rigged) it "seemed" to be happy, so we headed back to my house, hoping to get it on the open road and build up speed then coast if it died. No sooner do we get far enough away from her house to be a hassle does it start to do the same thing. So we repeat this process, and manage to get it two blocks from my hosue in the gas station parking lot.

Now this part of the story really isnt importatn, but for a good story must be told. Me and my friend decide we need to tow it back (the battery is by now pretty much dead) but how? So my friend goes to my house (my sis picked him up) and gets our project lawn mower (an old craftsman with a 15hp single piston Briggs and Stratton motor, does wheelies stock so far) and drives it through the neighborhood to the gas station. Then we hook up a tow strap, put the falcon in nuetral, and we're off, towing my car through a neighborhood with a lawn mower at 6mph. We got home just fine, and got quite a few looks, laughs, and thumbs up from guys in trucks .

My theory behind its sudden problem is the fuel sending unit, the car is acting like it is getting clogged, then unclogged as it sits. This would make sense seeing as how i didn't replace the sending unit, and it was missing the filter. Either that or its my fuel pump, which after using the electric one, i have decided to maybe switch over to one of those. Where would i find a plug for the manual? I could keep it on the car for now, and just bypass it right? or would that burn it up? I'm thinking along these lines just because if my electric pump died, i'd like to have a backup available.

So do you guys think its the Fuel Sending unit? Either way i should probably replace that right?

 

[james singleton]

Rommaster2, If I am not mistaken, the sending unit only tells you how much gas is in your gas tank. I don't think that would be your problem. My first thought, like your first thought, was the fuel pump. But since you rigged up the electric pump and it did the same thing I would guess that maybe your fuel filter is partially plugged. Is the fuel filter downstream of the fuel pump? Also have you been running close to empty where you may have picked up crap from the bottom of your fuel tank? In older cars it is not uncommon to pick up crap from the bottom of a fuel tank if you let it get down close to empty; it then clogs up your fuel filter or carburetor! Good Luck, Jim

 

[mustang6]

The sending unit in the tank has a screen on the end of the pickup tube. It is fairly common in situations like yours to find that the mostly clogged screen is picking up enough particles from fuel pump suction to completely plug the screen- starving the pump for fuel. After the engine dies, and the fuel sloshes around a bit, the free particles slough off and let a bit of fuel through again until you get the engine running and start the plugging up process over again. I'd bet you money that if you pull the sending unit you will find a bunch of crud on the pickup screen. Then while you are replacing it you can rinse the tank out, if the tank is rusted inside you should replace it or get it sealed (I had to do this on my 65 Ranchero where repro tanks were not available).

 

[rbohm]

8) it does sound like either a clogged fuel sock at the tank pickup, or more likely a clogged fuel line. i had the same problem with my old grand marquis. i would blow out the fuel line, and the clog would go away, only to return a number of months later. if you do blow out the line, do it in reverse of normal fuel flow to get the clog out. if you do havea clogged line though, it is best to replace the line with new.

 

[kirkallen143]

You should see some of the stuff that comes out of my filter next to the gas tank, rust, silt, sand and what ever else is in that 34 year old tank. I can watch my fuel pressure gauge start dropping down in psi and then I know it is time to put in a new filter (I have two filters, one before the elec. inline pump and one after)
It really just started clogging filters lately, so it looks like this weekend I will be pulling a tank and cleaning it out. Good luck to you.

Kirk

 

[69.5Mav]

rommaster2

Among the cars I own is a 72 Maverick. Last year I had exactly the same symtoms you are describing. After much fuss and a few strandings I removed the tank and found a 1/2 inch coating of hardened debree, consisting of lots of rust particles, residue from evaporated gasoline and what ever else that got into the tank in 34 year of driving, in the tank that must have been slowing being disolved by the gas and clogging every fuel filter in the system. I took the tank to a Radiator shop and had them boil it out and seal it, they even put in a dain plug for free. I also reverse blew out the gas line, changed all the fuel filters and put in a new fuel pump. Since then I have had no problems with fuel supply.

69.5mav

 

[Funky Cricket]

The sending unit in the tank has a screen on the end of the pickup tube. It is fairly common in situations like yours to find that the mostly clogged screen is picking up enough particles from fuel pump suction to completely plug the screen- starving the pump for fuel. After the engine dies, and the fuel sloshes around a bit, the free particles slough off and let a bit of fuel through again until you get the engine running and start the plugging up process over again. I'd bet you money that if you pull the sending unit you will find a bunch of crud on the pickup screen. Then while you are replacing it you can rinse the tank out, if the tank is rusted inside you should replace it or get it sealed (I had to do this on my 65 Ranchero where repro tanks were not available).

yeup. sounds like this is it.