Fuel Pump Issue

[SoCalDMC12]

Howdy Folks,

While driving to school today, I had a weird fuel pump issue...

After sitting in traffic for about 40 minutes, a started to smell the faint odor of gas, and the fuel pump started to squeal more than usual. When I got to school (about 40 minutes later), the pump was squealing pretty loudly, and there was a pronounced gas odor in the cabin. (The temp was about 77° F, I had the A/C on for part of the time, and I was filled to over 3/4 of the tank.)

About 4 hours later, I got in my car for the ride home. (I figured I'd drive it for a few miles, and I could always bail and call AAA if it seemed dangerous.) To my surprise, the pump operated at its normal (noisy) level, and there was no gas smell. (By this time, it was evening, so the temp was about 65-70°, and I didn't have the A/C on very much.)

The fuel pump is the older-style unit, and is probably less than 3 years old (probably about 45k miles on it).

Any ideas what the problem could be?

Thanks in advanced.

[WelmoedJ]

Howdy Folks,

While driving to school today, I had a weird fuel pump issue...

After sitting in traffic for about 40 minutes, a started to smell the faint odor of gas, and the fuel pump started to squeal more than usual. When I got to school (about 40 minutes later), the pump was squealing pretty loudly, and there was a pronounced gas odor in the cabin. (The temp was about 77° F, I had the A/C on for part of the time, and I was filled to over 3/4 of the tank.)

About 4 hours later, I got in my car for the ride home. (I figured I'd drive it for a few miles, and I could always bail and call AAA if it seemed dangerous.) To my surprise, the pump operated at its normal (noisy) level, and there was no gas smell. (By this time, it was evening, so the temp was about 65-70°, and I didn't have the A/C on very much.)

The fuel pump is the older-style unit, and is probably less than 3 years old (probably about 45k miles on it).

Any ideas what the problem could be?

Thanks in advanced.

If you can hear the pump all the time, it's not normal!
The only moment you could/should hear it (shortly), is when turning the IGN key to ON.
Sometimes you can hear the pump moan in very hot weather too.

If the pump gets loud, it probably found some dirt (tank ever being cleaned?) and had to chew it, or it's on its way out.

If I were to be confronted with a situation like yours I would have removed the panel to access the pump and see what causes this noise.
Especially regarding the fuel odor I would not have taken the risk of driving and spilling fuel.
This perhaps could be caused by leaking fuel hoses or a fuel pump boot being deteriorated and filling up the boot with fuel:
very dangerously as it so could meet the electrical contacts of the fuel pump.

Your first concern now should be: check the fuel pump area to make sure nothing is wrong there for your personal safety!

[SoCalDMC12]

If you can hear the pump all the time, it's not normal!
The only moment you could/should hear it (shortly), is when turning the IGN key to ON.
Sometimes you can hear the pump moan in very hot weather too.

Sadly, I've gone through about 4 fuel pumps over the years (all old-style DMC units without the integrated sending unit), and all have made noise during normal operation.

If the pump gets loud, it probably found some dirt (tank ever being cleaned?) and had to chew it, or it's on its way out.

I've never cleaned the tank... dirt is certainly a possibility.

If I were to be confronted with a situation like yours I would have removed the panel to access the pump and see what causes this noise.
Especially regarding the fuel odor I would not have taken the risk of driving and spilling fuel.
This perhaps could be caused by leaking fuel hoses or a fuel pump boot being deteriorated and filling up the boot with fuel:
very dangerously as it so could meet the electrical contacts of the fuel pump.

Your first concern now should be: check the fuel pump area to make sure nothing is wrong there for your personal safety!

I was very skeptical about driving home, but it was too dark too do any investigation last night, and after driving for a short while it was pretty obvious that the gas oder was gone, so I drove it home.

Going to open her up now to see if there are any obvious issues that I can remedy. If not, I may just need to park her until the semester is over and I have time to get her fixed.

Thanks!

[Ron]

Try to see exactly how the pickup hose and filter was oriented...

[DeMopar]

If you replace it, do yourself a favor and get the integrated unit. It couldn't be any easier to install and it simplifies your fuel system quite a bit. It worked out even better for me because I also had a wonky sending unit which it also corrected. Well worth the money IMHO...

[SoCalDMC12]

Well, it seems that over time one of the fuel hoses attached to the top of the pump shrunk, and finally tore a little. I'm betting that when the fuel became warm yesterday, it was able to exert enough force on the weakened hose to seep out and accumulate in the fuel pump boot. That's what was causing the odor. Not sure why the pump was noisier than usual. In the evening, when the fuel was cool, it wasn't able to seep out... allowing me to get home.

Sadly, I don't have time to fix this right now (school is taking up all my waking hours), so I buttoned up toe fuel pump area, disconnected the battery, and will wait until the semester's over to fix it. I'm guessing that replacing the hoses is pretty simply (remove from the fir tree connectors and replace with new)? Can the fir tree connectors remain attached during this process?

[DeLorean03]

I'm guessing that replacing the hoses is pretty simply (remove from the fir tree connectors and replace with new)? Can the fir tree connectors remain attached during this process?

I am assuming you mean where the fuel pump hoses connect to the hard metal lines. If so, absolutely they can remain in place. Take a shop knife/boxcutter and GENTLY cut the ends of the hoses - GENTLY. That way you can get them off the fir tree connectors, as your fuel pump hoses likely will be fastened in place. If you're replacing the rubber lines, it is way more simple to just cut the old ones off.

As always when working in this area, disconnect your battery. You should be fine!

[Nicholas R]

I had to read this several times because when I read fir tree, I kept thinking about door an headliner panels, haha.

You can do it without disconnecting the fittings, but every time I've done it, I thought it easiest to just break the fittings loose. If you use line wrenches it's pretty easy. The only thing is that I think they're odd sizes (like 14/15mm). Personally, I hate working inside the trunk so anything I can remove and work on outside the trunk, I'm on board with, haha. Still, it's up to you; it may be easier and quicker to just cut them off.

I've helped with quite a few and I've never seen a case where the barbed fitting itself had to be replaced. There's no reason why they really go bad. Only thing I can think of is if you rounded it off or something. As DeLorean03 said, you can just cut the old hose off and stick a new one on, hose clamp it and you're good to go.

One thing to be aware of though, I dont know where you're getting your new fuel hoses from, but make sure its good for at least 100psi. I did a fuel accumulator job on my car around 2005, and ended up having a hose blow twice, because it was only rated for 50psi (First time it blew, I had enough hose to cut the ruptured part off and reconnect it. Of course it blew again). At the time, I was pretty naive and assumed that, since it came with the kit it should work great right? The kit was from a certain individual in Texas. Luckily I was able to buy a 130psi hose at autozone for pretty cheap. Just be sure to double check.

[SoCalDMC12]

Thanks for all of the input. Sounds pretty straight forward, and DMCH has the hoses for pretty cheap, so I think this will be a good project for me. Sadly, because I'm so busy with school right now, I'm afraid the fix will have to wait for 7 more weeks, when the semester ends.

Sooo incredibly bummed that my car will be out of commission for so long. But in the general scheme of things, this is a pretty small problem to have.

[SoCalDMC12]

Howdy again. One more question...

I noticed that the parts diagram for the fuel pump indicates that hose clamps are located on each end of the rubber hoses leading from the fuel pump to the metal fuel lines. However, DMCH's site seems to indicate that these clamps are not available (#40) in the Tank/Hoses/Pump/Accumulator/Etc. section. Further, the hoses on my car don't currently have these clamps either.

Art they truly necessary, or ware there a running change during production that eliminated these clamps? (Mine's an '83.)

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

- Geoff