So I've resolved to pull the fuel sending unit out of my truck, a 1997 Ford F-Super Duty Flatbed with the 7.3L PowerStroke Diesel motor. I had an event recently on the freeway where I lost all power, and I've got to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the experience. At first I thought maybe I had an intermittent problem with my throttle position sensor, but some research suggests that that would cause a check engine light, and I didn't get one of those. So now I suspect a fuel delivery issue.
After it happened I replaced the main fuel filter (sorry, no video of that, it was rather boring), and there are decent odds that was the problem (it was very dirty). Unfortunately, I needed this truck for an equipment pickup about 60 miles away in the next few days and that wasn't enough time for me to do enough testing to feel really confident that the issue was resolved, and being unsure would have made that drive more stressful than it needed to be.
So I researched common fuel delivery problems on this truck and one that comes up a lot is clogged screens in the fuel tank. According to what I read, the sending unit has some coarse filters built in and they can get blocked with junk and cause your engine to starve.
I set to work, and ended up spending most of my time wrestling with the quick-connect fuel lines. These have little tangs that have to be released to remove them, and there's a special tool that fits into the fitting to do so. Well, I don't have that tool. Some people have had success making their own out of a Sharpie, so I had a go at that. While it did eventually work, it didn't work great and I had to fight each fitting for some time to exert my dominance.
Once it was disconnected, I was able to remove my fuel sending unit without dropping the tank, which was nice (though it did require me to weasel myself into some pretty tight spaces to get the job done). However, once I had it out I found that not only did it not resemble all of the sending units I'd seen on RU-vid and forums for my truck, but it didn't even have screens! I guess the upside of that is that I am now supremely confident that they weren't clogged.
So, what was supposed to be a screen-cleaning video turned into this. I'm not really sure what to call it. I guess a fuel line removal video? A why-the-hell-does-my-sending-unit-look-so-different video? I don't know, but content is content. Maybe someone will learn something useful from seeing this.
Delusion 32 by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Artist: audionautix.com/
18 окт 2023
