madhat

Mornin, DTR...

A friend of mine had a 98.5 that they believe has a few cracks in the plastic lines at the top of the tank, when they park it, they have to drain the fuel filter bowl to draw fuel into it.

Anyhow, I'm not too familliar with how the VP44 gets fed, or how the fuel supply comes into the engine compartment. I was going to suggest to them to just take all that plastic stuff off, and get a piece of 3/8's and hose clamp it to the top of the tank, then run it to where ever it ends up at. I assume that it goes to the FF bowl, but he said something about a mechanical fuel pump on the side of the motor....


Sooo... could I do the rubber hose thing, or would I have to get something like the vulcan drawstraw to make it work?


And, where does that line go to? Pictures?



He does not have a FP gauge, don't worry, I urged him to...


TIA!

mad

REF>Lancer

I don't have a picture,a draw straw is a good idea,if you are trying to get rid of the plastic stuff.
The lines run along the inside of the frame on the drivers side,and the lift pump should be on the engine block behind the fuel filter,not hard to find,just sorta a pain to get to.

Best bet,put a dang Airdog/Fass on the thing,along with a FP gauge

madhat

Thanks, lancer...

He just had a new fuel pump pump on there, I'm tryin to keep him cheap... he has no mods.

I remember how mine ran, I just did not know how it hooked up on the 2nd gens...

chaikwa

Yes, Madhat is talkin' 'bout ME, the stoopid janitor.

That IS a mechanical pump on the 98.5's, right? I looked at it quick today and I couldn't find a priming lever and there's a coupla wires running to the pump, almost like it was an electric. To get me thru the winter, I was planning on replacing the plastic line with rubber from the steel elbow on top of the tank to the stock fuel pump and using hose clamps on both ends to secure it. Once the truck isn't needed for a few weeks later in the year, I'll do some kind of REAL fuel pump conversion.

chaikwa.

madhat

See, now why did you have to go identify yourself?

chaikwa

I shouldn'ta? Ok, well, everybody just forget it was me!

It was scottsquach. Yeah, that's it... scottsquatch!

chaikwa. I mean scottsquatch.

piperca

The pump is electric. Draw Straw is definitely worth doing, if your needing to save your existing tank module. You can run rubber lines all the way to the lift pump from the tank by adding a fitting to the inlet of the pump ... pretty cheap upgrade! There's more that can be done, but you're obviously trying to keep the cost down.

chaikwa

It IS electric... hmmm. And the Cummins dealer told me it was mechanical! So to bleed the system, just turn the key on and open the plug in the top of the filter housing?

chaikwa.

patdaly

Chak, of you just bump the starter, the pump will run for 25 seconds.

Good luck, I would almost bet that your sender is rotted away on the steel portion of the lines, I just went thru this with a buddies 99.

His was so bad that when I dropped the tank, the lines stayed with the plastic lines.

That truck went from hard starting, to no start without bleeding the Injectors in less than a week.....You probably don't want to wait until the dead of winter to address the problem.

Stick your hand up by the sender and if you feel lots of scale, just figure on the draw straw.

AlpineRAM

I had the same problem with my truck- the solution was simple and cheap. I removed the stock fuel line and return line metal part from the tank, plugged the hole and drilled a hole through the plug to get a 3/8" fuel hose through. I used some diesel proof silicone to glue the hose in. I connected the fuel hose to the stock pickup of the in tank module. Then I used the aux pickup (The one with the rubber cap in the pic) for the return line, but I bent it's hose so that it exits within the in tank module. I left the fuel hose long enough to get to my fuel pump (A holley blue in the frame rail) and that was the end of my fuel drainback, fuel aeration and rusty fuel pickup troubles. And I've got 3/8" ID from the fuel pickup to the fuel filter now, no kinks etc.

HTH

AlpineRAM

madhat

Hey, alpine... where did you get that silicone at? What is it called?

AlpineRAM

If I recall this correctly it was a rather cheap gasket maker silicone rated for mineral oils, smelled like the mopar ATV. The brand name was some local store chain brand from over here.
If you drill the hole in the plug small enough so that the hose is quite tight fitting without crimping it should work even without the silicone.

HTH

AlpineRAM

chaikwa

Wow, thanks for all the replies!

I'm goin' out to pull the tank this mornin'. The problem got worse on the way back to Michigan yesterday. Even if we shut it off just for a minute or two, it wouldn't restart without bleeding it. Gonna yank the tank to see what's really goin' on up there. I was gonna cut a hole in the bed and make an access hole for future problems, but the whole fuel sender/pickup assembly is directly centered under a bed cross brace so that idea's no good.

I'll let y'all know what I find.

chaikwa.

chaikwa

That is/was the same case with mine. Took the tank down today and the same thing happened. Got a whole new unit from a buddy at the dealers and I'll put the tank back up tomorrow.

chaikwa.