Hello All,

My dad has a 94 2500 reg cab. He drove around Saturday all day without a problem. Tuesday he sat in his truck to head to work and no fire. It just cranked and cranked and cranked with no start. Sounds like there is no fuel. But I was wondering if you had some quick things to check.

It seems fuel related but not sure.

 

Check the fuel shut down solenoid, its towards the back of the pump.

It should pull up when the truck is cranked, there's 3 wires on the solenoid, ground, hold in (which is low voltage) and pull in which is 12 volts only when the engine is cranked.

First I would try pulling the solenoid up manually with the key on and see if it holds there, the engine should start then. Worst case you or your dad can tie wire it up so you can get going.

 

There are 2 coils in the fuel solenoid: pull on and hold on. It sounds like you are not getting power to the pull coil in the solenoid. This coil gets power only when starting. The hold coil is powered by the ignition switch thru fuse 9 in the fuse panel by the door.

As suggested, turn key on and pull the solenoid linkage up. It should stay up if the hold coil and circuit is good.

The pull circuit is energized during engine start. The fuel solenoid relay is turned on and power goes from the fuselink on the battery, thru the relay, to the pull coil. It could be a bad fuselink, bad relay or the power feed wire may be corroded. All easy to check.

Post what you find and you can get more help.

To get going you can tie a small loop in a rope. Hook it to the solenoid linkage and pull up and tie the rope off. I had to do that when my solenoid gave up the fight.

 

If the solenoid test fails, don't replace it!!!
Problem almost always lies elsewhere.

If the solenoid checks out fine you could have an air leak in the fuel supply system.
If it fails to start pump the primer button on the lift pump many, many times till you hear fuel at the pump.
This won't fix the problem, only allows you look in the right direction.

 

he could be out of fuel, the senders are notorious for going out.

 

Hmmm not sure what the issue is.

I went over today. He decided to just crank it over and it cranked for a second and then is sounded like it wanted to start. Then he tried cranking it again and it fired and stumbled and died. Then he cranked it again and it ran. He went to fill it up and put in a little less than 20 gallons. Started right up at the fuel station.

So, the first thing he is going to try is changing the fuel filter.

 

Well, figured it out. It was a 4 inch tube on the return path. It had a small crack in it and it was letting air in. Loved that little gem. Got lucky and found the fuel leak.