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Fuel Issues

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Snoskier16

CEG'er
Joined
May 22, 2007
Messages
106
Location
Granby, CT
The past two tanks have given me some trouble. My fuel gauge is SUPER inaccurate, but that has never been an issue. I can almost drive 100 miles before the needle passes Full. Anyway, event #1 happened when I was getting onto the highway with (what I always have assumed) about 1/4 tank. The low fuel light flashed on and the car started to hesitate. A kind of bucking would happen when more gas was applied, but with smooth throttle the car would run "normal". I made it about 2 miles before the next exit to get off and on the off-ramp the car died. It acted like it ran out of gas, but after a while, I bucked the thing across the street to the gas station. With more that 1/4 tank, the car runs normally. Today a similar situation happened, but it never totally died as a result of "running out of gas". After I put gas into the car, it did stall twice at stop lights which worried me.

Obviously, the issue is with the fuel system. Does everyone experience the lousy fuel gauge readings? I read about people driving past Empty, but I can't get anywhere near that reading. On a normal tank before these issues were happening, I could get about 300 miles without issue, but today's happened at 270. Sure, not too much difference, but it acted like it was running out of gas at that point.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Snoskier16 said:
The past two tanks have given me some trouble. My fuel gauge is SUPER inaccurate, but that has never been an issue. I can almost drive 100 miles before the needle passes Full. Anyway, event #1 happened when I was getting onto the highway with (what I always have assumed) about 1/4 tank. The low fuel light flashed on and the car started to hesitate. A kind of bucking would happen when more gas was applied, but with smooth throttle the car would run "normal". I made it about 2 miles before the next exit to get off and on the off-ramp the car died. It acted like it ran out of gas, but after a while, I bucked the thing across the street to the gas station. With more that 1/4 tank, the car runs normally. Today a similar situation happened, but it never totally died as a result of "running out of gas". After I put gas into the car, it did stall twice at stop lights which worried me.

Obviously, the issue is with the fuel system. Does everyone experience the lousy fuel gauge readings? I read about people driving past Empty, but I can't get anywhere near that reading. On a normal tank before these issues were happening, I could get about 300 miles without issue, but today's happened at 270. Sure, not too much difference, but it acted like it was running out of gas at that point.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

That sounds to me like the infamous fuel pump sock filter clog. Some people have it, some people don't. It appears to affect cars that were driven in dirty / dusty conditions. There's a good bit of information on how to effect a fix here on the forums. Some have gone with the Focus pump, but I'd be inclined toward the drop in replacement of the Contour unit. You may find that you're simply able to clean out the filter and fix the problem without replacing the pump. Either that, or keep the tank above 1/4, but that seems a little bush league. The reason that you're fine above a quarter is that there are two fuel pickups in the tank -- one low and one high. The low one is the one the clogs, so when you're using the upper one, you're fine.
 
the chugging is the fuel pump. you can do an esay test of the fuel line at at the shrader valve.
 
Yes! I would say that it is the fuel pump sock. My car did this around 1/4 tank when I first bought it in 2005. It got progressively worse to where I couldn't drive the car past 1/2 tank last year. If this is the first that you are experiencing this problem, you could probably just clean out the sock without having to replace the pump. If you keep going, you'll probably wear out the pump and have to replace that too. There is a 'How To' write up on replacing a fuel pump in the How To Section that you could refer to for removing the pump. There is a hole under your rear seat that will give you access to the tank/pump. If it is a returnless pump (late 99-00) you will have to do a little modification to get the pump out- cut lines around the hole and turn them into strips that you can pry upwards to give yourself a larger hole, then bend them back down and put a few layers of duct tape on. It is all in the write up. Turn the pump basket counterclockwise? to release it, take it out, pop it open, pull the pump out pull the 90 degree sock off, spray it clean with a bottle of carb cleaner, put it all back together and it should be fixed. If you want to replace the pump, you can get a Focus SVT assembly one from Bill Jenkins for $110 shipped. All you have to do is take the pump out of the Focus basket, put your cleaned sock on, file the key on the electrical connection down, and put it in your car. It would help to know what model (gl, se, svt...) and year you have. All this is relative to a 2000 SVT.
 
Thanks to everyone who offered advise on this issue. Yesterday I went in and pulled the fuel pump out to clean the filter. There were a few curses shot at Ford for their stupid idea to make the hole too small! Once everything was out, the fuel pump filter wasn't really too dirty. Yes, it did have some dirt in it, but it wasn't like I had expected. Cleaned it out nicely and put it back. Since I had drained the fuel pressure, I put a new fuel filter in as well. That bad boy was NASTY! Hopefully that was the offending part. I drove with less than a quarter tank to fill up with (gasp!) Premium fuel!:crazy: Let's see what happens!
 
sounds good but i had a similar thing happen to me the plug on top of the fuel pump was charred. leading the gauge to have resistance which means inaccurate needle also it would stall randomly. check the plug and the pins especially the black ground wire. hopefully this helps
 
This is great because I am having the exact same issue. I am going to try to get the car in the garage tonight and pull the pump if possible. I'll be watching for updates.
 
Update:

I'm lame and ended up getting 278 miles on the tank before I chickened out and put gas into it. Having issues last night coming home from school was not the best option, so I'll have to see what happens when we get lower on fuel on another tank. The needle did go below 1/4 tank, but the fuel light never came on and I don't believe the car did the out of fuel sputtery-dance-thingy. (I think I imagined it when I knew the car was getting below 1/4. Drove it for a while after that with no issues.)

Got 25+ MPG on the tank driving conservatively. Maybe I can sqeek one or two more out of it when I get my K&N back in it.:shrug: I felt as though the Premium fuel did make a difference in how the car ran, but I didn't see any efficiency improvement over regular.
 
Gas gauges in these cars aren't very accurate sometimes. However that doesn't mean you should ignore the "Premium Fuel Only" bit that is written on it. If you are concerned about fuel mileage, putting regular in a high performance high compression engine is not the way to do it as the spark gets retarded to avoid detonation and a retarded spark retards fuel mileage as well. IMHO of course.
Karl
 
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