Fuel Pump or relay?

[cshelden]

Hello all,
New to the forum, name is Charlie.

I've owned my 1996 Contour since it was new in 96, it is a sport model and has served us very well, with the exception of maintnance and a transmission at 120k, no major issues at all. Until the past week.

Went to the store was inside about 30min, come out no start. Waited a moment then it started no issue.

Today I went to the post office come out no start, waited about 30 minutes for a ride and bam it fires right up.

When I say no start i mean it will crank just fine just will not fire over. This time I was more observant that last, I did not notice hearing the fuel pump prime up this time. I can not varify I had spark but after 30 minutes it fired right up. I never once smelled fuel during that 30 minute time frame either, nor when it did finally start did it smoke like it had been flooded. So I'm leaning on bad fuel system somewhere.

Filter is ok it was replaced recently.

Car has 229,000 miles. So what to do? Just cut my losses and put in a new pump? Seems easy to do on this car. If I buy a new pump do I go with Ford? I'm not keen on Autozone stuff, I only want to do it once, lifetime is useless to me If it fails every 30 days.

If this does it again is there a quick check if it is a fuel relay? I suppose just keep one in the boot or something another. Also in both instances there was about a 30 min span before the car would restart, sounds like something getting hot to me.

Thanks for the help.

Charlie

 

[Dyoel182]

The first thing to check is the fuel pump reset switch by the pedals, but if it eventually fires up that probably isnt tripped. My guess would be the fuel strainer and pump need to be swapped out. If you dont like Fords price check out BAT.

 

[cshelden]

What is BAT?

 

[andreslobo]

To check the fuel pump

To check the fuel pump

What level was the fuel gage at. If at 1/4 or less and this problem appears, try filling the tank to see if it goes away. If it stalls out after acceleration (even the meagre acceleration a contour can produce) or a sharp turn, it is quite likely your filter inside of the fuel tank. If that is the case I would recommend on buying a complete fuel pump assembly, this will include the can inside the tank, its filter, a new pump, its filter, and a gas gage sending unit (at least true on 98 and later pump assemblies). The good news is that you can replace it by removing the rear seat lower cushion. The bad news is it ain't cheap (~$250)

 

[Dyoel182]

What is BAT?

British American Transfer. Just google BAT Contour and you'll find it.

The good news is that you can replace it by removing the rear seat lower cushion. The bad news is it ain't cheap (~$250)

Its much much cheaper to just replace the pump and re-use the factory assembly though if you're comfortable with installing it in the first place.

 

[andreslobo]

Pumps are cheap but don't work with plugged filters

Pumps are cheap but don't work with plugged filters

If it is a plugged internal fuel filter, a new pump will not resolve the issue. On my car it was the round disk filter at the bottom of the 'can'. I tried to clean it and it didn't flow very much gas, and this was my problem. The pump was fine, but the disk filter prevented gas from flowing at an adequate rate to fill the can during acceleration or hard turns.

Because I had a 99 and I removed the fuel tank to replace, I decided that a lot more bucks was cheaper than removing the tank again. But on earlier cars the ease of access would make experimentation easier.