Death of a fuel pump?

[hefftone]

A few weeks ago, I drove my truck into work for the the first time in a while. When I left at lunch, it started to fire up, but coughed out. Then it would crank and crank but no start. It was pouring rain outside, and thought it was ignition, but then it just sort of miraculously started. Sweet.

I drove it around that day with no more problems, then parked it.
Last night I start it up for the heck of it. It runs for a few minutes and conks out. Restarts just fine.
Today. Starts up and runs fine. Restarts at Home Depot. Restarts at the sporting good store. But when I came back to the truck the next time after parking it wont start.

F***! It was damn cold and windy too!

So I'm thinking ignition, but then I notice I'm not getting any fuel pump prime with Key on.
I jump out the relay, no pumping. I test with meter and have voltage at the relay plug, and with the terminals jumped out, voltage to sender harness. I also loosened and tightened the chassis ground for the sender unit & pump. Still nothing. Crap!!!

The pump is a vortec Delco Ep381, and the gas tank is spectra, both new as of September last year. The Sending unit is also spectra and less than a year old. No funny sounds. Maybe just a tad rougher than usual, but felt plenty powerful.

I can't imagine this pump just magically crapping out....but honestly, I'm out of ideas. Can they just up and the bed like that?

 

[98slv]

Yup, they will randomly die. It helps to keep Atleast a half a tank of fuel in it, suppose to keep it cool...

I would be checking on a warranty for it.

 

[Jesse82nc]

Anyone thought of making a heatsink that fits around it? My understanding for why it dies is that it overheats, that's why they say to keep a minimum of a quarter tank of gas in there.

I am replacing mine tomorrow actually lol. Maybe I will take a look at each old one.

-Jesse, '96 C1500 5.7L

 

[rjrider]

Yup, they will randomly die. It helps to keep Atleast a half a tank of fuel in it, suppose to keep it cool...

I would be checking on a warranty for it.

^^^^^ This. Good luck fixing it.

 

[hefftone]

Damn. I've kept it over 1/4 tank and this time here it was barely under half.

Do y'all keep that rubber foam sleeve on the pump when it goes on the tank? I always wondered about that. Seems like a strange idea. A heatsink does sound like a better idea.
But honestly at only 13psi, this vortec had life easy. It should has lasted much longer.

Sent from my SGH-I897 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Aloicious]

failure to change to fuel filter on a regular basis will make the pump work MUCH harder, that combined with allowing the tank to run too low are typical contributing factors to pump failure. running your pressures is a pretty easy life for it, but they can still die....it'll seem especially mysterious when they die in a setup like yours. in a vortec, the injectors require a certain, fairly high pressure to function (at all), and when the pump starts to die, it'll slowly start losing the ability to produce the pressure, and the injectors will cease to function before the pump is actually COMPLETELY dead. in your case, the pump has probably been in that state for a while since you only run 13psi (vortec poppets require >~50ish psi to even function at all), and your injectors will still fire if it's below that, just poorly...so it's probably been slowly dying for a while without symptoms, and its just barely kicked the bucket completely.

 

[96-1500]

failure to change to fuel filter on a regular basis will make the pump work MUCH harder, that combined with allowing the tank to run too low are typical contributing factors to pump failure. running your pressures is a pretty easy life for it, but they can still die....it'll seem especially mysterious when they die in a setup like yours. in a vortec, the injectors require a certain, fairly high pressure to function (at all), and when the pump starts to die, it'll slowly start losing the ability to produce the pressure, and the injectors will cease to function before the pump is actually COMPLETELY dead. in your case, the pump has probably been in that state for a while since you only run 13psi (vortec poppets require >~50ish psi to even function at all), and your injectors will still fire if it's below that, just poorly...so it's probably been slowly dying for a while without symptoms, and its just barely kicked the bucket completely.

This right here. My vortec would not start, would not kick, at 53 PSI of fuel pressure key on. The injectors were not functioning at all. New (used) pump out of my old truck, key on 57psi IIRC, working 100% ever since.

Just echoing what Aloicious is saying...sometimes they just quit completely, but often it's a slow death. I put an ailing Vortec pump into a TBI before and got a few months out of it before she calved completely. Not the right fix, but it got us out of a jam.