mudpie
I'm Awesome
There are no safety features built into Optima batteries. The safety features are in most of the consumer level battery chargers built in the last decade or so, they simply won't turn on if the measured voltage of the battery is too low.
I think we're both saying the same thing, but differently. I have one battery charger that is brand new, and my trickle charger is about 2 years old. Those two chargers are presumably going to have whatever safety features that won't allow them to charge a battery that's down to 1.5v, hence the trick with 2 batteries in parallel. I'll be looking around at yard sales in the spring for an old charger with a basic on/off switch and no safety features.
Stupid safety. Gotta ask yourself sometimes, what would Homer Simpson do?
So I got the battery back reading 12v, and put it on my trickle charger overnight just to make sure, and put it in the truck. I'm back to where I left off... my 2 month old Delphi pump in the tank, upper intake off, questioning if the pressure regulator is good.
I reconnected the fuel lines at the spider assembly and jumped the fuel pump by bypassing the relay (jumper wire between pin #30 and 87). Up under the hood, I can hear the pump running. Check for leaks and don't see anything. Check the Autozone loan-a-tool fuel pressure gauge I'm using and it shows zero. Swap the fuel pressure regulator, and still nothing. So at this point, it's gotta be the pump, right? Pulled the pump, returned it as defective, put another brand new Delphi pump in, and still zero fuel pressure with the jumper wire in the relay. No pressure with the relay jumper wire in place, no pressure with the key turned "on", no pressure with the engine cranking. I can hear the pump running, and when I unscrew the gauge from the fuel rail there's fuel under pressure spraying out.
The tank looked clean when I had the pump out. The in-tank wiring harness and strainer were new 2 months ago when I replaced the fuel pump, and the fuel filter on the frame was replaced when I did the pump 2 years ago. Not new, but not more than about 10k on it. Shouldn't be an issue I wouldn't think, or at least not enough of an issue to cause a drop to 0 psi.
Only thing I can think of is a bad gauge, but it seemed to be working when I started checking into all this last week. I'm going to get another gauge and see what happens. In the meantime, any thoughts appreciated.