Air locked injection lines and it's 18F out... GRR!

[CliFord]

Just hafta vent... it's been years since I've done this, and have no one to blame but myself.

Background: Fuel gauges are on the fritz, as are a lot of electrical secondaries in my old truck. Been judging when to fill up based on trip odometer. Back tank has a leak, so I can't use it until I fix it.

So I was going to go fill up first thing yesterday after work, but that was one start too many. I had sucked the front tank dry enough to get air in the IP.

No big deal, I've done this a million times when I was learnign to know my truck and my lift pump was going bad... I still keep the line wrench in the cab for such emergencies:

Put a gallon of fuel in after a ride from a good smaritan, crack injector nuts and crank it over to bleed air out while holding WOT on the fuel pump.

wait for it... I forgot to energize the FSS! D'oh!

Pull and recharge batteries at AutoZone. Reinstall. Repeat, remembering FSS this time. Got a few fires, but no dice... it's cold, and batteries are aging, and don't want to deep discharge them.

Pull batts again and recharge one more time... going out now to pick them up. Wish me luck!

GRRR! Dumb me.

[Snotzalot]

What on earth are you complaining about??? 18*F is a warm day this time of the year in these parts!

Good luck!

[Plywood]

Sounds like you'll have to bleed the filter first, then the injectors.

[cdnsarguy]

Put a gallon of fuel in after a ride from a good smaritan

I don't think one gallon is enough....... by the time it is spread out in the tank. Fills the line then filter then IP.... your asking a lot from it.

[Kevooo]

One gallon won't do much, there's no point in holding the throttle open. Remove the fuel filter and fill it with clean fuel. Remove the core from the schrader valve on the filter housing, crank until fuel flows from valve. Replace the core, crack a couple of fuel lines and crank until the fuel spurts. Tighten and start the engine. It will run rough for a moment and then smooth out. PS, Don't run out of fuel again! Kevin

[CliFord]

I got it licked tonight... I knew what to do all along, but was just pissed at myself for running it dry. I actually did a happy dance in the parking lot tonight when it fired up after the third recharge on the batteries. My wife thought it was cute and funny, and our kids were worried, asking if I was okay. I was more afraid of killing my batteries, so I had them do a full quick/float/trickle charge routine on them the second & third times.

I could have done it with maybe no recharge, but in the heat of the moment during the first attempt at bleeding I forgot to energize the FSS, so I was cranking it for nothing. The second time, it bled easily (filter, then lines) and nearly fired up, but I have one bad GP, and the system wasn't working right. (There's a new GP in the mail from RockAuto.) Today I did the manual override trick on the GP controller and made sure they stayed on the right amount of time, and it fired off on about the second revolution with not much drama.

I ended up putting a total of 3 gallons in for good measure - I just had a one-gallon can. It took 16.25 gallons all told once I filled it up to the top of the neck. It usually only takes 15 to get there... and I was parked with the nose uphill. Not a good combo.

Now it's time to fix the darn fuel gauge. When it broke a couple of months back, it stopped working on both tanks at the same time. Wiring is getting pretty old I figure. Radio just stopped working last week, too.

Oh, well. It is officially an old truck, but it's not going away any time soon.

[Bill1013]

Geez, sounds like a little/lots of maintenance is in order. Your wife must have a lot of patients.