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I've had an ongoing saga of fuel issues. I first to the car to a garage to change the main fuel pump, filter and fuel pressure regulator. A big mistake, but I had too much on my plate to do it just then. I got soaked to the tune of $600.00 and had fuel pouring from the car within 10-miles. I drove it back hoping it would catch on fire and allow to file a lawsuit against the incompetent crooks!
The car only ran good for a couple of hundred miles then the same issue occurred. I did tell them to change both fuel pumps, but I was assured that the in tank pump was just fine. I could hear the main pump being gravelly as was described in previous posts.
I replaced the intank pump myself, twice! of note is that these pumps must be checked for rotation. The replacement pump was wired differently than the pump that was in the car. I did a quick check of rotation on the first attempt but was fooled by what I wanted to see. I looked more closely the second time it was out of the tank.
I reversed the wires and this pump pumped fuel properly to the main pump. The car ran well enough to take it out for a ride. I ran it up to max speed with no fuel issues. I was real happy.
Later in the day I took the car out and it ran like crap again. Noise was coming from the main pump almost like it is sucking air. I feared that by running the main dry with a reversed in tank pump it might have been bad. I replaced the main pump to the tune of $200.00.
The new pump had the exact sounds and the car was not getting enough pressure, or so I again thought.
I try crimping the rubber line between the two pumps to see if I could make the sound worse and it did. Knowing that I had put in two new Bosch pumps and the chances that both were bad were quite slim, I looked elsewhere.
I crimped the line that sends excess fuel from the fuel rail back to the tank. All of a sudden the main fuel pump noise went away and the and the car idled properly. I left the vise grips on and drove the car up the road. It drove just fine. I take the vise grips off and the car stalls or just about stalls.
Although the pressure regulator is a fairly simple device, new ones can be bad. They can also work better some days than others. They certainly by my experience be the cause of noisy pumps. Simply, they can allow too much fuel to bypass the rail and not enough pressure to build up. This main pump becomes noisy because it is simply pumping too much fuel.
I recommend anyone with a noisy pump and poor performance to simply crimp the return hose and see if the noise goes away. If it does, replace the fuel pressure regulator. This is a part that goes bad. You will note I replaced this and the filter on the first go around.
It is quite likely no pumps ever needed to be changed. It is likely that the fuel pressure regulator was the issue all along. If it didn't take it to a "mechanic", I would have started there and worked backwards. But, then again what does a backyard mechanic know anyway?
Of note, the $400 in labor the shop charged was done by me in 1-hour flat.
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