Stranded in DC on mothersday... ford = bad news.

[skeeters_keeper]

Well today turned out to be interesting!
My dad and I were dropping a group of 14 people off @ Dullas airport today. Drove them up from Lynchburg (about 3.5 hrs). Driving out church van, Ford Econoline, and pulling a U-Haul trailer full of their junk. I drove the same van to the DC airport last summer with no problems, and checked over everything before we left to make sure it looked OK, even brought along a small tool kit and a tire repair kit JIC. Pulled up to the airport, unloaded everyone, hopped in the car, and crank crank crank... no fire. Check fuses, fuel pump relay... crank crank crank. airport police said we had to get out of there, finally called a towtruck and got pulled a few miles to a repair shop that would open tomorrow morning. There we removed the interior engine access panel, and could feel that fuel was running through the fuel lines @ the fuel rail, checked the disty cap and it seemed dry and everything looked fine.
At the airport it cranked and never fired, after the tow it would pop now and then but never catch enough to actually fire, no difference trying to do a WOT startup or no throttle. My dad knew a guy a not too far away, he came down to help us out with a few bottles of heat and a can of starter fluid. We got it running on the starter fluid and it seemed to be running good then on just the gas, figured we just had some bad gas and it would be OK now. a mile down the road (luckily we were following the guy we knew) it stalled and wouldn't restart. Pushed the 15pass van w/ trailer down into a gas station and tried two more cans of starterfluild, it'll run on the ether just not on the gas. Finally decided its probably a fuel pump, since we don't have a manual and its not our car i wasn't sure how to access the fuel pump. Started tearing the interior apart to see if there is an access panel but didn't get the carpet up (the seats were bolting the carpet down and we don't have anything big enough to take them out). finally gave up, now were @ this guys house spending the night and we'll go back to the van in the AM..... its only got 101k miles on it.... what a pain in the butt. Thank you ford!

did i mention its been raining the whole time?

anyway, that's been our mothers day experience for this year..... bleh.

[25Horseplay]

You will probably have to drop the tank. Luckily nobody missed their flight!

[GenevaDirt]

Man I feel for you...it was a long time ago but I had a similar thing happen but it led to my moving back home and not continuing with my journy....lol. I hope you get iy going...at least you got contacts where you are at.....good luck man.
Should have got a Festy caravan going and hauled them there in that....lol

[festivaWES]

put an MSD in it!!!

[skeeters_keeper]

brian... i was afraid of that. Didn't think i'd be able to access it from inside, but wasn't sure. Guess it'll be a job we (the church i hope!) will have to pay someone to do. i'm not dropping the tank on the side of the road

Wes... MSD? its got good ignition... hows that going to help a fuel pump?


does anyone know for sure if you need to drop the tank? i've been searching google books w/ no luck.

[elcamino1]

yes you have to drop the tank.

[scottxd45]

I looked it up with Alldata and for a '98 it says you drop the tank. I didn't know what year you have so I just guessed at one. I would say the would all be that way though.

Try giving the gas tank a good whack. Sometimes if the fuel pump just sticks you can free it up, by beating on the tank, and at least get it home.

[skeeters_keeper]

alright... sounds like a job for a shop this time. scott, if it wasn't 150miles to home, i'd try that! we'll try to make it limp to a shop from the gas station its parked at now, but not going to try to make it home, most of the trip is far from any shops.

thanks for the advice guys... i'm just glad were not sleeping in the van like we were planing on, i was freezing and all wet.

[FB71]

pm replied to, Nate

[sam.1956]

Man, Skeeter, really sorry to hear about your misfortunes with the van. To quote Billy-Bob Clinton, "I share your pain." Same thing happened to me & V8Festiva one day while out doing our "NC Festiva Rescue League" thing. We were in his Ford F-150 that day, out in the middle of No Freakin' Where, NC, when the fuel pump gave out. Just like your situation, at first it seemed to be just bad fuel, as it ran better for a minute or 2 when we dumped in a couple of extra gallons. But Nooooooo!!!!!! Dang in-tank fuel pumps. Whoever designed that system oughtta have to get stuck one day out in NFW & have to work on the confounded thing!

Hope you guys get back home ok soon...

Sam.1956

[scitzz]

Feel for ya man, I HATE working in the rain....

[stefan]

Did you check if the plugs were wet? It sounds similar to one time my car died... turned out the injectors were clogged. Soaked them in carb cleaner and other misc chemicals and was good to go.

[jglutz]

Fuel Pressure Regulator???????????????????
Best of Luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FestYboy]

Wack The Tank!!!!!

[skeeters_keeper]

Update 5/13... still stuck

Update:
First, I forgot to mention before its a 96.
I havn't been able to get online since sunday night, so here's whats happened:
On mon AM we went back to the gas station (still raining), pounded on the tank from inside the car, fired it up with a little ether and it drove the mile back to the shop. When the shop opened at 8, the guy pulled it in to take a look at it, we told him the symptoms so the first thing he did was a fuel pressure test, but we had a good 40psi, even right as the engine would die. If it was sitting a while it would start and die after a few seconds, if it had just been running it would just crank and crank. He found a bad fuse in the ICM circuit (30A fuseable link under the hood), so he replace the fuse, then the ICM. At that point we had good spark and good fuel, and the engine wasn't setting any codes, and we still had the same symptoms.
He said he was confused (as were my dad and I) and that we would have to take it to the dealership so they could re-program the ECM b/c he thought that was the problem. Great, anther tow bill. B/c of all the flooding and rain around that area the tow company was overloaded, so we sat around for another 2hrs waiting for a tow truck. Finally got the van to the closest for dealer around 1pm, they started looking at it around 2 i think, and worked on it till 5 when their tech's went home. They said "we have fuel, we have spark, it won't stay running long enough to communicate with our computers, we don't know whats going on, we'll have to work on it more in the morning"... it seems to me its got to be a computer related issue, and if its not communicating with your computers, replace the darn thing and see what happens!... but their the experts.
We looked into getting a motel and at 120-200 a night (cheapest!) we decided to rent a car and drive home. Entaprise's last vehicle was a ford E150 cargovan with their 4.6V8... so they gave us that for the price of a small car. But i couldn't drive it since you have to be 21, so my dad had to drive the whole way home, got in at about 1:30am this morning (tuesday), van's still in the shop, uHaul trailer is sitting in the parking lot of a different shop, my car is sitting in the parking lot at our church, and the only vehicle we have is a E150 cargovan! (my mom and brother are gone for the day)...
one almost cool thing? the rental van had 140miles on it when we picked it up...

were waiting for a call from the ford dealership today and we'll have to see about driving back up there to pick it up and drop off the rental and get the uhaul... its going to be a heckova bill by the time all that stuff gets added up