- 24
- 102
- 28
- Location
- Oregon
Three years ago I replaced my fuel filters and O-rings in the hydraulic head and when I went to start it up again I realized that the in-tank pump had quit working and this recent work had caused me to lose the prime. I replaced the fuel pump with another in-tank pump from one of the vendors and thought I was going to be good to go for a long time. Unfortunately, this past October I was out driving my truck and was getting a little low on fuel so the truck was running rough. I pulled over on the side of the road to figure out why the truck wasn’t running smoothly like it normally does. I knew I needed to fill up, but didn’t think I was THAT low on fuel because it still had little less than 10 gallons left. Almost as soon as I pulled over the truck quit running and I assumed that I ran too low on fuel, so I called someone up to bring me some. I put another 10 gallons of diesel in the truck and tried to start. When I tried to bleed the air out of the lines I wasn’t getting anything and was stumped because I thought there was no way the replacement in-tank fuel pump that I put in 3 years before had already bitten the dust. I ended up having to get towed home by another vehicle, which was a whole separate adventure. Luckily, I was only four miles or so away from home, but it was definitely unnerving because of the size of the other vehicle doing the towing.
After getting the truck home and having more time to think and troubleshoot I came to the conclusion that the in-tank pump that was replaced 3 years prior had gone bad. I was very apprehensive about buying another one of these in-tank pumps because of the cost, I wasn’t happy with the service from vendor I had bought it from, and the apparent unreliability causing me to be stranded in the future; I want something that would last longer than three years. I suspect the replacement pump I had gotten three years ago was manufactured in China. I did a lot of research here on Steel Soldiers about a replacement fuel pump and decided to go with an external in-line pump. I originally ordered a new Airtex E8131 because it was getting such praise here on the forum. After I received my order I found a thread where a member a few years ago said the E8131 wasn’t putting enough GPH out and had some issues with it. It appears that the E8131 that received good reviews was an older version that did have more GPH than the newer version. I then went back to research more on in-line external fuel pumps and came across Walbro pumps being up to the task; Walboro pumps were just a little pricey, which I would have preferred something cheaper, but honestly have no problem spending the money for something that was built to last. I tried buying the Walbro FRB-23-2 from several online stores that sold them with the price ranging $190-$270, but everyone said they were out of stock after I placed my order. I am not sure why these are hard to come by, but it became apparent that I was not going to be using one.
I got a lead on using a Facet pump next and ordered one from Pegasus Racing (FAC-40237 Facet Dura-Lift 24v Fuel Pump). I was happy when I went to the Facet website and they had quite a bit more information on it than some of the other options I had been looking at. This Facet pump fit the criteria: it was 24v, put out 9-11 PSI, 33 GPH, and should last 10,000 hours; the cost was $120 too, which seemed reasonable to me. After my pump arrived we worked on a place to mount it and started working on fabricating a bracket for it. When making the bracket we wanted the pump to be easy to install/remove if it ever needs to be replaced on the side of the road, so we had that in mind when designing it.
We decided to mount the fuel pump near the inside of the frame rail, since it was too tall to fit exactly inside the rail. Also when designing the mount we decided to use the existing holes that hold the fuel tank onto the frame to also hold the bracket, since we didn’t want to have to drill any additional holes in the frame. After welding the bracket up for the pump we went to work on making the electrical connection by making a new plug that had Packard connectors that would plug into the pump on one end and the other end of the plug would connect into the factory outlet. The plug is made from aluminum as the housing with a nylon insert that insulates the wires. We made sure to label the wires the same as what is on the truck to keep things straightforward. This Facet pump has 1/8” NPT fittings on it, which meant we had to adapt the ½” fuel line to work with this pump. It would have been ideal if the pump had a bigger inlet/outlet than the 1/8”. We used 3/8” steel lines for the hard fuel lines that were replacing the ½” factory hard fuel lines. We had to buy/make a few fittings to get everything plumbed up correctly. We made a protective metal box to keep the pump safe while driving down the road. The bottom of the box has holes drilled in it to drain water. This protective box is also easy to take on/off so it isn’t a big deal to check on or remove the pump if it is ever needed. We made some special oversized stainless steel nuts to hold on the pump to the mounting bracket and for the protective box.
We thought we had some issues with the Facet pump at first and contacted Pegasus Racing. They had really good customer service and helped us out with the issue we thought we had. I ended up buying a second Facet pump from them to keep as a spare in case this one dies ever when I am on the road. Replacing with the same Facet pump should be easy with how we designed everything. Hopefully my experience here can be helpful for someone in the future who has the same issue. I was originally going to use the Airtex E8131 as an emergency back-up, but really like how the Facet pump is designed much better. The way we made this Facet pump work was so that if, for any reason, we wanted to go back to the original design with an in-tank pump it would be easy. We only removed one hard line and made the electrical connection plug and play.
After getting the truck home and having more time to think and troubleshoot I came to the conclusion that the in-tank pump that was replaced 3 years prior had gone bad. I was very apprehensive about buying another one of these in-tank pumps because of the cost, I wasn’t happy with the service from vendor I had bought it from, and the apparent unreliability causing me to be stranded in the future; I want something that would last longer than three years. I suspect the replacement pump I had gotten three years ago was manufactured in China. I did a lot of research here on Steel Soldiers about a replacement fuel pump and decided to go with an external in-line pump. I originally ordered a new Airtex E8131 because it was getting such praise here on the forum. After I received my order I found a thread where a member a few years ago said the E8131 wasn’t putting enough GPH out and had some issues with it. It appears that the E8131 that received good reviews was an older version that did have more GPH than the newer version. I then went back to research more on in-line external fuel pumps and came across Walbro pumps being up to the task; Walboro pumps were just a little pricey, which I would have preferred something cheaper, but honestly have no problem spending the money for something that was built to last. I tried buying the Walbro FRB-23-2 from several online stores that sold them with the price ranging $190-$270, but everyone said they were out of stock after I placed my order. I am not sure why these are hard to come by, but it became apparent that I was not going to be using one.
I got a lead on using a Facet pump next and ordered one from Pegasus Racing (FAC-40237 Facet Dura-Lift 24v Fuel Pump). I was happy when I went to the Facet website and they had quite a bit more information on it than some of the other options I had been looking at. This Facet pump fit the criteria: it was 24v, put out 9-11 PSI, 33 GPH, and should last 10,000 hours; the cost was $120 too, which seemed reasonable to me. After my pump arrived we worked on a place to mount it and started working on fabricating a bracket for it. When making the bracket we wanted the pump to be easy to install/remove if it ever needs to be replaced on the side of the road, so we had that in mind when designing it.
We decided to mount the fuel pump near the inside of the frame rail, since it was too tall to fit exactly inside the rail. Also when designing the mount we decided to use the existing holes that hold the fuel tank onto the frame to also hold the bracket, since we didn’t want to have to drill any additional holes in the frame. After welding the bracket up for the pump we went to work on making the electrical connection by making a new plug that had Packard connectors that would plug into the pump on one end and the other end of the plug would connect into the factory outlet. The plug is made from aluminum as the housing with a nylon insert that insulates the wires. We made sure to label the wires the same as what is on the truck to keep things straightforward. This Facet pump has 1/8” NPT fittings on it, which meant we had to adapt the ½” fuel line to work with this pump. It would have been ideal if the pump had a bigger inlet/outlet than the 1/8”. We used 3/8” steel lines for the hard fuel lines that were replacing the ½” factory hard fuel lines. We had to buy/make a few fittings to get everything plumbed up correctly. We made a protective metal box to keep the pump safe while driving down the road. The bottom of the box has holes drilled in it to drain water. This protective box is also easy to take on/off so it isn’t a big deal to check on or remove the pump if it is ever needed. We made some special oversized stainless steel nuts to hold on the pump to the mounting bracket and for the protective box.
We thought we had some issues with the Facet pump at first and contacted Pegasus Racing. They had really good customer service and helped us out with the issue we thought we had. I ended up buying a second Facet pump from them to keep as a spare in case this one dies ever when I am on the road. Replacing with the same Facet pump should be easy with how we designed everything. Hopefully my experience here can be helpful for someone in the future who has the same issue. I was originally going to use the Airtex E8131 as an emergency back-up, but really like how the Facet pump is designed much better. The way we made this Facet pump work was so that if, for any reason, we wanted to go back to the original design with an in-tank pump it would be easy. We only removed one hard line and made the electrical connection plug and play.
