Let me preface this by saying, I would really love to let you know what I think about and would like to do to some engineers and those who approve their work, but alas, some tofu farting panty waist would go screaming to the mods or others whining he’s so cruel!!! he should be black listed!!
Well, you have that right but I also have a right to an opinion and know this in advance, I would never carry out what I would like to do,, its stress relief in the dark corners of a mind that would love to get even with absolute stupidity of the highest form.
Todays, well, the last five days problem, a 2012 ford frigging f150 3.5 ecoboom.
Customer complaint, runs great cold, pulling a load no problem until it gets warm and coasting to a stop, it runs like crap and dies, restarts take forever and we have codes P0087 and P00C6,
Low fuel pressure at rail, and low fuel pressure on start up.
88 thousand miles on the odometer, no known history before this problem except that the check engine light is on and we also have codes for failed evap solenoid, failed L terminal on the alternator, and the two codes already mentioned.
Sure enough, corroded in two wire a half inch from the alternator regulator connecter, and, rock chewed in two evap solenoid wire that is hanging below the frame rail.
Repaired both of those and went after the fuel pressure issue, according to the scanner the high pressure fuel pump was failing and could not adjust fast enough for the load put on it.
Replaced the high pressure pump and it runs a bunch better, except,,, twenty miles down the road, coming to a stop, it runs rough and dies out.
Restart, took a long time but it started and ran all of the way back to my shop.
I went after the fuel pump control module, sure enough, not enough voltage to the pump, replace it and off we go with plenty of voltage!! and, ten miles later it quits again, same codes, dammit!!!
Even though I can hear the pump run I am not getting the pressure I need but something in my gut tells me its not the in tank pump, its something else.
I opened the hood and the fuse box mounted squarely on top of the radiator, WTH!!! what retard thought it was a good idea to mount something that makes enough heat on its own on top of something even hotter????
I used my infrared thermometer and measure the heat coming off of the relays, fuel pump relay is reading 156 degrees!!!!
I thought, okay, its failing, swap it with another one and five minutes later, same temps and fuel pump is laying down again!!!
Funny thing though, while I had the hood open for longer than ten minutes the pressure would revive and the truck would run normally, wth!!
Okay, first clue, high relay temp, pump fails, temp drops, pump runs fine, as long as the hood is open it will continue to run.
After many hours on the net and talking to one of the best ford techs in Iowa and no resolution in sight I took off on a venture.
I chased the wire from the fuse box to the pump twenty two feet of wire later and it checked out perfectly, every resistance test and voltage test I threw it at it was perfect, HHHHMMMMMMM???
Or so I thought, I took the fuse box apart and discovered another damn bean counter thought it was a great idea to power the fuse to the pump from one relay and back to another relay, that wire is 22 gage on one side of the fuse and 12 gage on the other,WTH!!!!! and that wire runs back to another relay and to the pump from there, GGRRR!!
I read up on it and there is a tsb for the 5.0 and 6.2 motors about that fuse burning the cavity and not blowing the fuse but not the 3.5 ecoboom I am working on.
They relocate that fuse to an open cavity for a fuse number 70, a much heavier wire and power buss bar, I installed it just to cover my bases, no love yet.
I offered to buy the truck so that I could have it crushed and the owner refused and said, Doc, I trust ya and I know ya can figure it out, well, okay, but I am losing my butt and I should be working on scheduled stuff that folks are waiting on, sigh.
I spent hours on the net again last night, nadda, so this morning I started doing voltage drop tests on the ground side.
I had one ground that just wasnt up to snuff and I started tracing it through all of the known ground locations, the closer I got to the pump the worse it got, and, I am getting weird feed back on other wires.
Now get this, in the name of saving money ford really takes some dumbazz shortcuts on wiring, less strands per gage, and cheap plastic coating on their wires, that coating is very porous, because they use soy and corn products to make the plastic,ugh!!
Yet they turn around and run wires twice as far to do a job that could be done with half of the amount of wire.
Above the spare tire there is a cross brace where the pump control module is located, dumbazz idea number 17698 as gravel dust, road salt, brine, you name it collects there and not two inches away is the fuel pump ground wire mounted with a single bolt, duh, okay, but why isnt the ground five feet closer to the pump and out of harms way?? dumbazz idea 17699.
Check this out, total rust blocking any form of ground from happening.
I thoroughly cleaned the mounting point, the connector, and the bolt, and when done, painted over it.
Pump is happy now!! and so is customer, and me?? well, onto another clusterfrig tomorrow, welcome to my world guys.
So here is the tally, due to very high resistance on the ground side, the power side was getting terribly hot, in part, thanks to a much too light wire powering the pump fuse, the heat would cause the relay to shut down and the power was cut to the pump.
Once cooled down, it would run for a while and start over, in the end, the ground was the biggest factor but contributed to many others, and those can cause a guy to pull his hair out going down rabbit holes created by,,,,,,, I will keep my mouth shut.
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