Looks like I'm facing a fuel pump replacement....tips?

So last week I'd coming up and coming up my driveway it seems like I'm losing power. Truck keeps going but won't accelerate when I step on the gas.

Park it, shut it off and try to restart. Engine cranks and cranks but no start.

I can't figure out where the return line is so I just crack open the banjo bolt on the fuel rail. A little gas sprays out, so it had some pressure still.

Crank it again for about 15 seconds, and no fuel comes out that banjo connection.

I do the logical thing, and tighten the banjo nut down again, and crawl under the truck and give the fuel tank a few whacks with a hammer.

Try it again, and it starts right up.

So fuel pump right? Obviously I can't trust it to go anywhere until its fixed right?

Ordered one that night, arrived today.

So....any tips on replacing the fuel pump? Or alternate idea's? Any reason to not think it's the fuel pump?

 

On my ranger it was easier to remove the bed. On my titan, it was easier to drop the tank. But clean the top of the tank well before opening it up. Also replace the fuel filter.

and color me surprised. I just learned our fuel rails dont have a schrader valve test port.

 

Spray the strap pins with penetrating oil. Unhook the fuel lines near sending unit, I think 1 needs the line removal tool. remove filler hoses, Put a jack under tank maybe with a 2' board to distribute some weight. bang the pins out or unbolt the bracket if they don't come out. drop the tank

 

check out hand mans builild page informative. seems his gasket was rusted..

 

Just bring your hammer with you, great tool for fixing many things.
Removing tank is a bitch, make certain tank is about out of fuel to reduce weight and getting fuel out could be a problem. If pump is still working you could disconnect fuel line at some convenient location rigging extended hose and pump fuel to cans for storage. The worst part I have found is disconnecting wiring and hoses from top of tank. You need to lower tank slightly to give access. Also make certain truck is jacked high enough to allow room for working and removal of tank. I don't know where you live but if possible salt on roads problem could be corrosion and you may wish to check connection on top of tank that is in a recessed location.
While tank is off you may wanna look at valve in fill line. Many people have talked about and had problems with the roll over valve. I am one and had make an adjustment to it that has been working very well for about a year now.

 

Thanks. Sigh...Guess I better get to it.

Step one is to figure out how to drain the tank....of course it has about 20 gallons of fuel in it. Its tempting to drive it for a week and just hope the pump doesn't stop altogether in that time....but If I guess wrong the price of getting it towed home could far far outweigh saving the hassle of draining the gas. I guess I should thank my lucky stars that it broke down in my own driveway.

Funny story while I procrastinating going out in the snow and working on the truck....a few years ago my 2000 Subaru broke down with a bad fuel pump at 6,000 feet on top of a mountain.

Luckily, I had a parts car back home and subarus have a access hatch for the fuel pump under the rear seat. Talked the neighbor kid into pulling the fuel pump for me from the parts car and driving it up to me on his dirt bike and swapped it in about fifteen minutes.

Now, years later I go to buy a new fuel pump and find out.....our 2000 Tundras, take the exact same fuel pump as a 2000 subaru outback.

 

not sure how to help on the gas removal, but i’d put a long board under the tank with a jack under that. instead of the removing the pins at the strap just loosen the 4 bolts holding the hinge straps. 2-14mm bolts at the 2 hinges and they are super long which allows the tank to slightly drop without falling which allows the connection removals above. pin removal is unnecessary

 

That's pretty neat that the pumps are the same, unfortunately what you are talking about with the Tundra won't take 15 minutes. If you're good about a day but it you're old and slow like I am about 2 days and if you're out in the cold, maybe a week. Talk to that same kid about giving you a hand who is probably a young man by now.
Good Luck.

 

I haven't done it on my Tundra, but I pulled the bed off my 1991 to access the fuel pump. Myself and two teenage daughters were able to remove it and to put it back on. A buddy at work loosened the bed bolts on the other side from the tank on his truck, removed the bed bolts on the tank side and used a jack and wood bracing to tilt the bed up out of the way so he could reach his fuel tank and replace the pump. He's a little guy in his mid-fifties too. I think I'd go that route next time if I had to do mine.

 

Considered taking the bed off, Buuttt.....the fuel pump is actually under the CAB on my truck. Maybe the way to go on a two door? but not on my truck.

Okay. Halfway done.

Tried to drain the tank via the fuel return line. Realized it would take a man about 10,000 years to do it that way. It 'works' but its not a stream of gas, its a tiny trickle, more like a drip.

Went to it after that. Stuck a 2x8 under the tank, jack under that. Disconnected everything but the electrical plug, which you can't reach from underneath.

Put a little pressure on the jack and pulled the pins. They came right out, no biggie.

Dropped the tank little by little, I was super paranoid about breaking the electrical connector.

Once I got it down, I realized I shouldn't have worried. There is enough slack in the wire that you can lower the tank almost to the ground without putting strain on it.

Very carefully took the connector off. I'm hyper paranoid about old plastic and a broken clip can ruin your life in a second if the plastic breaks. Particularly bad when it's 27º outside. But I got it off okay and so now just time to actually change out the pump. But I'm half frozen now and all my clothes have gas on them so I'm calling it a night for today.

Spent about four hours on it so far, but would have only taken two if I knew what I was doing.

 

Removing the bed will get you nothing on the Tundra. Your tank begins under your feet on drivers side and extends to back of cab maybe a foot under bed.

 

Not entirely true...

Here's is my Access Cab with the bed off...

 

It wont get you nothing. All trucks appreciate a little attention to their dirty bits.

a 10ish month update to those pics:

Cheap rubberized chassis paint held up great on the springs. It’s still dirty, but no chips.


Engine bay cleaned up easy. Gunk degreaser is so much better than supertech degreaser.

 

@Aerindel nice write up. Happy to see you posting here again.

 

Did not think about it but should have discussed a video that demos the tank removal and pump replacement that could help you. Go to Google search and type in "Toyota Tundra fuel pump replacement" that will instruct you on tank and fuel pump replacement. I also did not think about trucks when talking about removal thinking everyone has CM or DC trucks and not a single cab, oh well.
Stay warm,

 

Hey Aerindel,
Thanks for posting, it looks like it's going pretty smoothly for you so good luck with the rest of the repair. You signature says 320k miles. Is this the trucks first fuel pump at 320k?

 

Unknown, I'm not the original owner. Pump that was in it is a Denso (as is the replacement I got)

Old pump was within spec on the the ohm meter, but twice as much resistance as the new pump.

Wish I knew for a fact that it was the fuel pump.

I feel that logically it should be....but things that break and then start working again always make me paranoid. I would feel better if the pump was just dead as a doornail.

Of course the fact that I was able to get the truck started again and move it to a better spot to work on was a good thing and I'm not complaining...buutt...

I will say, IMO, removing the bed for this job would be pretty ridiculous and a lot harder than dropping the tank. I was able to drop the tank pretty easily by myself, I would have needed at least a couple more people to remove the bed and it would have been a bigger job, just to avoid disconnecting three hoses and one electrical connector.

 

Well, like they say, every ten minute job is just one broken bolt away from being a five hour job.

I should have thought of this first.....but the way the straps work, the pins will just pop out, but not pop in as the strap is under tension.

The outboard end of each one is bolted to the frame with long bolts that you loosen far enough to get the pins in, and then tighten to tension the straps.

First bolt was really stiff, but doing the 2 turns forward, one turn back method, I got it out.

Second bolt snapped off. FML.

 

And....I'm done. Had to drill the broken bolt out of the frame, and through bolt it with a nut. I would have had the tank back in about an hour if not for that little F-up.

My final impression is, its not that hard of a job, if you know what you're doing. Which now I do. Hopefully that knowledge will be useless and I'll never have to do it again.

 

Nah...you can post about it on Tundra blogs for years to come

 

I just replaced the tank on my 2001 a couple months ago. Here are some notes I wasn't quick enough to give before you started the job. Maybe useful for you next time.

First, you're far better off dealing with the pins that hold the straps as opposed to the bolts. Just need a hammer and a pin and you can pound them right out. So much easier.

Second, our earlier models have no theft prevention built into the filler neck tube, probably thanks to the locking fuel door. All you need to do to drain the tank is slip a length of vinyl tubing down the filler neck, add another short tube going into the filler neck, then jam some rags in the filler neck to form a bit of a seal. Blow into the small tube in order to pressurize the tank and fuel will begin to flow from the other tube into a gas can. Gravity will keep this siphon going until the gas tank is empty.

 

yeah i mentioned above the other day that the pins removal is not necessary. you can punch them out easy but during the tank put back they are not so easy to install. the straps are hinged for a reason i believe to allow a controlled drop of the tank along with the longer bolts that hold the hinges. slight tank drop on bolt loosening and get your connections off then square up the tank on the jack and full drop.

not sure if you were using a impact or just wrenching to many variable to explain but anyone in the future can learn here. the long bolts and hinges make and allow for an easy tank put back and final nesting of the tank. impact drills help prevent the bolts from breaking more than wrenchs.

i like the drain idea from sampson above.

aerindel the truck is driving good now.?

 

I think its impossible to put back without using the bolts to pull the straps tight. I couldn't even get the strap end closer than an inch to the pin holes when trying to reinstall.

I tried to syphon gas out but was unable to get my hose past the roll-over valve.

If I had worked at it longer, I could have hooked up the return hose on the tank end to something and syphoned out that way, as the return tube runs to the bottom of the tank.

Yes, its working now although I've only driven half a mile. So far though I think that maybe my pump was slowly going out for a while as my truck seems to suddenly have more acceleration than it did the last time I drove it. Not 100% sure on this, could be placebo effect. Going to go get gas today as I only have like an 1/8th of a tank right now for obvious reasons, I think this is the lowest I have ever seen my gauge since I got the truck. (I always try to fill up at 1/2 tank)

 

Well I must be a miracle worker, because using the pins was effortless. If the pin holes aren't lining up it's because you haven't raised the jack high enough.

Like I said earlier.... there is no theft prevention device inside the tube, or in the tank. Your siphon tube was getting hung up on the ridges molded into the filler tube, you just need to jostle it around and it goes right in. A bit of ingenuity is required

 

I lifted the tank until it started lifting the truck so I couldn't go any further. I had to unscrew the bolts until I had about an inch of slack before I could get the second pin in and then crank it down. The pins where also under a lot of tension when I pulled them, with the straps 'popping' sort of like tie down straps when you hit the release. Maybe how much tension your straps have varies vehicle to vehicle.

 

We have the same frame, same body, and same gas tank - something just wasn't working out for you. Did you use a block between the jack and the tank to evenly distribute the force? The jack probably should have been lifting up the truck while this was happening. I'm sure mine would have been too if it hadn't been elevated already.

By slowly tightening those strap bolts you are only achieving one thing - raising the tank. It's doing the exact same job as the floor jack does, just a poorer and less convenient version of it. There's really no other way of looking at it

 

Negative. It came apart with plenty of tension. Like I said, when the pins pulled out the straps 'popped' with some force. But the tension is at right angles to the pins so they where not hard to pull out, but once pulled out, there was no way to pull the straps back to that position by hand as there is no way to stretch the straps with hand power alone.

And yes, also as mentioned, I had a 2x8 on the bottom of the tank I was pushing against, but it seemed like a bad idea to use a three ton jack, to press a hollow metal tank against a three ton truck, past the point where it starts to lift the truck, even with a board on the bottom. The straps needed to be stretched into place. Pushing on the tank harder against the frame, was just lifting the truck at that point.

My guess is that maybe the rubber pads between your tank and your frame are thinner or more worn than mine. Mine where not even close to being able to reach the pin holes until I loosened the bolts almost all the way....and this was with the tank pushed up into the frame hard enough to be lifting the entire truck a couple inches. If the pins slid back in without needing to stretch the straps, I would worry the tank would be able to shift around.

 

safety method is just use an 3/8” extension with 14mm or 17mm? impact bit and hit those 4 bolts with ease from below the tank. let bolts down slowly on hinge action which is doable because they long by design?? repeat reverse on put back. pins are pita and maybe the stars might align for some but its usualy cloudy around here. lolzzz

 

Hah.... okay boss. Whatever you say.