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trash in tanks

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How often do you guys find trash in tanks stopping up screen.I just got thru with one that had something that looked like candy,maybe even sweettarts,part of which had broken up and clogged the pickup.Truck would run cold,but drive a couple miles and it would die.By the way,I have only been doing diesel work for a couple of months,and I only have web based training and on the job experience under my belt.I have beed a Ford tech for 6 years.Thanks

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Welcome to the DTS Kelly. I think most of us have a fuel tank story or two but many times the contents are unexplainable, if not unidentifiable. Some stuff comes from contamination caused by poor storage practices like construction site tanks and farm tanks. Sometimes its as simple as children or malicious individuals dropping stuff down the filler neck. Many techs have recently seen the inner lining of a fuel tank de-laminate and plug intake screens. I can't think for the life of me WHY any manufacturer would "line" a fuel tank. I once had a tree service truck that had wood chips and broken up leaves in the fuel tank. Maybe they ran the truck with the fuel cap off during use... who knows.

 

Regardless of the source, you have learned the symptoms of "crap in the tank" which will help you identify it in the future when you see it. Low fuel pressure is not always a plugged fuel filter! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

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Yeah we've seen plenty of fuel tank de-laminations, they can prove to cause very intermittent concerns.

 

This is a whole different scenario, but kind of applies - once I had a '98 Explorer 5.0 come in with a LEGIT intermittent low-oil pressure problem. It wasn't the gauge on the dash, I could drive it around with a manual gauge attached and every now and then the oil pressure would just tank for a few seconds, the engine would start making noise, and then it'd come back and everything's mint.

 

I was able to get it to act up by hammering on it actually... the oil pressure was always fine at idle, but once you'd get it above 3,000 rpm, it seems to get the problem to come back more prequently.

 

Turns out, the customer NEVER used to change his oil even close to on time, until another vehicle he owned needed an engine. After that, he started changing his oil very frequently. All the sludge that built up in the pan & crankcase started coming loose now that he'd been keeping fresh oil in it, and at higher rpm's, the pickup would suck so hard that it would pull the sludge into the screen and virtually block off all oil to the pump.

 

I recommended an engine to the guy, but he just wanted a pump and pickup. I showed him the scoring on his crank & main bearings and he didn't care.

 

It came back 3 weeks later with a rod hanging out of the pan.

 

Dave

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