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Running out of Fuel Early

SiPeace

SiPeace

Shifting Up
I can only ever draw 45litres of diesel out of my tank (on a 200tdi) before it sputters and "runs out of fuel", leaving 15 litres behind in the tank.
I suspected a hole in the fuel supply pipe in the tank... so I tried blowing down the fuel pipe and bubbles only came out of the bottom of the pipe, not from the side.
So now I'm at a loss... why can I only draw 45 litres?
Any ideas chaps?
 
air will take the easiest route, so if there is a hole in the pipe then blowing down it won't find it. try removing the sender and blanking off the end and trying again.
 
Not sure on where the tank came from, looks like it might be an older one, maybe from the original series 2A vehicle... it's made of aluminium, and the draw and return pipes are welded in. Looks a bit like the (somewhat smudgy) picture in the series 3 manuals I've got. The sender goes in a single (50mm diameter?) inspection hole at the top. This might make it difficult to blank off the bottom of the pipe, but I'll give it a go this weekend.
Thanks for the ideas so far gents.
 
Run it down to low fuel, then have a look through the sender hole - my guess is that the pickup pipe is too short and doesn't reach the bottom of the tank.
 
It does reach the bottom... but there may be a hole part way up the pipe. I thought I'd ruled that out but Zollaf made a good point above... needs retesting.
I was wondering if a faulty lift pump or something might be to blame but no one's brought that up so I'm hoping it's not.
 
SiPeace said:
It does reach the bottom... but there may be a hole part way up the pipe. I thought I'd ruled that out but Zollaf made a good point above... needs retesting.
Click to expand...
Being welded in doesn't make it very easy.
I was wondering if a faulty lift pump or something might be to blame but no one's brought that up so I'm hoping it's not.
Click to expand...
Not impossible.
<some years> ago when I used to work on a farm as a lad, I recall we had problems where the big tractor would struggle to run the silage chopper when it got below about 1/3 of a tank of diesel - it would start hesitating and losing power momentarily. Next morning after hearing about this, I had a look round it before we started - and took the top off the inlet filter on the lift pump. This design has a small coarse gauze filter under a cover on top of the pump. Inside was solid with "crud" - dug it all out, cleaned the filter, and it ran perfectly after that.
A resistance may allow "just" enough fuel to flow when the tank is full, but as the fuel level drops and the pump has to lift the fuel just that little bit extra, the flow drops below what the engine needs and will eventually be starved of fuel. Once there's a bit of air in the system, the fuel consumption will drop and allow the lift pump to catch up and power comes back.

A similar effect would happen if the lift pump diaphragm was just starting to fail. When the tank is full, the partial vacuum will be small and very little air will be drawn in. As the fuel level drops, the vacuum the pump is drawing against increases and so would the amount of air drawn through a bad diaphragm.

So probably worth looking around the rest of the system for blockages or leaks.

blackfiesta123 said:
You could try putting a sleeve over the pipe and see if that makes a difference as that would bloke up any holes.
Click to expand...
Bit difficult if they are welded in ...
 
Love this forum!
Good point on the lift pump... and I just checked on British Parts and a new lift pump comes in at only £12.
Might be worth a punt just to stick a new one in. I'm not convinced the bleed lever works on mine anyway.

http://britishparts.co.uk/products?utf8=✓&name_or_keywords=lift+pump

I think I could sleeve the outlet pipe with a slit open piece of rubber fuel pipe if required... I'd need to know where the hole was... and doing anything in that tank is a bit like making a ship in a bottle! :)
 
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