• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

Relatively stranded 1,000 miles from home

I'll pick up an in tank pump if I can find one in Denver, Colorado. I might as well buy another main pump because an in tank pump won't do much good if the main fails, lol. I can hear the main pump dying every time it's running. :oops:
 
You should triple check that inline tank pump ground wire, it's only screwed into the trunk sheet metal with a most likely very rusty Phillips head screw and a very rusty ring connector.
 
How on earth do you have enough service in Yellowstone to post all this??? I've never had worse service when I was in Yellowstone... which is what contributed to making it my most favorite place in the country. I don't think I was able to receive a text for 4 or 5 days.

Anyway, good luck to you... You should probably get yourself a test light and nice multimeter to travel with you. I always keep a small tool set and little supplies in my beaters for times like this. It's saved me in college more times than I can remember.
 
VB242 said:
You should triple check that inline tank pump ground wire, it's only screwed into the trunk sheet metal with a most likely very rusty Phillips head screw and a very rusty ring connector.
Click to expand...

Any idea where this is one a 245? I'm sure I could search for it but my car is full of luggage. Knowing where it is will let me find it quickly when (if) we arrive in Denver.
 
JohnMc said:
Delete the main and replace the in-tank with something up to the task by itself. Like most new cars have.

I'm not sure why they used two pumps back then. Pumps with enough capacity for the pressure and volume were probably just too bulky back then. Not any more.
Click to expand...

No John its because the designers actually for once thought about acess for servicve of the pump...Ever heard of rust? If main pump fails, car stops.. Lay on back, swap pump...Car goes..
Main pump intank, pump fails...40-70 times the pain in butt getting maybe whole tank out, getting sender/pump cover off, blah blah...

To voluntarily make critical component access more annoy when there is no compelling reason to is nothing short of madness. (I like driving cars down roads where there is occasionally a lotta egg to tennis ball sized rock ricocheting all over the place...in such case any pump---or anything---under the car critical to getting home is nuts...so it gets moved to a safe EXTERNAL location..

And the bigger volume pumps equivalent to the Bosch 044 are just a bit fatter in diameter than the normal 8v Volvo pump I think 60mm dia vs 52mm, 196mm LOA vs 180 something..The big deal was BIG 14mm ID inlet...that's what got me excited...Oh baby oh baby...

They big volume pumps, were there, just back then those poor dumb engineers didn't have aces to the millions of pages of Forum wisdom, so they didn't know that little 100-150 hp cars needed 225l/hr pumps for daily driving like is now a well establish FACT...

I can post official drawings of 400bhp turbo Ford rally cars showing right there scrawny little 150 l/hr pumps....Oh the huge manatee!..
Thank god we have the collective wisdom of the world's forumz.
 
John V said:
No John its because the designers actually for once thought about acess for servicve of the pump...Ever heard of rust? If main pump fails, car stops.. Lay on back, swap pump...Car goes..
Main pump intank, pump fails...40-70 times the pain in butt getting maybe whole tank out, getting sender/pump cover off, blah blah...
Click to expand...
But in this situation, you have two pumps that could fail, not one. Just as a thought experiment: would adding a third pump that also has to work to make the car run properly make the car more reliable, or less reliable?
To voluntarily make critical component access more annoy when there is no compelling reason to is nothing short of madness. (I like driving cars down roads where there is occasionally a lotta egg to tennis ball sized rock ricocheting all over the place...in such case any pump---or anything---under the car critical to getting home is nuts...so it gets moved to a safe EXTERNAL location..
Click to expand...
The compelling reason is because there needs to be a pump in the tank for optimal effectiveness. Otherwise they'd have just not bothered with the intank pump. Well, that's how all those D-Jet cars worked, perhaps the K-Jets too??? How'd that happen? Anyhoo...

Assuming there needs to be a pump in the tank to work best, and also assuming that the fewer gizmos that need to all be working at the same time to make the car go is better, then having one pump in the tank would be better than having one pump in the tank and one pump under the car. Also, the pump in the tank is protected from tennis ball sized rocks. Well, as well as all the gas is I guess.
And the bigger volume pumps equivalent to the Bosch 044 are just a bit fatter in diameter than the normal 8v Volvo pump I think 60mm dia vs 52mm, 196mm LOA vs 180 something..The big deal was BIG 14mm ID inlet...that's what got me excited...Oh baby oh baby...

They big volume pumps, were there, just back then those poor dumb engineers didn't have aces to the millions of pages of Forum wisdom, so they didn't know that little 100-150 hp cars needed 225l/hr pumps for daily driving like is now a well establish FACT...
Click to expand...
I wasn't referring to 800GPH spare Atlas rocket parts, just a pump of the size needed to (in an OEM engineer's mind) adequately supply the car with an appropriate amount of fuel when it was half worn out 20 years later. I was supposing that the physical size of a smallish OEM volume pump back then was just a bit bulky for them to contemplate fitting through a small gas tank bung, so they just left it outside, and put a cute little low pressure high volume lift pump in the tank because it was so much smaller. These days, both the bungs (on newer cars) have gotten bigger (why not), and the physical size of a pump that can deliver all the fuel the engine needs has gotten smaller, so thy're really no larger than those old lift pumps were.
I can post official drawings of 400bhp turbo Ford rally cars showing right there scrawny little 150 l/hr pumps....Oh the huge manatee!..
Click to expand...
I like cool drawings. Do eeeeet!
Thank god we have the collective wisdom of the world's forumz.
Click to expand...
Hear! Hear!
 
JohnMc said:
The compelling reason is because there needs to be a pump in the tank for optimal effectiveness. Otherwise they'd have just not bothered with the intank pump. Well, that's how all those D-Jet cars worked, perhaps the K-Jets too??? How'd that happen?
Click to expand...


Here's my take: They thought the external pump alone would work when originally designed that way, and when it didn't, adding a pump in the tank (and using a pre-existing part) was the lowest-impact way to get things working. Their mistake was sucking the fuel out of the top of the tank. D-jet cars, if I am not mistaken, had the feed line coming out of the side of the tank, relatively low.

Living in CO 30 years ago, I remember when many relatively new Volvos were vapor-locking at high altitude.
 
I put some ice on the fuel rail, threw in a spare fuel pump relay I have (don't think that's the problem, I heard the pump running when it sputtered and stalled), and propped a bag of ice up against the fuel tank. The rail was very hot, pump was warm, and tank was pretty warm.

Is it possible that a fuel injected car can vapor lock? I'm sure high altitudes don't help.

For the lol's
 
93Volvo240 said:
Damn, I replaced a fuel pump in the middle of Yellowstone National Park for nothing. I let it cool off and we're still headed to Denver.
Click to expand...

Denver was where my daughter first noticed the symptoms. Maybe when you get below 5000 ft.? Travel at night? By the way, after looking at a lot of dead tank pumps, I'm happy to use the Airtex E8778 and it is stocked by just about everyone. Got almost 6 years on the first one I put in. As the others die, our fleet is slowly becoming a long term test bed for this particular Airtex product despite the bad rep they have for main pumps.
 
Thanks for that info! It just stalled again.. But it's nighttime and cooler than it was earlier so I hope vapor lock is still the issue..

When it first stalled earlier today there was a HUUGE woosh of air when I took off the gas cap. Just now it was smaller but still very loud. Upon releasing the gas I noticed that the tank fill area was very warm. Probably around 100F. Is the gas getting too warm?

Edit: infrared thermometer says the fill hole is about 105F.
 
93Volvo240 said:
there was a HUUGE woosh of air when I took off the gas cap.
Click to expand...

Could you tell if the air was going into the tank or out of it? (yeah, it's pretty much impossible to tell) If your vent system is not working right and lowered the pressure in the tank, your problem would be aggravated.



cleanflametrap said:
Airtex E8778
Click to expand...

Art, is that the standard N/A 240 pump? Do they make an equivalent of the high-volume 740 turbo pump?
 
I haven't experienced 240 vapor lock so take this as pure speculation.

Was the whoosh in or out? Did it stink of gas (out)? I'd think that there would be only a small pressure difference either way. Maybe try running with a loosened gas cap?

If you need home garage space and some tools in Boulder CO, please PM me.

Good Luck,
Bob
 
Harry Tuttle said:
Could you tell if the air was going into the tank or out of it? (yeah, it's pretty much impossible to tell) If your vent system is not working right and lowered the pressure in the tank, your problem would be aggravated.
Click to expand...

Good call. I had not heard that symptom discussed before, but it certainly makes sense anything reducing the already low atmospheric pressure will make it easier to vaporize the fuel in the lines.


Harry Tuttle said:
Art, is that the standard N/A 240 pump? Do they make an equivalent of the high-volume 740 turbo pump?
Click to expand...

Beats me about 740 turbos. This E8778 is identical in size and shape to the AC/Delco which Volvo supplied in the N/A 240s. No cutting, trimming, modifying needed. They seem to be a bit loud at first, which could be new brushes wearing in, the sock filter ferrule contacting the tank bottom, or just my imagination. I don't mind it, and rather like to hear that it is working.
 
Here's another simple idea - after releasing the gas cap pressure/vacuum, could you restart the engine and run normally?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top