1986 460 Fuel Pump Question

[Dale Barber]

New member, first post.

I have a 1986 F350 with a 460 engine, dump truck. Bought it about 15 years ago and it has 66K original miles on it. I only put a couple hundred miles a year on it, quite a bit of it around our property and never more than 15 miles or so from home.

Last October the fuel pump gave out in it - in tank electric - and I replaced it with a new one. Last Wednesday morning I went to use it and it would not start. I'm a retried mechanical engineer who has been messing with cars and trucks for 60 years but sure am no expert on this setup. But I do have the basic Ford shop manuals for the truck - and thank Gary for the EVTM and schematic in the forum as they were invaluable.

Engine runs fine with an 'alternate tank' - salvaged lawn mower tank. Some previous owner did a major rework of things. For one, the fuel vapor separator is missing and the return fuel line to the tank is plugged, not used. The fuel pump cutoff relay is not used, just hanging by a couple wires. The connector upstream from the relay has the male half missing and a jumper installed between the red/yellow line coming from the oil pressure sensor (if I've got things figured out correctly) and the pink line (with a black wire as well) that feeds the fuel pump. It took me a while - and a bit of help from a buddy - to figure out the 'modifications' we had at hand.

With all those pieces missing I patched in a wire from an unused slot in the fuse block, put in an in line 8 amp fuse and got almost no fuel pumping. So I'm suspicious that the pump is fried even though I can hear it running, or at least making noise. I did not investigate the system at all last fall when I replaced the pump, as it had been running fine for years as is. So I just replaced the bad part with a good one.

I'm in upstate NY, no AC in the truck and no long over the road usage. If I was going to drive all the time I'd put the system back as original. But after looking through the forum - what would be wrong in just putting a mechanical pump back on. If I understand things correctly that is possible by just removing the block off plate. Or perhaps an external electric pump - realizing it will not have all the safety parts with the relay, etc. But it is a 36 year old truck seeing very limited use.

Thanks for any advice you can offer. Much appreciated.

Dale

[Gary Lewis]

Dale - Welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

But you may have missed the email I sent you asking you to post first in the New Members Start Here folder to introduce yourself. We do that because we have the guidelines posted there and want to make sure everyone has had a chance to read them because we hold everyone to them. So, have you read them?

On the fuel situation, the reason the factory went with the electric pump and the vapor separator was due to the heat produced by the 460, which tended to cause vapor lock. But that was a bigger problem on vehicles with A/C, so you would probably be fine with a mechanical pump in your usage.

But do you only have one tank? Or only need one tank? That will simplify things greatly.

[Dale Barber]

Dale - Welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

But you may have missed the email I sent you asking you to post first in the New Members Start Here folder to introduce yourself. We do that because we have the guidelines posted there and want to make sure everyone has had a chance to read them because we hold everyone to them. So, have you read them?

On the fuel situation, the reason the factory went with the electric pump and the vapor separator was due to the heat produced by the 460, which tended to cause vapor lock. But that was a bigger problem on vehicles with A/C, so you would probably be fine with a mechanical pump in your usage.

But do you only have one tank? Or only need one tank? That will simplify things greatly.

Gary -

Sorry to have not 'entered' properly. When I clicked the link I got right in and the email must have showed up while I was composing the post. So I took a gander at the new members part, read the rules and now am back here.

Have to laugh as I stumbled over your introduction. When I got out of the Army in 74 I hired into Big Blue - who eliminated the department that hired me before I showed up. So their second mistake was making me a programmer which took me a few years to escape from. I can relate to the IT comments - even though the last programming I did was for the then new B-52 offensive avionics system back in 79. Doesn't help much with today's languages and such but heck, it is all ones an zeros.

Truck has only one tank. I'm guessing that a mechanical pump should pull from the tank through the 'bad' pump with no problem. If it was a Model A it would be easier - we'd just let gravity do the work.

Here are some pictures of the shape things were in when I found the relay and connector - brought fear to my old aerospace quality heart. LOL

Dale

 

[Gary Lewis]

Gary -

Sorry to have not 'entered' properly. When I clicked the link I got right in and the email must have showed up while I was composing the post. So I took a gander at the new members part, read the rules and now am back here.

Have to laugh as I stumbled over your introduction. When I got out of the Army in 74 I hired into Big Blue - who eliminated the department that hired me before I showed up. So their second mistake was making me a programmer which took me a few years to escape from. I can relate to the IT comments - even though the last programming I did was for the then new B-52 offensive avionics system back in 79. Doesn't help much with today's languages and such but heck, it is all ones an zeros.

Truck has only one tank. I'm guessing that a mechanical pump should pull from the tank through the 'bad' pump with no problem. If it was a Model A it would be easier - we'd just let gravity do the work.

Here are some pictures of the shape things were in when I found the relay and connector - brought fear to my old aerospace quality heart. LOL

Dale

Dale - That happens, so if you've read the guidelines then we are good to go.

Where's home? We have a map (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu), and can add you with a city in upstate NY.

Big Blue? I almost worked for them at one point, but worked on a whole bunch of their equipment. And you are right, it is all ones and zeros. But you have to know how to group them - in threes for octal or fours for hex. (Had to use some of that knowledge recently to set a mask on my EEC-V system to turn off certain tests and to watch for certain flags.)

B-52? I worked on the H while at Boeing. For some reason they didn't like its tendency to shed the tail surface, so we put a strain gauge or two on one to find the problem. I was on the ground accepting the telemetry and writing it to ... tape. (Unlike the one that almost crashed, as described here, we thought it best to transmit the data back rather than writing it to tape on the plane since it might crash.)

Anyway, I see why you want to go with a mechanical system. Yuk! I wouldn't want to have to fix all that, so think dumping it for a simple mechanical pump is a good idea.

[Dale Barber]

Dale - That happens, so if you've read the guidelines then we are good to go.

Where's home? We have a map (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu), and can add you with a city in upstate NY.

Big Blue? I almost worked for them at one point, but worked on a whole bunch of their equipment. And you are right, it is all ones and zeros. But you have to know how to group them - in threes for octal or fours for hex. (Had to use some of that knowledge recently to set a mask on my EEC-V system to turn off certain tests and to watch for certain flags.)

B-52? I worked on the H while at Boeing. For some reason they didn't like its tendency to shed the tail surface, so we put a strain gauge or two on one to find the problem. I was on the ground accepting the telemetry and writing it to ... tape. (Unlike the one that almost crashed, as described here, we thought it best to transmit the data back rather than writing it to tape on the plane since it might crash.)

Anyway, I see why you want to go with a mechanical system. Yuk! I wouldn't want to have to fix all that, so think dumping it for a simple mechanical pump is a good idea.

Gary -

Home is the middle of nowhere on the NY/PA border - Waverly, NY 14892. Sure not a city!

Ah yes, mag tape - not to mention core memory and other such antiques like punch cards. I remember the story on the H that lost the vertical stab. What I worked on was the circa 1978/79 G/H upgrade to the AP-101C that I think got updated again in 2011? After I retired in any event. That was right after we did the D upgrade. Good thing my one brother in law was no longer driving D/E/F models for the AF or he probably would have complained to me if the cpu burped. We did a lot of work for Boeing in those days and onward. By the time I retired we had been sold twice so I retired from Lockheed.

I've seen entries by others who claim to have mounted a mechanical pump, left the electric power out of the circuit and it worked fine. To disable mine all I have to do is leave that jumper out and throw the connector back behind the inner fender. Also the most economical solution I imagine. Will just have to check and bake sure the cover plate is there and get a pump. At least with the dump body life is a lot easier getting at the top of that blasted fuel tank.

Thanks for the help.

Dale

[85lebaront2]

Gary -

Home is the middle of nowhere on the NY/PA border - Waverly, NY 14892. Sure not a city!

Ah yes, mag tape - not to mention core memory and other such antiques like punch cards. I remember the story on the H that lost the vertical stab. What I worked on was the circa 1978/79 G/H upgrade to the AP-101C that I think got updated again in 2011? After I retired in any event. That was right after we did the D upgrade. Good thing my one brother in law was no longer driving D/E/F models for the AF or he probably would have complained to me if the cpu burped. We did a lot of work for Boeing in those days and onward. By the time I retired we had been sold twice so I retired from Lockheed.

I've seen entries by others who claim to have mounted a mechanical pump, left the electric power out of the circuit and it worked fine. To disable mine all I have to do is leave that jumper out and throw the connector back behind the inner fender. Also the most economical solution I imagine. Will just have to check and bake sure the cover plate is there and get a pump. At least with the dump body life is a lot easier getting at the top of that blasted fuel tank.

Thanks for the help.

Dale

Welcome our corner of the insane asylum. I have one of those 1986 originally with dual tanks and the hot fuel handling package. Yours being a dump truck was probably built as a cab and chassis. This only really enters into things like the rear axle. Pickup trucks in 1985/86 received Ford 10.25" axles, the cab and chassis models received Dana 60s.

The biggest issue there will be rear brakes, The Ford axles have removable (slide on) drums, on the Dana the hubs have to be disassembled in order to get the drums off.

Ford built all the 460s, even after EFI was introduced with a mechanical fuel pump eccentric and all carbureted models that I have seen have a block off plate where the pump mounts.

As far as working for defense contractors, I retired from Huntington-Ingalls Industries (final iteration of my employer). When I first went there in Dec 1966 it was Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. In 1969 we were acquired by Tenneco. I left in 1970, returned in 1982, it was still Tenneco. Tenneco decided to sell us to Northrop Grumman, but they weren't real sure what to do with us. They owned Ingalls Shipbuilding on the Gulf Coast and had several divisions one of which was Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, the Ingalls yards. We became a complete division of our own. In Early 2011 they merged both shipbuilding divisions into one, and on April 1st 2011 we were spun off to become Huntington-Ingalls Industries (named for the founders of the two, Collis Huntington for Newport News and Robert Ingalls For Ingalls Shipbuilding. I retired effective 1 Dec 2011. We don't build things that fly, just portable landing fields (nuclear carriers) and submarines.

Gary and I have converted our Bullnoses to EFI, using the EEC-V computers, mass air control and sequential injection.

 

[Gary Lewis]

Gary -

Home is the middle of nowhere on the NY/PA border - Waverly, NY 14892. Sure not a city!

Ah yes, mag tape - not to mention core memory and other such antiques like punch cards. I remember the story on the H that lost the vertical stab. What I worked on was the circa 1978/79 G/H upgrade to the AP-101C that I think got updated again in 2011? After I retired in any event. That was right after we did the D upgrade. Good thing my one brother in law was no longer driving D/E/F models for the AF or he probably would have complained to me if the cpu burped. We did a lot of work for Boeing in those days and onward. By the time I retired we had been sold twice so I retired from Lockheed.

I've seen entries by others who claim to have mounted a mechanical pump, left the electric power out of the circuit and it worked fine. To disable mine all I have to do is leave that jumper out and throw the connector back behind the inner fender. Also the most economical solution I imagine. Will just have to check and bake sure the cover plate is there and get a pump. At least with the dump body life is a lot easier getting at the top of that blasted fuel tank.

Thanks for the help.

Dale

Dale - You are now on the map.

And yes, I cut my teeth on IBM machines with core memory. In fact, the first one didn't even know how to add and the first thing you had to do was to load the math tables into memory, without which you got strange answers. Then DEC computers with core and hard drives with 4K of memory and paper tape.

Man, we've come a loooooong way. I have a computer in my truck that is far more capable than the room-sized one we had at K-State with thousands of tubes. Its MTBF seemed like only seconds.

[Dale Barber]

Welcome our corner of the insane asylum. I have one of those 1986 originally with dual tanks and the hot fuel handling package. Yours being a dump truck was probably built as a cab and chassis. This only really enters into things like the rear axle. Pickup trucks in 1985/86 received Ford 10.25" axles, the cab and chassis models received Dana 60s.

The biggest issue there will be rear brakes, The Ford axles have removable (slide on) drums, on the Dana the hubs have to be disassembled in order to get the drums off.

Ford built all the 460s, even after EFI was introduced with a mechanical fuel pump eccentric and all carbureted models that I have seen have a block off plate where the pump mounts.

As far as working for defense contractors, I retired from Huntington-Ingalls Industries (final iteration of my employer). When I first went there in Dec 1966 it was Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. In 1969 we were acquired by Tenneco. I left in 1970, returned in 1982, it was still Tenneco. Tenneco decided to sell us to Northrop Grumman, but they weren't real sure what to do with us. They owned Ingalls Shipbuilding on the Gulf Coast and had several divisions one of which was Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, the Ingalls yards. We became a complete division of our own. In Early 2011 they merged both shipbuilding divisions into one, and on April 1st 2011 we were spun off to become Huntington-Ingalls Industries (named for the founders of the two, Collis Huntington for Newport News and Robert Ingalls For Ingalls Shipbuilding. I retired effective 1 Dec 2011. We don't build things that fly, just portable landing fields (nuclear carriers) and submarines.

Gary and I have converted our Bullnoses to EFI, using the EEC-V computers, mass air control and sequential injection.

Bill -

Story I got when I bought this was that is was a cab and chassis originally. Strange part was original owner bought it to tow the family camper as well as do work - only time I've ever heard of that logic. Does have removable drums as over the years I've replaces both rear wheel cylinders when they started leaking. Only other repair was when the ignition module gave up the ghost. Been a reliable truck pretty much but then I don't use it a lot either, sits way too much.

Understand your work evolution. When IBM was in all that trouble in early 90s our division got sold as we were the only part of the company that made any money - and most people in the company did not even know we existed. Loral owned us for about 3 years, then Lockheed Martin bought up most of Loral. I always joked I should have framed the 3 business cards of the time - same address, title and phone number but with different corporate logos.

You guys are into some good work on your trucks while I'm just keeping a work vehicle a safe driver to haul things.

Dale

[Dale Barber]

Dale - You are now on the map.

And yes, I cut my teeth on IBM machines with core memory. In fact, the first one didn't even know how to add and the first thing you had to do was to load the math tables into memory, without which you got strange answers. Then DEC computers with core and hard drives with 4K of memory and paper tape.

Man, we've come a loooooong way. I have a computer in my truck that is far more capable than the room-sized one we had at K-State with thousands of tubes. Its MTBF seemed like only seconds.

Gray -

Thanks for putting me 'on the map' - new experience for me.

We start dating ourselves - fall 1966 semester, my freshman year, FORTRAN on an IBM 1401 with card I/O and you had to load the three decks prior to your program. We did not have anything sophisticated like a tape drive or other peripheral, just a printer. Like you say different now - my phone has more horsepower and memory than machines from back then and even into the 70s.

Don't know how we made it to the moon with slide rules but we did. Just glad the dump truck does not have a computer - enough fun fixing antiques without that added attraction.

Dale

[Gary Lewis]

Gray -

Thanks for putting me 'on the map' - new experience for me.

We start dating ourselves - fall 1966 semester, my freshman year, FORTRAN on an IBM 1401 with card I/O and you had to load the three decks prior to your program. We did not have anything sophisticated like a tape drive or other peripheral, just a printer. Like you say different now - my phone has more horsepower and memory than machines from back then and even into the 70s.

Don't know how we made it to the moon with slide rules but we did. Just glad the dump truck does not have a computer - enough fun fixing antiques without that added attraction.

Dale

Dale - In the words of Paul Simon " "Ain't we walking down the same street together on the very same day". In the fall of 1966 I was a freshman at Kansas State and we used a 1401 with punch cards. I didn't use paper tape until 1970 when my employer, the local electrical company, purchased a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system that was driven by a DEC PDP-8L.

The "L" was very important as the "Straight 8" had no core and instructions were fetched from disk while the L had a little bit of core. But in both systems disk latency was a big deal so you kept track of where the disk was in its rotation in order to minimize the fetch time. And all of this was done in assembly language.

As for not having computers in these vehicles, that is a significant advantage in many ways. However, that means you have a carb and as I'm aging (you might know about that as well) and want to hand my trucks off to my kids, that becomes problematic. Neither kid can rebuild a carb, so I've decided to implement a system that can be more easily maintained - one that gives them an OBD-II port with a computer that will tell them what is ailing it. And for a 460-powered truck that happened in 1996 and '7, but only in CA. So that's what I'm running.