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  #1  
Old 01-04-2018, 03:30 AM
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AWR-fix: Siphon pump repair

EDIT: another member did an amazing more detailed step-by-step to do this process. I recommend reading my thread for additional information then use his thread add the recipe to follow. The thread is here:

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sha...0&share_type=t

So tonight when I was about to take a 3 hour drive up north, I go to a pit stop on the way and my car stalls with 18 liters of gas.

Being the self proclaimed master of the BMW X5 fuel system, I figured it was the universe giving me my chance to prove myself.

After three or four start attempts that went nowhere I double checked that the fuel pump which is less than 1 month old was working.

I could hear the hum of the pump from under the car for 3 seconds I knew it was getting power I wasn't sure if I was making pressure.

I pulled up test 6 from the hidden menu and sure enough it had about 17 liter of gas on the left and 0.0 liters of gas on the right.

This points to an obvious problem in the siphon jet.

I put in about 4 gallons of gas so I could get home. I took out my rear seat, open up the left side of the tank and holding the tank open a little bit turn the key to the on position. I was recording with a camera with video so I could share with the group. I will find out soon enough if liquid proof includes gasoline as my iPhone got sprayed with gas.



Here is the main reason the O-ring just popped right out of the groove just like my wife's car.

It was my primary suspect and I was planning on redoing that o-ring.

I replaced that O-ring and did another test. Not at all surprising to me the useless seal in the other connection had failed as expected. It was only leaking maybe 5% as much as the huge leak from the O-ring it was bad enough that I wanted to fix it and figure out a good way to show other people they can fix it easily.


Here's the new o-ring in place


Here is the useless seal taken apart. Be careful taking this apart I use a piece of wire to hold open the one clip at a time as I pried it apart. If you take it apart carefully enough you will not have to create a new way to hold it together. If you break it taking it apart don't worry you can use a hose clamp to hold it together when you're done.

Be very careful about the spring and the one-way valve I almost lost the part as the spring shot it across my car.





The female part is .2 millimeters bigger than the male part so of course it leaks under pressure.

Rather than build an O-ring Groove which is a great solution I wanted a quick and easy solution


4 wraps of fastape Teflon tape folded in half so really eight layers gave me a nice tight fit that does not leak a drop.




Here is the "useless seal" reassembled. Notice that it's a perfectly tight fit. Gooder (sic) than new.





And I think part of why these all fail is because of the way it is held together. The O-ring seal is being held way offset. I added this little zip tie to help hold the O-ring tighter. Normally there will be quite an angle and the side with the O-ring will be about 1.5 mm lower. Zip tie acts like lever on the fulcrum in the middle and holds the fitting around the O-ring tighter.



Yes that's the hose clamp down in the bottom of the gas tank! Be careful not to drop crap into the gas tank.



While I was rebuilding the old ring I sealed that the tank with a piece of an old glove stretched over the opening.

In the morning when I go to do my three-hour trip up north, I will bring a gas can a long and drive down to single digits to make sure my siphon pump is working. Since about a half a gallon a minute less is spraying out the side, I am quite confident in the repair!
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Last edited by andrewwynn; 07-17-2019 at 09:50 AM.
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  #2  
Old 01-04-2018, 04:18 AM
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Siphon pump DIY repair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsgWAnmvKeg

Don't worry it looks like an amazing amount of gas sprayed everywhere but it's exaggerated by the phone camera being about 4cm from the leak.

It was a holy crap amount of leak though and absolutely why my car starved of fuel with 15L or something remaining.

I just replaced the electric pump a couple weeks ago and I'm curious if the new pump with more pressure blew or the o-ring or the old pump actually had more pressure to overcome the leak because I could drive to zero DTE just a month or two ago, I perform that test about 3-4 times a year.

This job could be done in about 90 minutes especially if you have a helper. As I was photographing and inventing it probably took me about 3 hours.

About the sixth time I've done the remove a fuel pump procedure on an x5, this was the first of all the future times where I removed the back seat bottom.

It is captive by the center position seat belt. It takes a 16mm socket and several hundred ft·lb of torque to remove the rusted in bolt but with the right power tool it was simple. (was a bit of a challenge to get the rusted bolt started to put back in but still quite worth it, fighting the damn seat bottom the entire time really gets on your nerves).

Putting the seat bottom back in; push the center male buckle through the seat and latch it: since it is floppy, it will fight you trying to put it up through the hole in the seat.

The other two are pretty easy: pretty much ignore them, get the seat lined up and start to push the back down into place, the left and right female buckle should be lined up with the holes but flat forward, there is enough give in the leather to reach a skinny finger in and pull the front edge vertical into the hole.

At that point just pound the seat backwards with your fist then down again with fist it should snap right into place.
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Last edited by andrewwynn; 01-04-2018 at 04:35 AM.
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Old 01-04-2018, 05:12 AM
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Very Interesting, had I known you were taking the fuel sender out, I would've begged for a picture of the float and arm with some form of reference of angle...

Luckily this seems to work on mine but I'll check the o ring next time as a precaution.

What you show as the one way valve, is this what keeps fuel in the fuel rail when the engine is off or something completely different?
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Old 01-04-2018, 05:21 AM
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Siphon pump DIY repair

The check valve you describe is either in the electric pump or the FPR (fuel pressure regulator) built into the fuel filter I forget which, but I'm leaning toward the pump since I get a lot of spray when disconnecting the supply hose.

This check valve does not seem equipped to hold pressure just to prevent back flow. I suspect part of the "oh shit the siphon foot is plugged, let the pressure out" system, in the case pressure builds in the siphon feet, the pressure would prevent flow backwards and let the pressure relief valve dump the excess fuel directly info right tank.

I don't seem to have any pics of the sender with the arm to measure the angle but I have discovered that the floats on both sides hit the top of the tank at a total of 82L of fuel (on my car at least).



55 and 27L.

The tops of both sides are symmetrical, so if they both stop climbing at the same time and at 55/27 the arm bend is correct (or the foot is properly engaged into the dent in the tank).

You should be able to put in about 10L once the test 6 numbers max out as the floats smack into the top of the tank. They should both stop climbing at the same time.

(You can also observe them coming off the top, that should be a lot easier come to think of it). At about 60-70 miles for me, I finally saw the numbers start to wiggle as I hit bumps or took curves.

If one of the sides starts to show a drop off the top sooner than the other i would investigate.

How the hell the computer guesses a DTE before the first 10L is consumed I haven't a clue. I think it assumes a full tank any time you are within 10L from the top; maybe explains why the DTE can swing pretty hard once the floats can actually measure how much fuel is in the tank.
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Last edited by andrewwynn; 01-04-2018 at 05:39 AM.
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Old 01-04-2018, 08:51 AM
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I'm going to check my left fuel sender as it doesn't report 55 when full (event though its new from bmw) when the right one now reports 27...

I'll check the oring at the same time. I'll also remove de middle seat belt, I've got no use for it in the foreseable future and it truly is a big annoyance.
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Old 01-04-2018, 09:06 AM
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To make the sender report a higher number, you need to straighten the elbow on the float apparently about 1-2cm = 5L.


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Old 01-04-2018, 09:44 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewwynn View Post
To make the sender report a higher number, you need to straighten the elbow on the float apparently about 1-2cm = 5L.


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I've got a gas station about 2 miles from the workshop so I'll fill up and make it see full.

But that's gonna have to wait like everything else, its way too cold, windy and wet right now for me to do anything that's not urgent or stranding me.
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Old 01-04-2018, 10:30 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewwynn View Post
I don't seem to have any pics of the sender with the arm to measure the angle but I have discovered that the floats on both sides hit the top of the tank at a total of 82L of fuel (on my car at least).

55 and 27L.

The tops of both sides are symmetrical, so if they both stop climbing at the same time and at 55/27 the arm bend is correct (or the foot is properly engaged into the dent in the tank).

You should be able to put in about 10L once the test 6 numbers max out as the floats smack into the top of the tank. They should both stop climbing at the same time.

(You can also observe them coming off the top, that should be a lot easier come to think of it). At about 60-70 miles for me, I finally saw the numbers start to wiggle as I hit bumps or took curves.

If one of the sides starts to show a drop off the top sooner than the other i would investigate.

How the hell the computer guesses a DTE before the first 10L is consumed I haven't a clue. I think it assumes a full tank any time you are within 10L from the top; maybe explains why the DTE can swing pretty hard once the floats can actually measure how much fuel is in the tank.
I just filled mine up and yep - exact same numbers (as always) - 55L and 27L. And like you, I get about 120km before the numbers start to "wiggle".

And before I filled it (it took over 71L to fill) I had confirmed that the right tank was reading 1.4L. Left was reading about 20L. So siphon should be good.
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Last edited by wpoll; 05-04-2018 at 02:54 PM.
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Old 01-04-2018, 10:36 PM
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The key is the right side should read the same (1.4 ish) down to 0.0 left


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Old 01-04-2018, 10:50 PM
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Originally Posted by andrewwynn View Post
The key is the right side should read the same (1.4 ish) down to 0.0 left


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Understand the theory but I'm not likely to try often it in practice!

1. Water is an BIG problem for CRDI engines (or more correctly, the mechanical fuel pumps in CRDI engines!) - and I don't want to find out there's a few hundred millilitres of water sitting in there!! Pretty certain there isn't - I have had the car down to a few litres before but I also don't trust all service stations - it's not unknown the get a batch of contaminated diesel - rare but not unknown.

2. I just paid well north of $100 for the 70L of diesel I just filled up with - the "sticker shock" isn't insignificant!

I'm just happy to see the right side stop at 1.4L while the left more or less matches what the gauge says.
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