In praise of Delphi fuel pump

[andrewwynn]

The fuel goes in circles pretty fast when at idle. I would suspect fuel temp getting pretty warm being involved.

Will it come back to life if you apply voltage directly?

The fuel coming back to the siphon jet was crazy fast when I had it open enough to see it was leaking and it sprayed like a garden hose.

The quantity of fuel in the tank is the heat sink to cool the recirculating fuel so if low on fuel that will be related.

[80stech]

Geeze I hate when that happens! Fuel pump arrived today and it turned out to be a cheap Spectra pump in the Delphi box! Rock Auto wants it back too so that sucks even more. They used to be easier to deal with but the automated 'report a problem' doesn't take some things into account. I guess I will do the return, order the Delphi again and cross my fingers that it's NOT another Spectra pump! Maybe this has something to with why the Delphi units were on sale for so cheap a while back ?? Anyone order one of those??

[andrewwynn]

Ouch! I ordered an "a-premium" so i could get it overnight and it worked for 11 months.

I was out of town when they said they needed a photo to get a warranty replacement but i was able to get my dad to find the part and take a photo.

The replacement lasted for the rest of the life of the car.

[X5chemist]

Warehouse swap? Return? If you get another bad one, I'm going to order a Hella.

[80stech]

I'm going to take it apart and have a better look at what's going on, maybe do some voltage drop/current draw and pressure measurements. I have a feeling that I might have to order the complete Delphi assembly again to get the Delphi pump. I'm not sure the Delphi pump will fit into the stock tank unit so that would explain some things so I'll have a look at that too. I wish I could remember for sure what pump (I think it was a Pierburg) I used when I did the replacement at around the 200k mark because I took that one apart at about 400k when I put in the Delphi as preventative maintenance and it still looked like new, almost no wear at all, and probably would have lasted the rest of the life of the vehicle.
BTW one pin on the connector for the Hella assembly looks like it's already oxidized in the RockAuto pic!

[80stech]

So I did a quick voltage drop and current draw and pump is only drawing 6 amps so I am suspecting the pump might be worn out. I'll do some more checking/pressure test to get a better picture but I might not be ordering another Delphi pump! The Rock Auto pic of the Delphi pump by itself now shows brown end caps on the pump same as the Spectra pump that was in the box and NOT the black end caps that the original Delphi pump has so might be something fishy going on!
It's funny (probably AI) that I had to say that I already installed the pump in order for my problem to accepted as "boxed wrong" otherwise it always came up with "we will only accept an original Delphi pump in return." I had another crazy AI thing come up before I ran into that which is why I even got the idea to switch up my input to try to get the proper response!

[80stech]

So I ordered the Pierburg pump and while waiting did a pressure test on the Delphi and sure enough only about 60 PSI head pressure and pump makes an awful sound at that point so looks like the pumping elements are worn out and I was fooled a bit by the burnt connector. Delphi bragged about having made the motor better, and the check valve seemed to hold nicely too but I guess that doesn't matter much if the pumping elements are still a weak link.

[andrewwynn]

Don't drop the pump! I bought a pierburg and dropped it about a foot to the ground just before installing and killed it!

Do you know what the normal head pressure is on these pumps?

[80stech]

I've seen anywhere between 70 and 120 PSI, I would expect at least 70 if rail pressure is in the 50s.

[andrewwynn]

Thanks! I've been looking for that info for years impossible to find!