Hello all. 95 7.3 in a van (read: in hell):






Backstory: Just finished redoing all the seals in my fuel bowl with guzzle's kit. The engine's in a van and has had a wet valley for 2 years, but it started actually puddling and motivated me to do something about it. I visually confirmed it was leaking like hell from the fuel restriction sensor and managed to plug that with the bowl in the van, but the valley filled with diesel again, so I pulled the whole assembly and replaced all the seals. When I pulled the fuel filter, it had lots of little silver flakes on it, and when I got the bowl out, I was floored by how much of the same was in the bowl. There was some accumulated sludge beneath the heater element, but there was also this flakier, silver stuff. I don't recall the filter ever looking like much of anything in the past... this filter went in about 6k mi ago. I've never had the bowl out, and in the van you definitely can't take a look in there, so I don't know if there was accumulated crap in there before. The ports to the drain assembly were full of flakes (though it drained fine) as were the ports to the FPR. The van was running fine, aside from the leak, until now.

Questions:
1. Is there a possibility I just fueled up somewhere that had just gotten a load of fuel and there was lots of crap in suspension, or is this delam?
2. Either way, could crap like this running through my mechanical fuel pump have killed its seal (because I just reinstalled the rebuilt fuel bowl and went for a ride and the !*#$ing valley is puddling again).

This is a very rusty 95 7.3 that likely isn't worth the cost of the parts if I have to put in a new tank and/or a sinister style separate filter bank; on the other hand, I am absolutely dependent on this vehicle for work and likely can't afford to replace it with something similar. I need to solve the fuel leak because I have to pass inspection, but it's hard to get a visual on where it's leaking from, and cleaning the valley up enough to use baby powder or something is out of the question on a van like this. I don't mind doing the fuel pump if I have to, but am worried I'm throwing good money after bad if it's the tank.

Thanks.

Luke

 

I doubt you have a fuel tank issue, but it looks like you had algae or the fuel bowl is disintegrating.

It should be relatively clean inside the bowl.

And yes, this could muck up the fuel pump.

The fuel from the tank is unfiltered till it goes though the bowl, then it goes back though the pump.

The pump coulda been your leak from the get go though.

 

Thanks for the input. This stuff wasn't sludgey like I think of diesel "algae" but flakier... but it's new to me.

The inside of the fuel bowl, once cleaned out with solvent, seems perfect--no pitting, cracks, or other signs of deterioration.

The main leak was definitely at the restriction sensor--it was dripping about a drop every two seconds--but it seems totally plausible that the pump is also leaking.

Still leaves me with what do I do? I'm inclined to just run a few tanks of fuel through, maybe draining the bowl periodically, and see if things go ok... then I'll change the filter again and see where I am. I don't want to put a new pump in if it's going to get fouled with crap right off the bat.