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fss melted down. why

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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 03:31 AM
  #1  
joshofalltrades's Avatar
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fss melted down. why

On my 87 e350 with the 6.9, i was driving tonight when the engine suddenly stopped making power. I pulled off the road and the engine stalled out, switched fuel tanks, ran my e-fuel pump for a minute, cranked on it a little, no attempt to fire. So I opened the hood and found smoke coming off the fss, which had melted and was releasing some smoke and a brown ooze. I checked for power at the fss wire, and it had power when the key was on, so the wiring is still OK.
The question is why did it melt down, and was this a random thing or something that may be my fault? I run a 60% wmo mix in my fuel, filtered and blended outside the vehicle. Also, this ip was rebuilt earlier this year by a local shop and it performed worse after the rebuild than my old pump with 100k miles on it.
I'm installing the old good pump tonight to get the truck back on the road.
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 05:00 AM
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Hate to be an acronym hater here, what is Fss and wmo? I'm guessing at the first Fss Fuel Solenoid Switch?
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 05:24 AM
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Fuel shutoff solenoid and waste vegetable oil?..I hope.

I've never heard of an actual fss meltdown.
I got a repair order,once, that stated "seat catches on fire".
The seat heater would get so hot, it burned a hole in my Dickies!
Electrical stuff can just decide to light off one random day, I guess.
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 06:30 AM
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Originally Posted by MPoulson
Fuel shutoff solenoid and waste vegetable oil?..I hope.

I've never heard of an actual fss meltdown.
I got a repair order,once, that stated "seat catches on fire".
The seat heater would get so hot, it burned a hole in my Dickies!
Electrical stuff can just decide to light off one random day, I guess.
I wonder if the brown ooze is Veg related? You would think the fuse would catch that.

Yes, fuel shut off solenoid, not fuel solenoid switch- it was too early. My Fss is internal to the IP. Is there a mod to put a solenoid on the outside so at least on could operate this shut off manually in a pinch? Maybe a valve on the external fuel supply line?
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 11:13 AM
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I'm guessing maybe the solenoid has an internal short that caused it to draw so much current the connector melted. Though, like you I've never heard of that happening.
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 11:18 AM
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My guess is freak occurence, WMO is waste motor oil
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 11:51 AM
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Originally Posted by hairyboxnoogle
My guess is freak occurence, WMO is waste motor oil
Freakyyyyy occurence is right! Espechilly the fire fried dickies lol.
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 06:52 PM
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Prolly not the thread for this but, isn't motor oil a bit hot for our engines?
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 07:35 PM
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Originally Posted by joshofalltrades
On my 87 e350 with the 6.9, i was driving tonight when the engine suddenly stopped making power. I pulled off the road and the engine stalled out, switched fuel tanks, ran my e-fuel pump for a minute, cranked on it a little, no attempt to fire. So I opened the hood and found smoke coming off the fss, which had melted and was releasing some smoke and a brown ooze. I checked for power at the fss wire, and it had power when the key was on, so the wiring is still OK.
The question is why did it melt down, and was this a random thing or something that may be my fault? I run a 60% wmo mix in my fuel, filtered and blended outside the vehicle. Also, this ip was rebuilt earlier this year by a local shop and it performed worse after the rebuild than my old pump with 100k miles on it.
I'm installing the old good pump tonight to get the truck back on the road.
based on the info provided my first guess would be,because you wired your electric fuel pump incorrectly to draw directly off the FSS line rather than using the fss line as a relay trigger.
this is why you can't run an electric pump directly off the fss.

if you simply run your e-pump off the battery with and a toggle with no connection to the fss line,then this isn't it lol.
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 08:38 PM
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Originally Posted by MPoulson
Prolly not the thread for this but, isn't motor oil a bit hot for our engines?
They run great on it. Oil obviously has more BTU than diesel so it has the potential to get hotter. Mine had better power and mileage when i was running it regularly.
 
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Old Oct 3, 2013 | 11:58 PM
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OK, I'll clarfuelify a few things here that had you guys uncertain...
Wmo = waste motor oil
Fss = fuel shutoff solenoid on the IP.
My electric fuel pump is wired differently than most, only running when thee glow plugs are lit to prime the system in the morning, then turning off and letting the mechanical pump do all the work while driving. It also has a pushbutton override which I was using.

Well anyway, I got my old good ip put back on the van last night, and it finally roared to life at 5 in the morning after working nonstop since before midnight

Would you believe that it's possible to change the ip in a van without even removing the doghouse, I did it last night.

As for my fuel choice, it runs great on it, actually better than on pump fuel

I guess I'll accept it as a freak thing, but I'm wondering if the shop that rebuilt the pump might offer any kind of warranty on their poor work
 
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Old Oct 4, 2013 | 09:18 AM
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Originally Posted by joshofalltrades
OK, I'll clarfuelify a few things here that had you guys uncertain...
Wmo = waste motor oil
Fss = fuel shutoff solenoid on the IP.
My electric fuel pump is wired differently than most, only running when thee glow plugs are lit to prime the system in the morning, then turning off and letting the mechanical pump do all the work while driving. It also has a pushbutton override which I was using.

Well anyway, I got my old good ip put back on the van last night, and it finally roared to life at 5 in the morning after working nonstop since before midnight

Would you believe that it's possible to change the ip in a van without even removing the doghouse, I did it last night.

As for my fuel choice, it runs great on it, actually better than on pump fuel

I guess I'll accept it as a freak thing, but I'm wondering if the shop that rebuilt the pump might offer any kind of warranty on their poor work
I just changed the IP/Injectors on my van......kind of a pain. How did you do it without taking off the doghouse?

Now you have me wanting to start filtering my oil to run through the tank. With my 4 vehicles and my father-in-laws 4 we have quite a bit. I know you can start by filtering through a pair of jeans. Then can jump up to a whole house water filter etc. Do you let yours settle prior to filtering/running it?
 
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Old Oct 4, 2013 | 03:19 PM
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the only challenge with leaving the doghouse on is reaching the rearmost injector lines, and with my long arms it wasn't that bad. i left the injectors in place. air cleaner housing had to get pushed left and right a few times to allow access to the lines. fuel filter housing was among the first things removed for access. the job was very straightforward and outside of reaching the rear injector lines and being able to remove the air cleaner completely, there was little benefit to removing the doghouse - and it would have taken an hour to clear space to get it out.

i'll talk more on WMO later - gotta run
 
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Old Oct 4, 2013 | 05:07 PM
  #14  
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Originally Posted by joshofalltrades

As for my fuel choice, it runs great on it, actually better than on pump fuel
I think I'll be taking another look at my choice of fuels.

I recycled about 15 gal of waste motor oil two months ago! :jackass!:
 
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Old Oct 4, 2013 | 11:20 PM
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Not that i recomment it... but in my 79 i drop my oil in a clean bucket and just dump it right in the tank. Working on building a storage / filtering unit out of a couple 55gal drums. Stack the drums, hang the filter between em and let the top drum gravity filter into the second with a pump. Shouldnt take up much room. We have 8 or 9 drums just sitting around here on the ranch that need filtered. The other day we had to pull the trans in the 7810 so i got 20ish gallons of hydraulic ive been runnin.
 
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