About a month and a half ago my water in fuel light came on. I drained the water seperator like the book says to do. However, about 1 week later the light came back on. I drained it again. About 2 days later the light came back on again. I went to a local dealership around my home town and the guy that worked in the service area told me it could be one of two things. It could either be that I have water in the lines or that I have a bad sensor. Well I put in a new filter(replaced both) and I put in some sea foam to clear up any water that may be in the lines. Well, my light came back on again. Has anyone had a simiilar problem.

 

no i never did, but a defective new sensor can't be ruled out

 

Not sure. My Water in Fuel light came on today, at 6600 miles. Drained about a half pint of fuel - no water was obvious, although I did not let it set and separate.

By the way, what a pain in the rear to drain the water! What was Ford thinking! I had a '97 PSD and you simply moved a lever under the hood and let it drain. Now, climb under the truck, in the snow and wet, try to get my gut under the low step bars (got stuck for a minute, but was able to move when the ice under me melted and I went down a bit), risked electrocution and/or explosion with the shop light under there with me (yup, it was dark), fiddled with the allen wrench (which is just slightly too long and bumps into the front drive shaft). Once loosended, removed now loose plug by hand so fuel and maybe water runs out which I try to catch with my Tupperware bowl. Accidenatlly dropped plug into bowl, so had to fish out as fuel poured down my hand. (Fishing out is hard when on your back and you must keep bowl under stream so not to ruin pavment.) Retrieved plug and put back, all the while getting fuel down arm and coat sleeve while trying to get threads to seat. Finally seated and got the plug tighted. The sensor damn well better be working correctly. Certainly don't want to go through that every couple of months.

I have seen the other plugs, but there still must be a better way - anyone design a remote valve?

 

I had a similar problem about a year ago. Finally the light went out and I haven't had a problem since. I'm wonering if it even works anymore but the truck runs fine and I have replaced the filter at least once since then and drained the fuel at least three times as a maintenance item and not because the light came back on.

I know there was a problem with these things on the 2003's and they were replacing the unit. Not sure if it was redesigned for the later model trucks. It's possible you got a bad load of fuel and it wil take time to get the water out.

 

I do not believe that it is bad fuel. I fill up at the same station that my Father fills up at and I also have friend who drives a Dodge(I dont hold it against him, his daddy drives a ford) and they do not have any problems.

 

Tank at the station could have been low when you filled up and you were pumping tank bottoms. I wouldn't discount it. Only way to really find out would be to drain the entire tank. Best bet is that you have a bad sensor but there are these other thing sto look at it. Hope you get it straightened out soon.

 

I've seen water seperators on other diesels get loaded with fuel and not water for some reason. I had to remove all fuel filters, let everything drain, then drain the water seperator and it would start actually seperating the water again

The water seperators I've seen actually have a float in them. Either water or diesel can make the float go up, kicking off the water light.

Of course, that's "other" (Isuzu) diesels, not the Ford PSD...

Water sinks to the bottom when mixed with oil - the tank pickup is in the bottom of the tank (either at the gas station or your own fuel tank), so if there's water in it you won't have to wait until it's empty to get a bad fill

That doesn't mean you won't suck up the garbage floating on TOP though ...or that there's "just enough" water to make it suck up a few drops here and there...

 

Well I appreciate everyone input. I will drain the frame mounted feul filter again and if it comes back on I will take it back to the dealership and have them replace the sensor.

 

My experience in this business stops right before the retail level so I cannot honestly speak to how the tank suction is handled at the corner gas station. Suppose I could look into this easily enough. That said, everywhere else along the supply line, from crude oil collection tanks, crude pipeline tankage, crude tankers, crude oil terminal tanks, refinery crude tanks, refinery intermidate tanks, refinery product tanks, truck rack tankage, product pipeline tankage, and product terminal tanks all have floating suction devices or at the very least, the pump suction is located a good bit off of the tank floor to allow water and suspended solids to settle out.

Operational procedures usually dictate that these tanks not be drawn from below a set level as insurance against pulling crap out of the tank. These tanks generally have a gravity feed water draw located well below the lowest desired product draw level. In the case of retail underground storage tanks, I've got to believe that there is some sort of pump driven water draw, but perhaps not. Agian, my experience stops at the terminal and never reached the retail level. If it is a bottom draw on these tanks, I've got to believe they are filtering the be-Jesus out of them, especially the diesel.

There are a ton of checks in the system for product quality all along the supply chain and if a batch is found to be off-spec, it gets routed to an isolation tank until they can either blend it back within specs, dillute it into a good stream, or find somone to take it as slop and re-refine it, etc.

In spite of all this, sometimes things still get through for any number of reasons and if water draws are not done (or filters not monitored and replaced on schedule)as required, and I suspect this does happen, the water level in the bottom of your retail gas station tank can rise above the lowest desired draw level and you will have some fuel quality problems.

All that said, I still think the problem is a bad sensor.

 

Thanks for the insight texas2004!

Never knew about the floating pickups...

 

Glad I could shed a little light on the upstream operations. You could still be correct about the tank draws at the gas station though. I just don't know with any certainty how that is handled there but you have tweeked my interest in knowing.

 

I just checked around a little on Google, and couldn't find anything fast about what's really used by gas stations...

I'd think if they were floating pickups, you'd need some large access holes for the tanks, and I haven't seen anything bigger than the fill hole.

Let me know if you find out.