I've been fighting an 87 6.9L for sometime now on a hard start (starts up, shuts off, long crank, then starts agian) Anyways I had replaced all the injector O-rings, lift pump, cleaned off the IP (no leaks) and when doing the return lines found a small hole in the crossover line under the GPCM, thought I found it, it was starting great. So I let it sit a week and now.... samething, has to sit a longtime though. Well I was stumped, so I was playing with it today agian and discovered something I overlooked (this is not my truck) I was getting bored of looking for leaks and could never figure out why this guys drivers fender was always a mess, so I get to looking around and find the drain tube for the fuel water separator to be the cause of the mess. I called him up and asked him about it, he said he drained it last fall and it's been like that ever since, why he didn't tell me this 3 weeks ago I have no idea, lol. So I had put an extention on the line into a pan and started it up, nothing, so then I just gave it the slightest turn and that thing was leaking like no other, then it wouldn't seat fully agian until a lot of messing w/ it, in the mean time the truck died. After much cranking it started agian and still wanted to seep, so I pushed down hard on the valve and it stopped.....for now. I've been through this forum and many threads and have never run across this, I have never even heard of anyone talking about that being a problem, it's usually the usual return lines and O-rings and maybe a fuel pump. So my question is, has anybody else ever ran across this and if not does it sound like I'm on the right track?

 

I've seen this some where els on here and it was fixed by putting a bolt in the drain line to plug it off. Hope this second hand info helps. It sounds like its letting fule drain out of the filter when it sits for a long time.

 

Consider bypassing that completely and installing a fuel filter with a water drain spigot on the bottom......... just drain water every oil change or more often if he wishes.

Wix has those filters so does Baldwin.....

 

I was thinking of just putting a pipe in there (skip the separator) and being done with it for awhile, if that fixes it great. Just need to see if that's the real problem. I don't remember seeing this type of fuel water seperator on em, for some reason I had it in my head that it and the fuel filter were one in the same, but this one doesn't have the drain on the fuel filter either.

 

I had exactly that problem. Could`t plug the end of the drain with a bolt as the previous owner had cut the pipe level with the seperator. I just used a short length of rigid pipe to bypass it and change my fuel filter more often. Ideally, of course, a fuel filter with a water drain should be fitted but I never get around to it and have had no problems since doing the mod.

 

That's about the same idea I think were gonna go with, prolly just use a piece of brake line. We tried to find replacement parts, there are none, you have to buy the whole thing and that took some time to find and cost to us (were a dealer) was 300 some dollars and I seroiusly doubt the customer is gonna go for that, especially since the the truck is in "terriable" shape. Well I'm glad to hear somebody else had this problem, b/c this was a last resort.

 

If that drain valve on the bottom is a short metal nipple or pipe then something is missing - the rubber part of the drain hose. It is supposed to have a short piece of rubber hose slipped over the end of that valve - mine does. The solution when I thought the valve on mine was leaking air back into the system, was to stick a bolt in the other end of the rubber drain hose. Some people put a clamp on it, but I found that a bolt the right size pushed into the end of the hose just a little farther than where the threads dissapear into the hose did the trick without the need for a clamp.

Running with no fuel/water separator may be OK for a short time, but it isn't a good idea for the long haul. The IPs on these trucks only work well if the internals have really close tolerances and they do NOT like water. It doesn't lubricate well enough as it passes through the pump.

The bolt-in-the-hose trick is the easiest long term solution. The other alternatives - a new separator - or a filter assembly with a built in separator - are both a lot more expensive and more work to install. But either of them is cheaper than replacing an IP that gets damaged by pumping water....

Just my $0.02, FWIW....

 

It did have the hose on it. I told him the consequences of it running without, he said he'd prolly just take off his fuel filter and drain it more often. The truck is a junker and he doesn't use it much, the engine is already shot (260 comp. low and 370 high) and the grill is all missing, the hood doesn't close, bumper severly bent, it's rusted in places I've never seen rust b4, all the exhaust fell off, the tranny's messed up (if you sit and go through the gears it feels like you have a 7 speed, gotta get used to it (it's real loose), other then that the interior isn't the worst and it has about half decent tires. But to each his own, he's looking at a different truck, but he didn't want to spend the money on the water separator housing and he's mechanically apt, so maybe he'll find something else to put on there, it would be easy enough to take one off a tractor and just mount it on the fender or go to the junkyard and get the newer version.