was driving along..

 

50 MPH, the car died.. I coasted into a prking lot.. looked around. Thought .. hmm timing belt.. check .. nope dizzy still turns.

 

Pulled the fuel line from the filter under under the hood.. hmm.. curious.. no fuel .. I suppose its possible that the filter is clogged, but doubt that is the culprit, given the sudden nature of the problem.. more likely it is the fuel pump..I would have pulled the filter right then to replace it with the spare in the back of the car, but I couldn't get the damn thing disconnected from the line that feeds it.

 

so, I called my wife and waited for her to come pick me up..

 

Luckily I coasted into the parking lot of a decent mexican restraunt. Went in out of the 100 degree heat and had a couple of Ice Cold Coronas while I waited.

 

Off I go to gather parts for the great parking lot repair.. I'll be damned if I'm gonna have my soobie towed home.

 

If I remember right, there is also a fuel pump relay.. anyone know where it is on an 87 turbowagon?

the fuel pump relay is under the dash and to the right of the ECU

I guess you are going to need that fuel pump sooner than you thought, eh?

I'll see if I can pull it out this weekend.

Rob

i may be talking out my rump roast, cause i don't know how ea82s are set up, but on an ea81 the fuel pump runs off of the alternator, and a bad voltage regulator or alternator can make your fuel pump spoob the bed cause it's not gettin the juice. was there a warning light involved? you could hot wire the pump to drive it home, than get your mechanical groove on. coarse you might kill your battery. have a margarrita.

Change that filter!

(sounds like a good wife, probably ought'a keep her.)

Dammit

 

I swapped out the pump and both the fuel pump relay and the ignition relay.. no dice.. fuel pump doesn't cycle up whe the green connectors are connected.. nothing..

 

WTF?

 

car is still sitting in the parking lot of the mexican place.

 

Now, just to make sure, the fuel pump relay is one of the two directly above the plugs for the ECU, correct.? My FSM says they are inboard of the steering column, but there are no relays (or anything else) in the area it pointed to.

 

Also, it used to be that when I plugged in the green connectors and turned on the power, I would get 3 quick flashes on the ECU. Now I get nothing. I still have power to the coil, stereo, dash.. everything seems normal.. except the fact that the pump isn't working.

 

I checked the old pump.. its good..It powers up when hooked straight up to the battery.

 

This is really pissing me off.

 

Please help

The same exact thing happened to me in my '88 GL-10 one night. I had it towed to a shop and they replaced the fuel pump and things were fine for awhile. Later on I replaced a weak alternator and as soon as I started the engine with the new alternator the engine died. I traced the problem down to a problem in the ECU. The ECU provides a ground to the fuel pump to turn it on. Working on the ECU I found a bad driver transistor. I replaced it and the problem was fixed. I also worked on another ECU that a shop was trying to use to fix my problem. It turned out the same transistor was bad in it. I repaired it also and gave it back to them so they could have a test ECU on hand.

 

I can't say for sure your car is wired the same as mine but expect it is very close if not the same and it's your ECU that is the culprit here. I have a service manual to compare wires with if you want and if you want to send me the ECU I will look at it for you.

I got the fuel pump effectively hotwired.. but still no fire.. Like I said before, I am not getting the usual flashes from the ECU, so either the wiring to/from the ECU is toast, or the ECU itself is.. Anyone have a spare 87 turbu ECU?

 

Gonna get it towed home:boohoo: and start tracing and testing stuff

Man, I really hate "that" tow.

Loosen the gas cap. See if that works.

Rob

If you think there is no power getting to the ECU check the fuses and the fuselinks by the coolant reservoir. You may just have a loose connection. I would use a test light or DVM to check with. Hopefully the ECU is ok.