It’s spring! It’s time to start working on your project car, learn a new twisting skill, learn how things work under the hood, or simply give your everyday vehicle a makeover.
All month long, we’ll review our best do-it-yourself, maintenance, and information articles from Jalopnik’s nearly 20-year history to get you ready to go. Welcome to Jalopnik’s Spring Tuning.
Sometimes it’s tempting to try to get as many miles as possible from a tank of gas. But you shouldn’t do that. This video showing the internals of a fuel pump will help you understand why.
(Note: We will focus on gasoline-powered vehicles here; diesel engines use a different type of fuel pump, but running the diesel to the point of exhaustion is still not a good idea. And this is how far you can go when your gas light comes on.)
In case you lost it:
Your car’s fuel pump delivers gasoline from the fuel tank to the engine. It’s a vital component that keeps your car running, but it has a tendency to break down and get you stuck on the side of the highway — especially if you want to run your gas meter all the way down to “E” .
You can see why driving without gas can cause problems by watching YouTuber 99 . speed carFailure of the fuel pump module:
The main parts of the fuel pump that will be damaged when you let the tank empty are the filter mesh, fuel filter and electric motor.
As you can see in the video above, the electric motor is actually cooled by the gasoline flowing through the pump. Fuel from the tank enters through a strainer (aka “sock filter” as he calls it in the video), is forced through a circular vane pump (pictured below) and is pushed through an electric pump motor to cool the copper coil to make the motor run.
When you run out of gas, that pump starts drawing air in, instead of fuel. Since air doesn’t absorb heat as well as liquid gasoline, the fuel pump’s electric motor can overheat, melting its coils and eventually squealing.
Also, the fuel acts as a lubricant for the pump, so the air running through the system can cause those tiny rotating parts to wear out prematurely.
In addition to the pump overheating and premature wear, running your car when it’s running low on fuel can cause the fuel pump to suck up deposits at the bottom of the fuel tank. (This is a bigger problem in older cars with metal fuel tanks that tend to corrode over time, especially when there’s very little fuel in the tank, making room for moist air to corrode the metal. type. old jeep clog the fuel filters and damage its pump because of this very problem.)
The residue can clog your filter or contaminate your fuel filter. When the fuel filter is clogged, the pump won’t be able to deliver enough fuel to the engine and your vehicle will slow down or stop running.
Replace a radically aspirated fuel pump. The job often requires you to drop the gas tank and spend a lot of money on a new replacement part. Older cars tend to have access boards in the bodywork that give you access to the fuel pump, but if you own anything a bit modern, this job can quickly get expensive and difficult. .
So don’t let your car run out of fuel. Keep an eye on that metric and try to keep “smoke running” to a minimum.
