Okay so you’re driving down the road in your F150 when suddenly it acts like it runs out of gas and dies on you.
You know you’re not out of gas because you just filled up (or in my case put 40 dollars in the tank).
You know it shouldn’t be the emergency shut off switch because you did not hit anything.
So that leaves a few options, one is your fuel pump went out. Of course when you flip the selector to the other tank you still get nothing. That should rule out your fuel pump, although it could happen, the odd of both fuel pumps going out at the same time are very very slim.
So before you have it towed into the shop and spend a couple of hundred dollars trying to have it fixed here is a little help for you.
Check your fuses, you can do this with a test light by checking the exposed metal tab on each side of your fuse, or you can pull them out and visibly inspect them one at a time. (I recommend the test light, it’s much quicker).
Next thing to check is get under the truck, turn the ignition to the on position and listen for the ticking noise of your fuel pump, switch tanks and listen again. If no ticking then your selector switch has more than likely gone out.
To replace the selector switch you will need a thin flat head screw driver and a torx head screwdriver.
First pull your head light switch into the on position and rotate it until you see the slot. Insert the flathead screwdriver into the slot and push the keeper toward the dash. The headlight knob should slide off. Be careful doing this as the knob will break if you exert too much force.
Once the knob is removed, turn off your headlights, you don’t want to drain your battery do you?
Next there is a long narrow strip of molding on each side of your steering wheel, with the flat head screwdriver gently pry them out of place.
Once they are removed you will see two torx head screws, remove those and the dash panel will come out.
On the back side of the dash panel you will see two more torx head screws that hold the tank selector switch in place. Remove those two screws and unplug the switch.
There are five wires on the plug, two small ones that go to your fuel gauge, two large wires that go to your fuel pumps and one large wire that is a power wire. My incoming power wire is yellow with a red stripe, and my rear fuel pump wire is brown. You can jump these two wires out and get the fuel pump working long enough to get a replacement switch. They cost about 13 dollars at Advance Auto, 14 dollars at Autozone and 18 at NAPA.
To replace the switch plug it in and test it to make sure that everything is working.
Screw the switch back to the dash panel. Put the dash panel back in place, install the screws, pop the moldings back into place and gently push the headlight knob back on.
That’s all there is to it. Takes about thirty minutes or one beer.
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September 9, 2020