96 850 Fuel Pump Story

turbotim2 · Post by **turbotim2** » 08 May 2007, 18:16

My car broke down the other day and all leads pointed to the fuel pump. I pulled it today to find that the ground wire in the fuel pump housing had actually burned! It melted the plastic plug that goes into the pump insert. I had to rewire the pump and voila. I have pictures and can do a write up if any one is interested.

The fuel pump is VERY easy to change and I would recommend DIY if you can, save you some $$.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 08 May 2007, 19:10

I have pictures and can do a write up if any one is interested.

Heck Ya, go for it.

I had the wires burn in half on one of my Suburbans but they actually burned inside of the tank. Good thing it was full of gas when it failed.

...Lee

turbotim2 · Post by **turbotim2** » 09 May 2007, 04:46

Yea, these were inside the tank, and the tank was only about 1/4 full. Needless to say, the wires had corroded enough that they couldn't pass electricity. Think I am all set now, I made it to work this morning. I'll get the write up later.

turbotim2 · Post by **turbotim2** » 11 May 2007, 05:53

OK, so in the first picture you can see the melted wire and plug that goes into the pump. I tried to run new wires just from the connectors at the top, inside of the pump housing where the wires are soldered on but I was getting no current through the top of the housing. I thus had to resort to drilling new holes through the top of the housing and running new wires stright through to the pump. I used some larger guage wires as well, the original wires seemed quite wimpy for the current that an electric motor needs. My opinion on why they burned is - the wires corroded enough such that only a strand or two of the wire was actually conducting electricity thus overheating them and the burned out. This was an easy fix, the pump is easy to get at. Anyone changing the pump, I would highly recommend inspecting these wires! My car has about 142,000 miles on it.

MadeInAmerica · Post by **MadeInAmerica** » 12 May 2007, 22:42

I put a Walbro in when mine went out. I got it on EBAY for $72 shipped. Not noisy and works fine.

turbotim2 · Post by **turbotim2** » 13 May 2007, 04:48

Thats a good price. There is nothing complicated about these pumps. I didn't even need to change mine as the pump was still good.

As a side note I called the garage (an indy) to see what they would do it for, they came up with $600.

Post by **luketrash** » 13 May 2007, 12:32

I first ran into Volvo fuel pump price discrepency with my 242.. They had a big primary fuel pump and then an in-tank pump that would fail more regularly. The in-tank one had a list price of something like 275 dollars. One of my car parts guys told me to just buy an 11 dollar chevette fuel pump and use the existing housing.

So, I learned that day that the 11 dollar part worked fine.. About like a 20 dollar universal O2 sensor versus the Volvo OEM part.