So last weekend I replaced my fuel pump because it wasn't building the fuel pressure it needed (had a slow start, problem solved with a new pump). I had run my truck within 5 gallons of being empty, and didn't want that gas in the tank when I dropped the fuel tank. I decided to drain the gas using the fuel pump so I could re-use it. I decided to take some pictures of the process so that other people could do this in the future.

Step 1: get a 5 gallon gas can, a small hose (an old section of air hose will work great!), a wire, and some paper towels.

Step 2: pop the hood to your truck, locate the fuel rail, place paper towels under the fuel rail so that fuel line can be dis-connected and spilled fluid can be absorbed by paper towels. When I did mine, there wasn't hardly any gas at all.

Step 3: Put 1 end of your hose into your 5 gallon gas can (I'd suggest keeping this on the ground) and then disconnect your fuel line, and put the other end of the hose on the fuel line. An old air hose fits perfectly!





Step 4: Remove the cover for your relay box, it's located by your battery. Find the Fuel Relay and remove it. Take your wire and put it in where the 85 and 86 pins go for the relay. Be very careful not to come touch the metal part of the wire, I'm not responsible for you harming yourself, your truck or anything/anyone else. Doing this will power your fuel pump and you'll hear gasoline filling your fuel can.



You'll want to stick around your gas can and check on it every few minutes to see how it's pumping, make sure you don't overfill your can. If you do, pull the fire from the relay box, get another gas can and put the wire back in. The purpose of this is to make the fuel tank lighter when raising and lowering it.

I hope this is a helpful write-up that helps someone!

 

This would be useful if i could keep more than 5 gallons of gas in it

 

Questions:

Is the wire just 1 wire with both ends in the relay? And which gauge wire did you use/would you recommend?

 

Ham Bone, I know exactly what you're talking about. Keeping gas in these trucks isn't easy!

Stewie, Yes, that's just 1 wire with both ends in the relay socket. I used a solid 14 gauge wire. It fit pretty well. I had gotten the wire from an old piece of 14-2 wire I had sitting around.

 

You might also want to be carefully monitoring the process so you can shut down the pump the instant it runs dry. The pump is cooled by the gasoline flowing through it, and running it dry will cause it to overheat and can lead to pump failure.

 

Just pop the cover off the relay and wedge a pocket screwdriver in it.

 

Good Point Unregistered!

I didn't care about my fuel pump, I was replacing it, but if I needed to drop the tank for some other reason, not letting the pump run dry would be important!