What's in my fuel! This doesn't look good!

hey there folks this is Josh Stoney Ridge farmer welcome back to another beautiful day here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina today we have fuel issues and we've had fuel issues on the farm if you follow along the farm vlog here we've had issues with one tractor clogging fuel filters we've had issues with another tractor clogging fuel filters we've had issues with this tank clogging fuel filters I've got some bad fuel from somewhere at some point and I've got to solve this problem so today we're gonna crack into the fuel pump here we're going to talk a little bit about it and I'm going to try and put a fuel water separator on here and we've got to disassemble the pump and see if we can get it to work right because now it only runs for a minute and then it shuts off so we'll show you all that stuff we'll have a little bit of fun and hopefully have a repair all right whoa I ain't afraid of [Music] my freedom I tuned as well as you can keys first things first I'm gonna put some rubber gloves on because my wife is not a huge fan of that diesel fuel perfume that I like to wear so much so we're gonna get in here and work on this this is a brand new fuel filter right here and I have the old fuel filter right here in the back of the truck and as you can see that is the wrong color that is rust inside the fuel filter and this is a water block fuel filter right here because I suspected I had a water issue inside this fuel tank now we picked up this toolbox fuel tank combo for a hundred bucks used and we've had problems with it after about six months of using it I've already ran about 800 gallons of fuel through this and it had no troubles whatsoever except at first we clogged up a filter we put a new filter on and that was it now I've got bad fuel from a bad fuel source and that's causing problems with my tractors and causing problems with this fuel pump so I'll show you what's going on here and how it all works so I never hardwired this into the pickup truck I have a little clip system right here and it's pretty simple just have some alligator clips and I just clip to the hot side on the battery into the ground over here to a ground source on the chassis of the truck and that worked just fine it's always work just fine until now let me show you what's happening over here on the pump all right so we've got some diesel cans over here and we'll be pumping into those diesel cans and there'll be a bucket right down here so if you see me squirt fuel down it's not going on the ground it's going in the bucket and we may be using that fuel to clean up some of the parts that we pull off of this pump system right here I'll show you what it's doing this is the way we typically do it I've already replaced this nozzle system right here and we had a clog in this line believe it or not not too long ago that's pretty rare to have a clog in that type of line so typically I'll turn this little switch on right here and the pump is supposed to come on well it's not coming on so what I've been doing is I'll turn it off and I'll take a wrench or something or whatever I'll give it a little tap eat app and then it still didn't come on sometimes it comes on sometimes it doesn't it's got a gremlin in it man hear that whoa sounds horrible now pump for just a minute you hear that that's where water got into the pump yeah bad sound right there that pump should not sound like that at all that's it so that's the pump that's a huh we pumped about four gallons of fuel out of there we turn it off as quickly as we can now if I take my trusty wrench and I tap on this a couple times give it a little tap sometimes it comes right back on sometimes it doesn't there we go so it turned back on and then it shut back off I just changed this fuel filter earlier this afternoon and you saw the old fuel filter again this is not the correct color this was shiny and new like three weeks ago and there is I don't know if you can see that but there's the rust so it's not good there is a water issue I also replaced the cap over here on this fuel tank because there's a little metal piece in there and that thing was rusted up well put the new cap on and with shiny new and nice now it's rusted we've got some serious water in this fuel and I think it's a problem from the fuel station that we picked up our offer a diesel so we've got water in the fuel and what we have in this tool box is hopefully a solution to our water problem and that solution would be water block fuel water separator so we're going to take the filter off of here and we're going to put a fuel water separator in here to make sure that if we're getting water in our fuel we know it so we'll lay this guy in here where it doesn't get a lot of trash on it and we'll go ahead and we're gonna start removing all this rigmarole right here so that we can install this guy before we install the fuel water separator we're going to take apart the entire pumps system and see what's making that racket making that noise in there I got about three gallons pumped out before it just totally quit I need to be able to pump like 16 17 gallons I need to be able to just run the pump constantly until I run all the fuel out of it so here we go first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna remove the fuel filter now I just put this on hand tight you should be good to go I'm getting this guy off it may have a little bit of fuel it's not bad just a little bit we're gonna take this hose off maybe I have a sneaking suspicion this is gonna last an extra day I'm gonna be out here doing this to working on this tomorrow come on buddy come on dude looks like we're just gonna have to spin this whole fitting off of here man there's a rust even where the fuel filter goes on here there's rust round and round we go I call that long life truck preservative to this truck is really really rusty so no diesel fuel is really gonna harm it okay that looks pretty good set this guy to the side so first thing we're gonna do is we're going to go ahead and take this cover off this cover I think contains the guts of the pump that we're hearing squeal lettuce I do believe so off comes that a little bit of fuel leakage there okay good to go and there's a strainer right in here and we'll just slide it straight out there we go good deal a lot of trash in there and this is the strainer critter right here this little strainer guy and you can see all the nastiness that's right in there let's get it closed up so that's what's coming out of the fuel pump that's in the bottom of the tank now this is the working mechanism inside this pump and I had no idea that it was plastic so slide this guy plastic guy out plastic wheel there and this must be what turns with the pump okay I see there's a little tab right here you flip that tab up and out comes that critter cool let's get you a close-up so this is what's inside a diesel fuel pump on the back your pickup truck it's just two little plastic wheels and that is what is in the fuel tank my brain tells me to energize this pump and see if it's making all that noise without these wheels spinning this is our switch will engage the switch and this little guy right here is going to spin we'll know if our motor is bad if this thing just bogs down and quits so here we go [Music] okay so the motor runs but it runs very weak before we pull the motor off the back I'm gonna take this switch cover off and see if there's something I can see inside that switch guys the reason we're doing this is because this pump is expensive it's well over a couple hundred bucks we're gonna pull that cover off should be sealed and it is there's a gasket right here sealed off nicely and inside here it's just a little toggle switch so the toggle switch actually comes out and we'll unscrew that takes a little Torx hold my hand under here it catch that guy good catch and up comes our switch it's on the back here is a little relay nothing seems damaged in here it all looks shiny pretty in newer yep bogging down still bogging it I think it'll keep running but it's bogging [Music] slide this switch back into place you know it's not the switch guys if you have any input please let me know at least tell me what you're thinking in the comments down there next thing I'm gonna do is take this guy off this is a union I do believe there we go that guy hold him in place just loosen this so here we go out with the pickup tube I would have definitely not thought that this was PVC there are plastic there we go okay this is what's inside that's the pickup it just slides down and touches the bottom of the tank might as well take it apart and learn a little bit about it even if we are going to replace it time to do a motor ectomy at least if we don't fix it we're still learning a little bit about how these pumps work and I may be able to take this motor to a starter rebuild place and have them go through it okay all sealed off and there are some rust issues right here and this motor will not at all spin freely it's done it's toast and it's explosion proof so this whole setup is explosion proof let me before I cut the wires let me see if I can take these two nuts off without damaging the motor fingers crossed yeah whoo that's a long one that's a long one too all right let's see maybe it'll come apart maybe might take a little tappy tap tap man I'd love to fix this instead of buying a new one let's get a little slide tap here there we go I'll bet the armature and everything comes out what's your guess post it before I do it let me know what you think let me know if you think I'm wasting my time I just need to spend the money and replace this stinks smells burnt up yeah this thing is very corroded inside come on here we go okay all right here's what we got it's been full of water look at that it's got just rust and flakes of crusty nastiness in there smells bad too I mean it will not turn freely at all so the motor is trashed it's full of rust and that's okay I mean we only paid a hundred bucks for the fuel tank with the pump so that's okay but it's not okay for my wallet yeah it should be mmm there it comes come on baby oh that is a nasty crusty thing it's not held in I don't think it's a magnet holding in and I think it's just held in with crust that's why we're not turnin like we should come on ma'am okay there it goes there is a magnet okay here comes well see the dustcloud come out of there look at that nasty yep there are two big old magnets in there but it evidently it's usable service life is over something has burnt up in here it smells all burnt up and that's what the noise was we were hearing has all these little particles see if I can get you a good shot of it all that crust that's what's making all that noise grinding so the question is do we give up or do we just take some brake cleaner clean this thing back up and put it back together oh my limit there we go that was easy yeah there it is it looks as if this had some sort of glue that held it in place at some point that glue is done I hope you guys are enjoying this I like this kind of stuff it's educational it's fun and whether it works to fix it or not who knows but it's worth a try to save 300 bucks so these are the brushes right here and they're spring-loaded and they're not that bad I am totally inclined to take this guy down to the shop clean it up really good put it back together and see what it does maybe even take some diesel fuel and just just wipe this off water fuel water electronics no good no worky it's the next day we went over to try to supply last night and we picked up a new kit holy cow four hundred and nineteen dollars for a new pump kit I really hope we can fix this on our own today so what we're gonna do is basically clean up everything and this is a one inch size fuel water separator and I needed to pick up a couple different size nipples to go on to the pump so that I could get that water separator out just a little bit now our hose is a three-quarter inch size so we'll have to step it down and a little kit from Great Planes comes with all the goodies that we need to step it down now I got different links of pipe nipple in order to get this job done first thing we're gonna do here I'm gonna design something to clean out inside that little motor casing let me show you so here's the motor casing and I can hear trash shaking around in there oh there's a little bushing I just almost lost you better hang on to that guy so inside this casing is a bunch of rusty old crusty nastiness and I can't really get all the way down in there with my Dewalt drill and a little grinding wheel so this is not going to work to clean the entire thing out and there's rust and crust way down deep inside there so I had an idea I just so happened to have a roll of skateboard tape so this is tape basically sandpaper tape and I'm going to take that sandpaper tape and tape it around an old socket and then we're gonna take that old socket inside of that housing and we're gonna clean it out really good with that old socket should work great let's see if that did does it yep so we got a little gap but that'll be just fine I hope little ideas like this helped you guys in your shop if you have a little problem that you can't find a solution for think outside the box a little bit I promise there's a solution if you just look for it there we go and there's our sanding wheel pretty cool so we've jumped up to a little bit bigger sized wheel here and we'll attach our socket and extension I'll go back in oh yeah next step with the casing we're gonna take some brake cleaner and we're gonna rinse this guy out really good perfect check it out clean as a whistle in there very nice so the next thing we're gonna do is clean these magnets there are two of these magnets right here and I'm just gonna take my wire wheel and get to scrubbing on them you can see there's rust all balled up all over this thing and the back of it had some sort of adhesive and we're gonna use some silicone caulking to stick this back to the inside of the casing you'll see how it all goes together let me get the rotational portion of this motor for you here's a rotational portion you can see it's just stained with rust but some of these little metal plates in here are out of place you see that guy right there it's a little bit out of place and some of them are really out of place you can see like three or four of them right here are kind of out of whack so this line should be straight and you can see it's not straight two or three of these little guys need to be straightened out and it's just as simple as taking a screwdriver and going right up here and pushing it back into place it's just that easy is a rotational portion we found this little washer that goes on the tip there and here are the two magnets and what I'm going to do is take the magnet there and put it on take the other magnet right here and put it on you can see the gap right there there's a little bit of a gap and then this will slide right down into the casing after I put a little dab of caulk here and a little dab a there well drop this guy down in there there's our caulk think I need to pull my rotor back out so that the magnets will actually stick okay so we replace the magnets we cleaned everything off and we replace the magnets in here and I put caulking in there wrong move okay so the caulking did not stick it did not work correctly and I had to pull them back out and I put some epoxy in there and now these magnets they ain't going nowhere I did go on eBay and I found that you could buy just the motor assembly by itself so if we put this back together I'm not gonna put an entire new kit on the top of this in other words I'm gonna buy a new motor and put a new motor on it the new motor is a hundred and twenty seven bucks versus three hundred nineteen bucks so sometimes if times on your side you can save a little bit of money let's put this thing back together all right here's the rotor portion of the motor and I also cleaned up these contacts right here and I cleaned up the brushes that go on there and the brushes are integrated into this entire big unit right here so we're gonna flip it over get busy this has been no easy task guys this has been a quite the chore all I'm doing is reassembling this in the exact same order that I disassembled it so we're hooked to the battery let's turn it on see if it's silent and awesome yeah they'd be nice I think we got it I went on and I put some new sealant on the fitting right here and I also wrapped everything really good with some fuel tolerant teflon tape this stuff right here is called mega tape you got to use a fuel tolerant type teflon tape if you're going to be working with fuel and we also have a fuel water separator that we're gonna put in here to save us a lot of heartache in the future and we extended this nipple out just a little bit so we customize this a little bit for our truck I basically bought this thing for a hundred bucks slapped it on the truck hook power to it it ran it was good to go but it was making funny noises now I know what the funny noises are it's all cleaned up inside we'll seal it off really good with silicone around every single joint that we possibly can and that way hopefully we don't run into this problem again and we don't end up costing ourselves a bunch of money I'm super happy I get to take that 319 dollar part back to tractor supply never even opened the box rad let's slap it back together and see if she pumps whenever you're putting teflon tape on you always want to wrap it in the same direction that you'll tighten it so that as you tighten it doesn't unravel around the fitting down the hatch oh man it's nice when stuff works out like it's supposed to everything looks pretty awesome we'll snug it up tight and fire it up and see if we start pumping fuel I'm curious to see what fills this little container first whether it's just nasty gross Nisour water I think it's awesome to have this view of what's really going on inside the fuel tank it's gonna help me out a whole lot here on the farm first fire up after motor rebuild let's hear rock star awesome that motor sounds great man it filled that canister up a lot quicker and I thought it was it was just instantly filled it up I don't see any trash in there either motor is running like hot man turn it off hang up our hoes rock and roll baby haha guys thanks so much for joining me here on the Stoney Ridge farm today I hope you enjoyed this video now you know how to rebuild a little motor like that clean it up put it back together and it worked we saved a lot of money today hopefully this helps you if you have fuel troubles on your farm or if you have a fuel tank similar to this and you're having some water troubles hopefully this helps you with solving your water troubles now we did put in some power service additive in this fuel tank to keep that fuel from developing the algae and the power service is supposed to destroy the algae eat it up and make it to where it'll pass through any diesel engine I hope so we've got a filter we can watch this a little bit closer now and I'm super duper happy thanks a lot for joining me here on the Stoney Ridge farm today guys I had a great time working on the old pump got our squared away and now we're ready to work right here in sweet that's way suppose Denise Tony Reed Oh