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97 LeSabre intermittent fuel psi

1K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  JeepManHuff 
#1 ·
My friend has a 1997 LeSabre that has been giving her fits for the past few months. Here's the low-down: About 60-70% of the time it will run and drive fine. It runs great (as well as can be expected on a 3800 Series II)......when it runs that is. Over the past month or so the car will just randomly die on her and leave her stranded at the most undesired times; being that she's a pizza delivery driver, that's not the best case scenario.
Tonight I went and rescued her for the 2nd or 3rd time in the month. Just as she told me, it's a crank-no start. It turns over great, battery measure was reading 12.6v, none of the lights appeared real dim. I checked for spark at the coils, it is getting great spark as well.
But it wasnt getting any fuel pressure. She had the fuel pump and sending unit changed less than a year ago by a local shop (which doesnt exactly specialize in quality workmanship in my opinion - I'm thinkin that might possible have something to do with it).
Heres the weird part. I checked for fuel pressure and the rail test port right off the bat, and didnt get so much as a spurt of air...absolutely no pressure whatsoever. But after I cycled the key about 6 times, the gauge read a full 40psi at the rail? It fired right up after that and idled for a good 15-20 mins on the side of the street. I thought maybe there was a bad connection at the ignition switch shuttin off power to the pump, so I messed with the key trying to get it to act up. Ran fine the whole time.
Then like 2mins after I did that....it died. Back to 0psi on the gauge at the fuel rail.
I'm certain its an electrical issue somewhere, but I was wondering if any of you guys had any ideas on where to begin. This car has me a little stumped.
Thanks in advance.
 
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#6 ·
That wouldnt surprise me one bit. I got it narrowed down to an electrical issue between the sending unit in the tank and the relay. It has a full 12v at the relay, and the relay checks out good bc I swapped it out with my '03 Blazer and it worked fine. I'm definitely leaning toward an intermittent open in the wire harness to the pump in the tank.
 
#7 ·
Yeah that was one of the first things I thought of when it died the last time. The rockers are pretty well shot on the car and I figured that the ground bus bar would be pretty well corroded. But I pulled the carpet up and pulled it out of the wire loom and.....low and behold there was almost no corrosion on it at all. Considering a small part of the floor pan is gone right near where that is, it was surprisingly clean.
 
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