This is my first post; I hope it is in the right place. I have a 2001 F150 Lariat Super crew that I love. Over the last few months it has developed a starting problem. When I turn the key, I can hear the fuel pump whine and the truck starts fine. It is when I don’t hear the whine it won’t start. I developed the pattern of listening for the fuel pump before cranking the engine. If I did not hear the fuel pump, I’d switch off the key then try again. Once the truck started it ran fine. Now the fuel pump will not start at all when I turn the key. I am afraid I may need a new fuel pump but saw on this forum information regarding a Fuel Pump Driver Module. I dropped the spare tire looking for it but it is not where I expected.
The forum vehicle was a 2006 and I have a 2001—may be located elsewhere. But I have a feeling it may not be the pump proper because once the truck starts, it runs fine—the last pump problem I had with my Suburban, the thing ran rough after starting. Any help with trouble shooting would be appreciated. It’s dead in my driveway now. Thanks.

 

there's a relay in the engine bay spot 301 that some say could be the problem. they say when it's really hot to the touch it means it's bad.

 

OK help, engine bay spot 301...how about a clock position as looking at the engine. Or do you mean the fuse box under the hood--location 301 in that? Thanks.

 

under hood. since you have a 01 like me it should be along the driver's side fender by the firewall next to the brake booster.

 

My 02 F-150 has been acting similar to yours. It'll run fine for a few weeks and then refuse to start. I'll try to start it for 20 minutes and it might start, it might not. An hour or so later it might start up just fine on the first try, it might start after a few tries, or might not start at all. Eventually it will fire and run.

I noticed the same thing you did, when it doesn't start I don't hear the fuel pump buzz when I turn the key.

Get our your owners manual and locate the chart for the under hood fuse box, the one near the brake booster. In that box is a fuse for the fuel pump and a relay for the pump. Have a friend turn the key to the last position before the starter turns while you feel if that relay is clicking. Hopefully you can try it while the truck is working to get an idea what is should feel like. Pull the relay and check for power with a voltmeter, again it's good to check while things are working so you know what normal looks like.

On the interior of the truck, on the passenger side, behind the kick panel, is the fuel pump shutoff switch. Verify that this switch is not popped up. Also, verify that this switch is getting proper power.

Fortunately my truck has been working fine the last few weeks, but checking the relay and the associated power lines is top on my list when it happens again. My multimeter lives in my truck until this gets fixed.

One thing I have noticed is that this only seems to fail when the gas tank is full or close to full. I'm probably going to refrain from putting more than 10 gallons in for the next few weeks because I don't have any time to work on this.

Also, I changed the fuel filter just in case that was the problem. My filter was factory new with 80k miles on it. I haven't had the problem since then, but that could be a coincidence.

I expect that this is probably the fuel pump, but I don't really want to change that if I don't need to.

Good luck, let us know what you find out.

 

Make sure your anti theft light is not blinking, my truck would not start. The wire broke in my tilt. Would start if all the way up but not all the way down. So now I don't have a tilt.......one up from all the way down...... You don't even want to know how much they wanted for a new key and sender.

Oh yah, the anti theft thing turns off the fuel pump, changed that before I found out it was the tilt wheel.

 

I am having the same problem. I have a 2004 Herritage with the 4.6L V-8. Plulled the bed off, replaced the fuel pump and fuel filter. nothing. pulled off the kick panel at the switch, no power even making it to the switch, pulled the relay and no power to the relay. so i have temp ran a power wire to the switch behind the kick panel so i can atleast drive my truck. Any suggestions on that one.

 

I had the exact symptoms as the OP. I had a hard time believing a fuel pump would fail like that (intermittent, but ran fine when it worked). I finally replaced the pump and I haven't had a problem since (2 yrs).

 

Your 01 does not have a FPDM. Change your fuel filter on general principles.

 

Sharing a few more things I learned while investigating this yesterday/today (note, I am not the OP, just another person with a similar problem).

Power to the fuel pump goes from the inertia switch under the kick panel to the pump using a pink/black wire. If you trace the big wire loom inside the driver's side frame rail you'll see the spur where the fuel pump wires come off. This will be near where the fuel lines go up to the pump. I was able to open the plastic case and see the 4 wires, pink/black is power, yellow/white is to the PCM (for the fuel level), the two darker wires are both ground.

I know that during a failure I'm still getting power to the inertia switch, I unplugged it and my multimeter shows voltage going to the plug. I'm going to check for power to the pink/black line when I get another failure. If that has power I'm going to check the grounds. If all those work I'll probaby change the pump.

 

Thanks for all of the great replies. Well after some more investigation I decided to change the fuel pump in the tank. Thought I might go ahead and have the dealership change it due to time, until they quoted me $100 for the tow and $408 just for the pump, plus as much for labor! So off to AutoZone for some advice and fuel line tools. My 19 year old son is home from college, so I relied on his muscle alot. The only difficult part was working in the small space above the tank to disconnect the electrical, fuel and vent lines. Since the truck was dead, I lifted each rear wheel separately onto a pair of ramps to have adequate room under the truck. Disconnected the ground from the battery. Then I used the floor jack to support the tank, removed the straps holding the tank up, then lowered the tank about 4 or 5 inches (had to put down with about 10 pounds of pressure to break the black caulking on top of the tank). We found by rocking the tank on the jack, we could get more room at the fittings. The fuel line tool from AutoZone was great! Worked exactly as they said. We did finally cut the aft fuel vent line because I felt we were applying too much pressure on the plastic tube on the vent line…$3 bought us a replacement. With all of the lines disconnected we lowered the tank to the ground and slid it out. I should mention we did this with about 15 gallons of fuel in the tank. As we disconnected each line, I used aluminum tape to seal the opening…the last thing I wanted was a fuel spill while we were under the truck. Put the tank on my tailgate and syphoned the fuel into my other car. Tank weighed only about 30 pounds now and the old fuel pump came right out. We replaced it with a $227 pump from AZ (looked identical) after doing the best job we could of wiping out the tank. Took the time also to change my fuel filter too at this point. With the two of us it was very easy to reposition the tank under the truck, reapply a healthy bead of exterior caulk, and jack the tank back up into place. Here is where a teenager can really come in handy…My son was able to “snake “ up around the drive shaft to work on the fittings while I tilted the tank around for his access. We had removed the spare tire also for better visibility. Cleaned up everything and tried the ignition—started right up as it has for 10 years! As we drove to the Gas Station the fuel gage was bottomed out—we looked at each other and tried to remember “was there a zip tie on that float?”. We gave each other high fives when after fueling the gage read full. The whole job took about four hours, including the part run to AZ and a stop at Taco Bell. All in All it was a great bonding time for me and my oldest, and saved me a BUNCH of money. I was a little hesitant about doing the job myself. But after looking through this forum, YouTube, and my ALLDATADIY account, it was worth doing. Thanks again for all of your replies and help!

 

glad you got it fixed. my swap took about about the same time but no trips to taco bell or parts store. a lotta cursing though getting to those hoses.