Fixing my lift pump gelling issues

[chevyburnout1]

Ever since I installed my lift pump years ago I've always battled with gelling issues at the pump itself. Even with double and triple batches of additive installed the fuel still gells up just enough to clog the little tiny inlet screen into my PPE pump. So I finally got creative and rigged up a few little heaters for the pump and the inlet pipe.

I got some 12 volt heater strips HERE. When completely heated up they put out some decent heat. Enough to where you can only hold them for a few seconds. But not enough that melting is going to be an issue.

The heating strips:


Here's my original setup:


Installing the heat tape:


Wrapping the lines in insulation:





I wired the heaters up to a dash switch for now as I want to physically see if they're going to help. Unfortunetly it was 60°F today so it may be a while till I can prove the effectiveness :rofl:

 

[Kappa9012]

did you do anything with the filter hanging there? what is the dash switch wired too? I thought about doing something like that, but figured warm fuel pumps wouldn't do me any good if the batteries were dead. I also looked at a 120V set of heaters and wiring them into the oil pan heater plug.

 

[DBUSHLB7]

Very nice Dustin. Had to notice your 2CP3 wheel and hard line got powdercoated :thumb:

 

[chevyburnout1]

did you do anything with the filter hanging there? what is the dash switch wired too? I thought about doing something like that, but figured warm fuel pumps wouldn't do me any good if the batteries were dead. I also looked at a 120V set of heaters and wiring them into the oil pan heater plug.

I haven't done anything with the fuel filter, as so far it hasn't been my issue. The pump would get real quiet like it wasn't pumping anything so that's when I figured it was pre-pump issues. I removed the inlet and outlet hoses to the pump and that's when I found all the wax in the inlet of the fuel pump. A bit of torch heat to the pump housing would always kick start the flow again.

The 12 volt power I ran to a switch and relay with a 10 amp fuse that only gets power when the ignition is on.

 

[chevyburnout1]

Very nice Dustin. Had to notice your 2CP3 wheel and hard line got powdercoated :thumb:

Everything has to be pretty