1997 fuel pump whine

[rjirvine]

The truck I just bought is a 1997 Extended cab with the 4.3 engine. The fuel pump is VERY noisy. If you have the engine running and the drivers door open, it's as loud as the door open buzzer. I know the pumps in these years are known to be noisy, but I'm guessing this is TOO loud. The truck has 162k miles on it, so I'm figuring the pump should probably be replaced, and from what I've read it looks like the whole pump/sending unit/mount has to be replaced as a whole and the cheapest I can find is about $200 off of ebay. Any thoughts?

[97chevy350]

I feel your pain. I have a 97 with a 350 and you can hear my fuel pump from about a mile away. I wouldnt go replacing it unless it was bad though. There is a good chance it may have already been replaced. A couple of months ago, my fuel pump when bad, it just got harder and harder to start as the pump was slowly dying. I had at the same time bought a flowmaster catback so I figured i would do it at the same time, since I would have the bed off. By the way, pulling the bed is the easiest way to do a fuel pump on those trucks. Anyway, once I started it up, i had the same buzzing, that i could hear over my new catback. I can even kinda hear the pump driving at about 35 miles an hour with the radio on and the windows down, so dont feel bad. And the reason i think it is, when i took the old pump off, the pump itself had a foam sock around it, and the new one didnt. I am pretty sure the sock was to keep the noise down because the old pump did not make near as much noise. And as far as replacing the sending unit too, I had to, but only because the lines going in were rusted and I could not get them loose without breaking them. I would see if you can get the lines loose and reuse the old sending unit, it will save you a couple hundred bucks.

P.S. Definately pull the bed, dont try dropping the tank. A rope and a comealong will do the trick.

[Bish]

Some are always noise...some change pitch. Mine was fairly quiet until about 65K when it got noticeably louder. It failed 10K later.

 

I would change the fuel filter and see if it quiets down. If not, I would consider replacing as mine failed during the last 200 miles of a 1200 mile trip

[rjirvine]

Yeah, I picked up the truck in Boston, and drove it to Dover, Delaware (about 400 miles). As I stopped at the toll booths you could really hear it, and of course I was just sure the truck would die on me driving down the Jersey turnpike while it was night and in the rain. I have replaced the pump in my 1988 Silverado with the oh so fun 34 gallon tank (twice). I'll have to crawl under the truck and see how rusted the bolts are from being a northeastern truck because anything has to be better than fighting that tank. With 162k miles, I'm guessing it's probably going to have to be replaced anyway for preventative maintenance reasons.

 

I got the truck for my 16 year old daughter and I figure it's birthday and Christmas presents for the rest of her life! I made her wash and wax it and degrease the engine and replace light bulbs. She was amazed at the work involved and I told her she hasn't seen anything yet. Next will come the steam cleaning of the interior, oil change, differential fliuds and transaxle fluid change etc...ha ha, I'm so mean....