Blowing fuses

Long story short, The fuel pump fuse in my neon keeps blowing out. The shop couldn't isolate the root problem to fix it last time it was in. Since then it has gotten much worse, as in 4 fuses in under 1/4 mile. It only happens when coming to a stop and I have also encountered the fuel pump cutting out at speed. The top culprits seam to be fuel pump relay, wiring, and the pump itself. My instict is telling me to try replacing the relay with one from the U-pull-it. Only down side is I can't make it out there for a week. Think that could be the problem? Any other sugestions?

The up side is I have gotten down a routine to jump out the car, swap the fuses under the hood and get it started back up again in 15 sec.

And this is also the motivation behind my renewed AutoADD.

can you pull the pump without dropping the tank?

Fuses blow for two reasons. Short to ground or overload. You might try a slightly stronger fuse if it is overload, won't help with a short.

Since the fuel pump fuse is the reset for the CEL. I would suspect the ECU is fixing to go south on you.

I have detailed schematics for 1st gen Neons, so we should be able to figure this out.

Gawd, I hate electridal glitches...

OTOH, it wouldn't be the first time a fuel pump on a Neon failed, and you don't have to drop the tank.

Oh, that is why I no longer have that pesky CEL shining at me. The final fuse I installed was a 30A, up from a 20A. It made it home just fine.

Hmm, $500 flat rate trade in is sounding nice. As I was sitting at Long John Silvers having lunch contemplating what to do, I was looking across the road at a dealership, thoughts of an easy(albeit, exspenive) out flooded my head

IF I'm not mistaken, I believe the O2 sensor heater circuit wiring is a common failure point that blows the fuel pump fuse on the neon. I'd check that out.

Nathan (I've had a few of them over the past years)

Ok, so the car was parked for my camping trip and today was the first time I had free to look at things since last friday. I had put a proper 20A fuse back in and look it on a 5 mile loop with no issues what so ever. No blown fuses, no fuel pump cutting out. No wonder the shop couldn't reproduce the problem. I don't know what to make of it. I might just be brave and drive it to work tomarrow and see how she does.

Just wire in a new circuit. Ground the fuel pump at the body near the tank, then run a relay switched and fused wire from the battery. Run the relay off the key-on power circuit. I did this on an Astro van a few months ago, works like a charm. Sure the fuel pump is running whenever the key is on, but at least it will always crank. As a bonus the new circuit may provide better power to the pump. I did the same thing on my Mirage Turbo and found the car to run a bit better.

Of course my first reply thought was "Blowing fuses - he needed the money, OWWWW!!!!!"

njansenv wrote: IF I'm not mistaken, I believe the O2 sensor heater circuit wiring is a common failure point that blows the fuel pump fuse on the neon. I'd check that out. Nathan (I've had a few of them over the past years)

Good point, now my car has a code 21-O2 sensor signal circut issues, yet I have not had Any fuel issues since the first post...

If you can look at the feedthrough to the pump check it out and clean around it. Years ago my trooper was doing the blown fuse thing i found the plastic insulator was dry the cracked and the wires were shorting on the neck of the tank.....how it didn't go boom i'll never know i used 2 boxes of fuse to limp it home...

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I "think" code 21 could be a check on the heater circuit. (could be wrong) If so, the car would run quite "normally" as the sensor is fairly close to the motor and would be sufficiently warm. It's quite possible that the exhaust sniffer would disagree. I'd look into that, and am willing to bet that that is the problem. Been there, done that....it's really quite common on the Neons. It's a lot easier than checking the fuel pump.

Nathan

neon4891 wrote:

njansenv wrote: IF I'm not mistaken, I believe the O2 sensor heater circuit wiring is a common failure point that blows the fuel pump fuse on the neon. I'd check that out. Nathan (I've had a few of them over the past years)

Good point, now my car has a code 21-O2 sensor signal circut issues, yet I have not had Any fuel issues since the first post...