Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club Info & Discussion Forum

2002 26ft RSB Ford e450 Super Duty v10

Vehicle has 48000 miles on it, is perfectly maintained and pampered, and ran fine two weeks ago when it was last used. Unit is normally used once a week for around town errands but still always has STABIL Fuel Stabilizer in the gas tank.

Yesterday, when attempting to start, battery was drained (before I attempted to start), to point of it not turning the engine over (this was strange because the battery is about a year old and always maintains its charge and starts the unit fast). Recharged the battery and now the engine spins fast but will not start and there is no smell of gas. AGAIN the unit ran fine the last time it was used (2 weeks ago) and has simply been setting in the driveway ever since. Any ideas on where to start (no pun intended) will be most appreciated.

Oh yes, no error codes are reported.

My guess is that you have either no fuel delivery to the engine because of a faulty fuel pump located inside your fuel tank or you have lost the ignition system resulting in no spark at the spark plugs. Probably will have to be towed to a service center to check these things out.

My 2001 V10 failed to start in storage awhile back. Fuel pump had failed. I was told you can hear fuel pump from under hood if it is working. It is located in tank.
Good Luck,
Ralph

Thank you for the comments. The update is, that after crawling around a bit under the RV, and learning to hate the Ford engineering staff in the process, I learned that you can’t really hear the fuel pump in the tank, even when using a mechanics stethoscope :>( I also learned that the fuse for the fuel pump is number 17, in the distribution box under the hood on the driver’s side (although Ford doesn’t see fit to put a legend on the box or its top ~ it being conveniently available in your Ford manual on some obscure page near the rear of same). Still don’t understand what actually happened, except it may have had something to do with the fact that our temperature dropped some 40 degrees since the unit was last used, the battery had become depleted, and perhaps an air bubble had gotten into the fuel line (neighbor with an Econoline van states a similar condition has happened to him twice in the years he has owned the vehicle). At any rate, right before I was ready to call for a tow, I removed the air cleaner and decided to try to start it one last time ~ low and behold, after a few seconds of cranking, it came back to life and is now running happily. I am both relieved and somewhat gun-shy, as although I was lucky enough to have this experience in our driveway, where next time? Oh well, hasn’t happened for 7 years, so maybe it was just an itch :>)

Don't forget, you can run jumper cables from the coach battery to the motor battery, if your motor battery is discharged. Remember to hook up such that you get 12 volts from the coach battery bank.