Help-my 2004 E450 gas engine quits without warning

I’ve got a 2004 Class C motor home (sunseeker by forest river) with 9700 miles powered by a ford E450 V10 Triton motor. The problem is that the fuel pressure intermittently and unexpectedly drops to zero resulting in engine stall/surge and quitting while traveling at highway speeds. The problem occurs sporadically and without warning. Ford mechanics have road tested and verified the fuel pressure quickly dropping to zero and recovering and over the past 4 years of events have replaced the fuel pump twice, the fuel sending unit, the fuel driver module and the fuel filter during different maintenance visits, yet the problem still persists. What is going on as this is a huge safety issue for me and my family, not to mention the traveling public on the road behind me.

Your motor home may have an inertia switch that cuts power to the fuel pump in the event of an accident. Most Fords use this safety system. If it does, and it hasn’t been tested, that might be causing your problem.

Tester

Thanks–I’ll ask the dealership when I bring it in tomorrow… I didn’t think those switches could intermittently malfunction-thought it was a simple on/off that had to be reset if it cut the fuel pump

You may have ended up with a switch that’s a little too sensitive, and thinks you’ve been in a crash when you haven’t. I would think it would be easy enough to swap out, if not to test. Any correlation to hitting a bump or pothole before it cuts out? Does it seem to reset itself after cutting out (I think it’s supposed to be manually reset)?

Thanks for the reply… unfortunately there are no correlating conditions - it happens sporadically, to the point where I take it on one trip of 400 miles and it’s fine and the next it could happen anywhere on the trip and there are never any malfunction codes or check engine lights either. Once the condition begins it tends to occur more frequently until the engine quits completely and cannot be restarted until a 15 minute or so wait. Then it may or may not start acting up again. So it does seem to reset itself if it is a bad switch.

Here’s a good article for fuelus interruptus------ even for those mechanics who, “Know all that stuff”: www.carterfueldelivery.com/fuelpumps

I was wondering if you could rig up a DVM to monitor the pump voltage when the pressure drops to zero. You have to divide the problem into whether the power to the pump is stopping or the pump is still getting power but not pumping fuel. Knowing the answer will allow the us and your mechanic to narrow the search.

Let us know what you find.

I would jump the switch,and see if the problem persists.then you have eliminated that as a prob,as you susspect it is.

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