Wanted to resurrect this thread because I had a bit of an issue last night with Vicki. I drove to work yesterday with no problems, but I noticed that either right before or right as I put her in park that the RPM's dropped considerably (not normal for her) and actually bumped up and down a bit. Watched her for a second and it didn't happen again, so I didn't think anything of it. Turned her off and went to work. When I got back in her last night she started up just fine and I let her warm up a bit as usual (since it's below freezing here).
When I put her in reverse to back out of the parking space the engine completely died. No sputtering, no stumbling, just dead; like I turned the key off. The lights were still on, instrument cluster, radio, etc. Put her in park (with the lights still on) and she started right back up with no problem. Hmmm. Put her in reverse again, and again the engine dies. Went through that a couple of times and ended up having to put her in reverse/drive and step on the gas to stop her from stalling out again. She sputtered along for a bit and every stop sign that I can to I had to put her in neutral so she wouldn't die. Drove her all the way home (luckily catching all the green lights) and when I got near home I stopped at a stop sign without putting her in neutral and everything was fine. OK. Got home parked her in the garage and left her overnight. This morning got in and she fired right up and didn't act up at all on the way to work.
Everything that I have read here is pointing to the fuel filter, fuel pressure regulator, idle solenoid or the fuel pump. I, fairly recently, changed the fuel filter and fuel pressure regulator, but I will change them again just to be safe. I'll pull the idle solenoid and clean it out to make sure that it is working too.
My big question here is; how hard is it to pull the gas tank if I need to replace the fuel pump? The manual says that you need to remove the rear fender, rear bumper, rear inner fender, etc, etc. That's a LOT of work, and I don't mind doing it, but if I can get the tank out without having to remove half of the rear end of the VX I would rather do that. I do NOT want to cut a hole in the floor to get to the fuel pump so getting the tank out is my only option.
Anyone remove their gas tank without removing the rear fender and bumper?
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."
-Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
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