Pro tip: If you're fighting a water in fuel issue, check the tank pickup screen first

Last week I spent 3 hours chasing a random stall on a 2015 Freightliner. Changed filters, drained the separator twice, still had issues. Finally pulled the tank sender and found the pickup screen was clogged with algae slime. Cleaned that out with brake cleaner and a small brush, truck ran perfect after that. Anybody else run into this or do you usually just replace the whole sender unit?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt5134d agoRising Star

Had a boat engine do the same thing, damn algae clogged everything up.

riverknight4d ago

Algae is the worst. Had a guy call me out to his place last summer, thought his sprinkler system was shot, turned out the filters were just caked with that green junk. Cleared it out and bam, everything started working again. It's crazy how something that small can just shut down a whole system.