Fuel Delivery Issue 1985 Fleetwood Tioga Arrow

Hey guys. I just purchased an 83 Ford 460 7.5L 23' Tioga and it seems I'm having the same issue with fuel delivery. My setup is the same, one fuel tank (~75 gallons) with a Carter fuel pump installed on the drivers side frame rail a few feet in front of the fuel tank. Right now she won't start and sounds like she's not getting any fuel to the carb. Pump runs when ignition turned to accessory and doesn't shut off. Had a mechanic look at her and says they need to drop the fuel tank to see if there's a problem with the in-tank fuel sender. But after reading this post, it seems likely there is no in-tank fuel sender, just the side rail pump which Tioga installed. They will be taking a look at it today.

Question I have for the guy with the 83 Tioga before, do you know what model number or brand your fuel tank was? There's an old sticker on the side that I can read says "Travel T..." but can't make out the rest or the model number. I'm trying to prepare for the worst and source all the parts. Thanks in advance!

congrats!!! My '83 460 still had the port in the block for the mechanical fuel pump, covered with a blank off plate. If I recall correctly, I could see it when looking through the driver's side wheel well opening ... but there's a lot I don't "recall correctly" these days!!! :)

You all are awesome, thanks for the advice! I just got this bad boy running today. It felt so great to have him running for the first time in years. For now I just have an electric pump hooked up close to the center tank where the gas is gravity fed and comes out of a bottom corner. The back tank has a fuel sending unit on top of the tank so only the main tank is hooked up for now. Thought about adding a mechanical pump but hopefully will not need it. (Someone on another forum told me that I would have to add something to run a mechanical since it didn't come from factory but I was like "hey that's just your opinion man"). Suppose I will have to add a fuel selector valve and hook up the other tank but of now feels great to have this big guy running! I After dropping the back tank myself with ratchet straps I decided to hire a mobile mechanic to help. He replaced a bunch of rotten wiring, dropped the center tank and took it and cleaned it and we hooked up a new electric fuel pump I bought online for about 50. It smoked a lot the first few warm ups but I did another oil change and added some bardahl no smoke and it seems like the smoking issue is pretty much gone! Drove up the road and got some gas, was quite the experience. This motor runs so smooth and it only has 66k miles so being in it about 2k right now I think i'm doing pretty good! Time to start figuring out what all works and what doesn't but it was a beautiful day today

years ago I had an '83 27' Class C Tioga with the Ford 460 and 4bbl Holley built for Motorcraft carb. I struggled for quite some time with what appeared to be vapor lock (But wasn't) - loss of power when hot randomly and intermittently.

In researching that issue, I found the best help here and on Ford-Trucks.com forums. Someone here (I don't recall who - may not even be here any more) provided a fuel system diagram - when I have more time, I'll try to do a search far enough back to find it).

Edit - just did a forum Advanced Search here for
Keywords: Ford 460
Message Author: gkainz
Date Posted: selected "Archive - over 1 year ago"
and it returned 9 threads (quite quickly, I might add)


My coach had 1 tank, installed by Tioga, I assume, with no in-tank pump. It had an electric pump installed on the frame rail immediately in front of the tank (at the rear of the coach) that pushed fuel to the carb. Just before the carb was an aluminum "block" that had fuel line in, 1 fuel line out to carb, and 1 fuel line out that was the return to tank. As it turns out, this "hot fuel diverter" (I think that's what Ford calls it) would return most of the fuel to the tank and starve the carb when hot. Found by putting an external fuel pressure gauge in line at the base of the carb to try to figure out what was going on.

I never found a replacement for that diverter valve, but solved the fuel supply problem by adding a mechanical fuel pump back into the engine block (parts guy pointed me to a Lincoln 460 that still used the mechanical pump then), and a fuel pressure regulator that kept the pressure at 8 psi at the carb, if I recall correctly. One risk was that if the diaphragm on the mechanical pump failed, the electric pump could pump fuel straight into the engine oil pan.

Anyway - I know that doesn't help answer your questions, other than "been there, done that!"

Good luck!

Short answer, yes.
Long answer, not really. Electric fuel pumps like to push, not pull and generally need to be mounted at or below bottom of tank level and close to tank. Or they do t last long at all.
The easy part is 2 wires and a pump like someone rigged. Hard part is doing it all properly.

Valley,

In our community see have seen a lot of fuel system troubles and have a pretty good set of solutions.

There is a good chance that there was once an engine driven fuel pump. It was probably removed when the ethanol killed it. There was probably also a tank selector valve. The rubber in the fuel system is probably all shot, but even if the alcohol didn't get it, it still would have aged out by now.

The electric pumps (one per tank is a common solution too. The pumps close to the tank are part of a vapor lock cure. New "motorfuel" now has to be in spec with a much lower Reid Vapor Pressure to allow for the included corn whiskey that has to make lower.

So, add another pump and maybe a filter or two some wiring to control them and replace all the line with "Barrier Hose" that is as good as you can get with alcohol. We find this works pretty well.

Matt