Weird fuel pump issue

Tiny
CHRSRAM44
  • MEMBER
  • 2012 CHRYSLER 300
  • 3.6L
  • V6
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 180,000 MILES
I have the car listed above and it came in as a no start. Sprayed a little starting fuel and she started right up and died immediately, checked fuel rail pressure and of course had 0 psi. After this I continued to check for power and ground to the fuel pump and everything checked out to be a bad fuel pump. After replacing the fuel pump the pump still did not run. I then again made sure the fuel pump was good by supplying power and ground. The new pump was functioning perfectly. Here is where it gets weird: I proceeded to connect the fuel pump as normal and test the wires directly at the fuel pump and to my surprise the ground was not being supplied. I checked to see which pin from the new fuel pump module was in charge of giving the fuel pump ground. On the new fuel pump module Pin #3 is connected to the ground side of the fuel pump. In the wiring diagram below Pin #3 on the wiring harness of the car should be "Fuel Sender Level Signal Primary" which I believe goes to the BCM Module and then communicated back to the cluster. So I added my own ground to the #3 DB/WT wire on the harness and she finally started ! But now the fuel level on the cluster shows the gas level being completely empty regardless of a fuel gas tank. So my question would be, did this aftermarket fuel pump need to be rewired to function properly with the car? In my opinion I thought the black/orange would be the fuel pump ground signal.
Wednesday, November 13th, 2019 AT 4:24 AM

5 Replies

Tiny
KASEKENNY
  • MECHANIC
  • 18,907 POSTS
You are correct. It appears they wired it wrong. Pin 5 should be your 12 volts and 4 is your ground. If you grounded Pin 3 then this is why your fuel gauge is not working because this is your primary signal wire. Pin 1, 2, and 3 all go directly to the BCM and are basically a 3 wire sensor that the BCM uses to determine fuel level. The BCM then takes this information and sends out over the CAN bus to the cluster to display. This means none of these three wires should be grounded. The BCM will handle this internally. However, if you added your ground to pin 3 I suspect you have an issue with your actual ground on pin 4 if this is what you did and the vehicle started.

So if the pump is not wired correctly then either rewire it or send it back and get another one. Then make sure your ground is good under the drivers seat. Worse case, run a new ground from the pump to a good location. Also, a lot of times you can't take those connectors apart without breaking them and if you break it they may not take it back so I would at least run it by the parts supplier and let them tell you to try it.

Let me know if you have questions.
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Wednesday, November 13th, 2019 AT 5:19 PM
Tiny
CHRSRAM44
  • MEMBER
  • 7 POSTS
Thank you so much for the clarification KaseKenny1. I will rewire the harness to match the aftermarket fuel pump and see how this goes. Another questioned would be, if I did ground the Pin #3 on the car harness with a ground I made while it was still connected to the BCM like factory, would it have caused any damage to the BCM if the car had been driven with it connected this way?
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Wednesday, November 13th, 2019 AT 9:49 PM
Tiny
KASEKENNY
  • MECHANIC
  • 18,907 POSTS
Grounding a circuit is not going to damage anything. You should be fine. Let us know how you make out.

Just an FYI, I would not wire the car to match the pump if it is incorrect. The reason is, if there are issues in the future that will make a nightmare for you if you forgot or someone else that doesn't know you changed it. You want to get the pump to match what the car is and what is correct. I am sure you can get it working but again, if there are issues in the future, it may cause some major hair loss with all the stress because they didn't know it was changed.
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Thursday, November 14th, 2019 AT 6:56 PM
Tiny
CHRSRAM44
  • MEMBER
  • 7 POSTS
I defiantly took your advice and definitely do not want anyone else to go through a massive headache and rather approach this the appropriate way. I went out and rewired the fuel pump module to match the cars engine harness and all is well now ! Again thank you a lot, you really helped out.
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Thursday, November 14th, 2019 AT 11:13 PM
Tiny
KASEKENNY
  • MECHANIC
  • 18,907 POSTS
Great news. Thanks for the update. Good work!
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Friday, November 15th, 2019 AT 8:05 PM

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