A question for the Ford people (MB Related)

Hey,
I have a fuel selector from a Ford econoline van (or possibly from a f-350 truck) which is a 6 port valve. It has a wiring harness on it and I have no way of figuring out what wires do what and how to activate the solenoid/device so that it will switch. I tried the good old DVM test on the wires but got nothing but a dead short (will kick the safety on my test bench power supplies if I hook it up). The dead short was from Orange-Green

I would like to use this with WVO if possible and since most people fork out bucks over on the greascar forums, I figured the resourceful diesel discussion group could help me figure this out.

I searched quite a few websites and couldn't find what I was looking for.

I have these wires:

Red
Brown
Green/Red (smaller wire)
Green
Orange

The wires are in this order on the unit.
It would be super if anyone could help me out with this. It would make a nice cheap switchover valve to use. My father told me they used these on both the diesel and gas models so it should work just fine. (save biodiesel attacking it )

Thanks!

BTW this will probably be going on my 300SD to convert it to straight WVO (it liked the taste I gave it )

[MS Fowler]

The 6 port diesel fuel valve is powered by a small electric motor which opens and closes the valve ports...the valve is switched to the front mode by applying 12volt + to terminal number2 and ground to terminal #1. When the valve reaches the front mode position, an internal switch opens and stops the motor. Returning the valve to the rear position is accomplished by reversing the power. Terminal#3 and #5 connect to the front and rear fuel senders respectively, and #4 feed the fuel gauge.

front B+ to #2 and #4 B- to #1 and #3
rear B+ to #1 and #4 B- to #2 and #3

Hope this helps

Tried this...doesn't seem to work?
If I try the wires from either end of the unit together (orange/green or red/brown) I get sparks on the orange green and nothing on the red/brown. No motoring. The valve was supposedly good. Any ideas? The logic you are telling me about 1 & 2 being power sounds right with the last two being the two tanks and the center (smaller wire) being the sender to the dash.

Hmmm

[MS Fowler]

What i wrote is a slightly edited quote of the Ford factory Shop manual. Can't help you more than that.

Perhaps my green/orange wires are the motor wires and the motor needs more juice to kick it over.

I tried it right across a battery but it just sparked. I'll try giving it some "coaxing" with a few light taps while power is applied. Perhaps the motor is ceased?

[mac2]

If you can't get this solenoid to work I use two 1980's ford 3-port solenoids. U-pullit gave me both of them for 5 bucks. Since they only have one wire and the frame as ground it is really easy to wire, not a whole lot can go wrong.

Originally Posted by mac2

If you can't get this solenoid to work I use two 1980's ford 3-port solenoids. U-pullit gave me both of them for 5 bucks. Since they only have one wire and the frame as ground it is really easy to wire, not a whole lot can go wrong.

Not a bad idea.

I am going to try and see if I can get this one to work (just too darned simple and free) at the moment and then if it keeps clunking out on me, its off to other rigs to look.

It would seem so weird to me to bring a set of standard tools to a wrecking yard. I am always hunting off of metric mobiles. Course the 90's fords and their mixed metric

[MS Fowler]

They make vice grips in metric??!

Brandon,

I'm looking at a wiring diagram for and 83 E350 that I think is close enough. Some of the wire colors are a bit different.

red/yellow 12v power
brown/orange ground
green fuel gauge
green/red fuel sending unit - aux tank
orange fuel sending unit - main tank

It looks like power should be applied to switch to the aux tank, and it will default to the main tank without power.

David

Hey all,
I got it to work!

Turns out pin 1 and 2 were the motor wires but something internally was not working. I took it all apart and fixed it up. There was just some grease/corrosion on the contacts. So now it works good.

I had to replace the springs in the valving becuase the years of gasoline had eaten through them (literally). Other than that, it works great!

I will post pics of the refurbished item so that future web searches can hopefully find this thread if they need it.

Thanks for the help!

Ahahaha,

Guess what greasel.com has as their offered pollak valve?

http://www.greasel.com/Individual-Components.html

Its the exact same unit from a ford dual tank system. FYI, its not a stepper motor inside there...its a DC motor with limit interlocks.

Cool!