When the check engine light comes on in your car, you should probably pay attention to that. Don’t pull a Chad and think “it’s not missing, it isn’t hot or low on oil pressure, and it’s running great, it must be something stupid I don’t care about”, only to find out while coasting towards the freeway exit with the wife and kids in the car, that it was actually something i cared about. Sometimes I would kill for a Holley carb and a mechanical fuel pump.

So the check engine light is turning on and off randomly. I pay no attention. Truck runs great. Until it doesn’t. It stops running, like completely stops running, because it’s out of gas, while cruising down one of the busiest freeways in SoCal with the entire family inside. Happy happy joy joy. This is going to go over well. “Honey?” Daphne asks. “Yeah….” “Please tell me the AAA is paid up.”

Crap.

Anyway, after a fairly long wait for the tow truck, because they themselves broke down, the Suburban was finally back in the driveway at Casa de Reynolds and I was hoping it was something simple. I tried everything there was to test, thanks to the great instructional videos that Airtex has on their website FuelPumpU.com and ultimately found out that the check engine light was on because ONE of the TWO electric fuel pumps in the Suburban was pissed off and failing and then the other one crapped out because it was trying to do too much work. Damn it man!

After talking to the guys at Airtex, and utilizing their tech support like I was the one paying them, I finally had to cave in as I realized that the only thing that was going to fix this was a pair of new fuel pumps. The Airtex pumps showed up all wrapped nice and ready to be installed, with one exception. These trucks are known for a faulty connector that goes bad over the years, but since GM made a change to the connect part way through the life of these trucks, some have good ones and others don’t. All the Airtex pumps come with new pigtails, with connectors and everything, if your car or truck may be one that needs a replacement.

You’ll remember that I did some cool videos with the guys at Airtex, and even broke and put together a fuel pump just like the main one in my Suburban. Too bad I didn’t really take one home with me while I was there, although with Airtex Fuel and Water Pumps being available at most any auto parts store in the country, it didn’t take long to have them in my hand ready to work. TO SEE THE VIDEO FROM MY TOUR, WHICH WAS AWESOME, SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.

Did I mention that the Suburban stopped running, when the fuel pumps both quit, after having filled it to the brim with gas? In truth I had burned around 3 gallons since filling up, but that still meant jillions of gallons of gas in the two tanks. The front one is huge, and it wasn’t going to be easy doing this on my back by myself. Fun and excitement!

To fully understand the job at hand, you need to understand the layout of the fuel system on the Suburban. It’s a 2000 model, and the 3/4 tons like mine have two tanks. One in the very rear, above the spare tire, that fills as you put gas in the truck and then spills over into the front tank which is mounted inside the framerail on the driver’s side under both the front and rear seats. The rear tank also has a pump in it, that will pump the fuel that can’t spill over into the fuel system that is pressurized by the pump in the front tank.

The rear tank looks easy to pull out, and in truth it is, except for the fuel fittings that attach to the pump in a spot where no human hands can reach. Remember, the chassis on these trucks are assemble upside down before the body is ever mated to them, so all of this stuff is easy during assembly. Not so much on disassembly. So after removing the spare tire and it’s carrier, along with the filler neck from the quarter panel, and the big filler tube going from the front of the rear tank over to the front tank, it’s a balancing act with the floor jack and a piece of plywood to drop it all down far enough to disconnect without ripping all the lines out of the truck. I had to buy two sets of fuel line tools before I had ones good enough to disconnect the lines that had been on there for nearly 200,000 miles. Buy the good ones to start with. You’ll be glad you did.

So once the rear tank was out it was time to jack up the driver’s side of the truck enough to be able to drop the main tank and pull it out from under the Suburban. Several emissions components under the truck had to be disconnected, along with three fuel lines on the pump, and of course the wiring connector. Again, this tank is holding somewhere around 25 gallons of fuel at this point. No bueno. Like any good hot rodder, I used a floor jack, a piece of plywood, and all the profanity available to me in order to remove it, but I got it out. Once it was out, the rest is a breeze.

The first thing you’ll notice is the fact that I didn’t follow any of the instructions that Airtex provides on their website FuelPumpU. The instructions I’m referring to are the ones where they say to drain the tanks, clean them out, wash the outsides so no dirt gets inside, etc. I needed to drive this truck the next morning out to the desert for some off road truck testing, and would have had to buy gas cans up the wazoo just to hold the fuel that was in them. If they had not been full, I would have done these things. They were not happy that I didn’t. Sorry guys.

Removing the pumps from the tanks is just like any other fuel tank on your hot rod. Spin the locking ring to unlock the pump, lift it out, spill gas on yourself, and clean the surface that the o-ring sits in so that you are ready for installation of the new pump. The entire process of removal and reinstallation of the pump itself is a 5 minute job, and I love them for that.

I replaced both pumps, and then tackled the wiring which consisted of cutting off the old pigtail and crimping on the new one. Easy peasy.

Now that both pumps were in their respective homes it was time to put it all back together, which went surprisingly easy actually. The only hangup I had was that I didn’t mark the fuel lines going into the pump on the main tank. Since one is the return, one is pressure to the engine, and the other is pressure from the rear pump, getting the two pressure lines mixed up could be a problem. I got them in and then realized I was just clicking without thinking. Luckily I installed them in the right place and didn’t have to remove them again. Dumb luck. Pay attention.

Once the front tank was back up and in, which takes some creativity with regards to holding things in place while you tighten brackets and straps, it was time to connect the emissions stuff and then the rear tank.

The rear tank went in like it was the easiest thing in the world, and the spare tire carrier and spare followed. Before fully installing the rear tank and all that, I connected the battery and fired the truck up just to make sure it all worked, and it did!

This job is a big one, but it’s one that you absolutely should do yourself. I saved over $600 in labor doing it myself and it took about 5 hours. Keep in mind, this is probably one of the hardest vehicles to do a fuel pump swap on. They are so notorious, that you can actually find measurements and photos online for where to cut holes in the floor of the Suburban so that you can do this install from up top. I thought about it honestly, but I’m glad I didn’t. The right way wasn’t easy, but it’s doable, and I did it with no lift and no power tools.

If you were doing this on a pickup, it’s much easier, and if you really want to make it simple all you have to do is remove the wiring connectors and 6 bolts that hold most pickup beds onto the frame. A cherry picker and a couple of 2x4s, or 4 strong guys, will lift the bed easily.

For more information on Airtex fuel pumps, visit Airtexproducts.com. To see installation videos on hundreds of applications, visit FuelPumpU.com. Click play on the video below to watch our tour of their plant. It’s super cool, and was a fun place to hang out for sure. Made in America means something, and with any luck that something is at least another 200,000 miles of good service.