[phil-l]

Be careful of using fuel pump noise - or lack thereof - as a symptom of a bad fuel pump.

It's important to realize that - when the ignition is turned on - the fuel pump energizes for just a few moments to pressurize the fuel system. It then turns *off* until the engine is started. Find a way to verify that you don't have fuel pressure before committing to replacing the pump.

I didn't run into fuel wiring or pump relay issues, so I can't comment on those items.

That said, the fuel pump on my '00 Windstar failed - and I replaced it myself. A few thoughts:

- Old electric fuel pumps can get flaky as they fail - so working for a while, and then not working for a while isn't an entirely unusual failure mode.
- Replacing the fuel pump does indeed involve dropping the tank. The job is a fair amount of dirty, hard work - but isn't really all that complicated.
- I found that the worst part of dropping the tank was removing the fuel fill hose. The fittings and pipe behind the splash shield in the driver's side rear wheel well are prone to corrosion. I ended up cutting the fuel fill hose and replacing the hose itself, as well as the metal fuel fill pipe (mine was badly rusted).
- Removing the pump assembly and related hardware wasn't bad at all. After hearing stories about gunk at the bottom of a fuel tank, I was pleased to see that mine was pretty clean.
- Make sure you replace all of the in-tank and external fuel filters (I recall there were at least two in the tank, plus the regular in-line fuel filter).