Well I am posting this so that no one makes the same stupid mistakes I made yesterday. Driving home from school yesterday, I pulled around a corner and went to accelerate and my 99 silverado z71 just went to sputtering and I drove off a side street where she died. Now I'm gonna run you through all the things you should not do and give yall a little comic relief. Also, I know many of the things I did were not the smartest but I'm off at LSU and don't have my step dads shop to do all this.

1. When your truck dies, lets just say ratchet straps are not the best thing in the world, but hey they sort of kind of work when you put six of them on there. Be aware you will get stared at.

2. When taking the bed off, I tell you what air tools make a difference if you would like to have skin on the knuckles when finished. Those 8 bolts for the bed are nice a snug if you were wondering.

3. Two people can not lift the freaking bed. I got my brother over and we are both big and can move weight but two is just not enough. After about an hour of tugging and pulling and almost a hernia we got it back enough to get to fuel pump. Oh yeah sure if you take the tool box and tail gate off it'll be a little lighter, but hey why would you make it easier on yourself

4. They are not joking clean area off before taking fuel pump out or you will be up to your elbow in gasoline digging the dirt out with those brand new cuts you got on your knuckles.

5. Last but not least when sliding bed back on, watch your fingers because if your not happy enough taking the skin off your knuckles just go ahead and almost take the finger nail off because you only have two people and couldn't hold it up.

After all said and done, I got her running again with a new fuel pump. I don't want to say its impossible to do with basic tools and two people, but if you want to make life easier, I recommend more than two atleast to move the bed. Hope I can make someone elses job easier by letting them know and maybe give you a laugh today.

 

Live and learn! Did you at least put a new Delco or Delphi fuel pump in?

 

Great story my friend..

When I did mine I just jacked the bed up sideways to about a 45* angle.
Left the passenger side bolts in place but very loose so the bed could rise.
Placed lots off 4x4 blocks front and rear to secure while working.

I didn't have enough people at the time to remove it,worked great!

 

Well old chevy i was definitely in a bind because of school and I have work every other day besides monday when it happened and today, but I had to get it done on Monday when it happened. So, I had to buy the only fuel pump they had and i think its called a Airtex or something like that, it atleast has a one year warranty. What yall think about the airtex, hopefully its not a $278 piece of crap

 

Airtex = cross your fingers and hope for the best. High premature failure rate

 

Airtex

Next time search online.AC Delco pumps can be had for around $200 or less.
Since you could not wait hope for the best.