Last week what I thought was my fuel pump going out, wasn't.

I took out the back seat to access the inspection plate and remove the fuel pump. When I disconnected the connectors for the fuel pump and sending unit, I got a small rush of air from the fuel pump wires.?????? 102k miles.

T ook off the fuel pump plate, unhooked the fuel hoses inside and out along with the wires from inside the tank. When I unhooked the connector for the fuel pump, the lead that goes from inside to the outside came out with the pump pigtail. High resistance caused the lead to get hot and melt. That was why I had a rush of air when disconnecting the fuel pump wires on the outside of the fuel pump plate.

I don't know what caused the high resistance, could it have been the inside pig tail or could it be the connector from the body harness? In case it was from the pig tail in the tank, I picked up a pig tail from a maxima that still had the fuel pump intact. It was a little longer but has been working.

Fuel pump tested good. I found a couple of the plates at you pull and pay, $2 ea. If you get the plates at the JY or dealer, make sure the outside connectors will work for the outside of the plate. The first one I bought was from a '95 and the '97 connectors wouldn't work. They would plug in, but the locking tabs were different.

I just thought I would post what I went through in repairing my '97 altima.