About our Fuel Pump Driver Module (FPDM) road-side failure.
We were cruising 65 mph on Interstate 90 when the engine suddenly died as if I had turned the ignition key to the "off" position. I rolled the rig off to the shoulder to a dead stop. After some thought, the first thing I checked was if the fuel pump was working. I turned the ignition key to hear the fuel pump make that humming noise but I heard nothing. It was terribly windy outside (the wind noise was very loud) so I crawled under the fuel tank and had Irene turn the key, but I still heard nothing. The next thing I did was inspect fuel pump fuses. Under the hood, I quickly found a blown yellow 20 amp fuse. I replaced it and it blew again when trying to start the engine. I replaced it again, this time also replacing the supporting relay with the one from the HVAC blower motor (they are the part number). The engine started, so I thought all was well and so we continued on our journey. That lasted about 5 miles and the exact same failure happened again. Now we were 25 miles east of Buffalo WY (5 miles further away), and 45 miles from Gillette WY, further deeper into questionable cell phone coverage. I decided to call it quits and call a tow truck.
If I had a bag full of spare relays and fuses, I would have been tempted to keep feeding them until we got to Gillette, a decent sized city for finding a repair center.
I did not tamper with the fuel pump centrifugal reset switch located in the passenger foot well, though I should have to rule it out.
I did not open and close the fuel filler cap to release fuel tank pressure, though doing so would have been a good idea.
I did not know a FPDM existed on our E350 chassis until after the repair.
I initially considered, but quickly ruled out hitting the bottom of the fuel tank to jolt the fuel pump awake because the fuel pump was already running and suddenly stopped working. The "fuel pump jolt" is always a remedy when trying to start a vehicle, not for a vehicle running that suddenly shut down.
I was reading on another RV forum, a poster asking where his E450 fuel filter is located. That got me thinking about our fuel filter. Dummy me, I never changed it. Our E350 has 42,000 miles today. I have the big service manual for our 2007 and just now read that I should have replaced the fuel filter at 30,000 miles, so it is OVER-DUE by 12,000 miles. That is not horrible, but it is over-due none-the-less. Maybe a restriction in the flow of fuel was influential in the system failure. I think flow-resistance is unlikely the cause for the FPDM but you never know. I will be replacing the fuel filter before going anywhere in our PC again.
footnote: Earlier I was calling the Fuel Pump Driver Module (FPDM) a fuel pump control module. Ford calls it a "FPDM".