Fuel pump check valve

[billb]

Hey gang, long time, no post! Things have been pretty quiet on the bimmer front for me. Just last week however, my wife pulled the 525 into the garage and shut it down. I was in the house, came out into the garage, and smelled gasoline. The supply hose to the fuel rail had developed a leak. So, I replaced that hose and clamps with new 3/8" (7.9mm) hose from Autozone. Once it filled up the system, it started right up, no leaks. Mission accomplished.

Not quite. The next evening, my wife says the car isn't starting like it used to...it's taking like 5-6 seconds to start, but running fine once it starts. My troubleshooting led me to do the following:

• Pull fuel pump relay
• Jumper 30 and 87 to make the pump run manually.
• Check for leaks. None present.
• Check the vacuum line on the fuel pressure regulator for gasoline. None present. (FPR was changed 2 years ago chasing a rich running condition, which turned out to be the AFM).
• Pull the fuel rail with injectors out of the manifold, and check that an injector wasn't leaking down. Did that, not a drop leaking when running the fuel pump for a solid minute.

My final conclusion is that the check valve has failed at the pump. I ordered the special retrofit kit from BMA yesterday, so we'll see if I'm right. The car still has perfect driveability; it just takes a bit to start her up.

I'm just wondering which happened first, the bad check valve, or the leaky hose, and were they related? Seems kind of odd to be that coincidental. I'll report back once I get the check valve installed, to see if we're golden again.