What a chore to change a fuel pump! My goodness.

I've been limping the truck along until this afternoon when I seemingly used 1/2 tank of fuel to go about 20 miles. Gas was streaming out of both drip holes. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/angry.gif" alt="" /> Almost 114K on original pump! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I reviewed the FSM and read about loosening the head bolts in order to change the pump...what's up with that? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/zombie.gif" alt="" />

Bad enough I had to pull the carb and valve cover on my Raider, my parts engine, and not be able to get the other pump in, but then discover the newer pump doesn't want to go back in. I broke the phenolic spacer on the Raider and I'm fortunate to have on from parts stores.

Tomorrow, work permitting, I'm getting new pump, valve cover gasket set, and carb base gasket. I'll be without my Raider when I have a cool job to 4wheel through mud and ice to get to, and today I spun my wife's GMC out trying to get there. Darn 2wd's!

The first time I did this job I did have to remove one head bolt to get the pump to go back into the cylinder head, and even then it took a little persuasion with a rubber mallet.

With my new engine and the non-jet valve head the pump installation was a piece of cake. But I never had to pull the carb or intake manifold to get the job done. I did pull the valve cover.

The fuel pump I removed this afternoon had a huge pump bowl and would not fit past the carb. I had to pry the pump out, breaking the spacer in the deal. I'm just REALLY nervous about removing anything related to the head, not wanting to promote a blown gasket.

Remove the valve cover, I would not touch the head bolts <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/evil.gif" alt="" />

If you remove the valve cover you can accuate the pump lever and get it to slide in without removing the carb on the OEM size pump <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> Before I learned that trick I used a wood block and a BFH <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" />

It's usually only one of the head bolt washers that interferes, and you only loosen that one bolt to let the washer slide aside. Ditto the actuate the lever, and set the engine on the tdc mark on the timing cover to get the pump lever cam on the low part of the lobe for clearance. Or do the turbo conversion and look at that nice block off plate there....

Dump da pump...

Go with an electric pump monted near the tank.

I haven't decided about installing an electric pump...it's the whole thing with running wire, changing the house routing, etc. I'm not afraid of that process though, just like hooking up lights.

I have not had any mechanical pump problems until yesterday, and I limped that almost 2 months (definitely my bad) due to budget constraints. No $$ for my daily driver. I'm getting the new parts today, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to complete the project until tomorrow.

Ditto.

It's a great idea except in California we have CARB, California Air Resources Board <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/evil.gif" alt="" />

If you make it look OEM you might get by the under hood inspection <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

One thing I've never liked about the electric pump is the need to use a fuel pressure regulator to split the fuel delivery. If you look at the mech pump and the Mikuni, there are two fuel outlets and one fuel inlet on the pump, because the pressure regulator is built into the pump, and the excess flow goes out one of the fuel outlets, and the regulated flow goes to the the mikuni float bowl inlet. The excess flow goes to the fuel return line to the tank by way of a second fuel inlet on the mikuni, which feeds the aux. accel pump well and I think the accel pump well, and the excess flow from there goes out of the mikuni to the fuel return line. This means you have to mount the regulator near/at the carb to match the old fuel pump pipe layout. I think we've seen some cases of pump pressure flooding the carb with an energetic electric pump and no regulator. It's possible to blow the needle valve off it's seat, overcoming float force and return spring pressure with fuel pressure.