<VV> Original Fuel Pump Restoration

[Tony Underwood]

At 03:52 PM 10/21/2006, bowtieguy at cox.net wrote:
>Does anyone know of a good fuel pumper repair/restoration shop?




For 'Vair pumps, not me, don't know of anyone.   There was no other 
application for this sort of pump, thus no aftermarket support for 
rebuild parts, not anymore.     At least nothing *I* know of.

I dug through a batch of pumps to see how they're made and what they 
were made of.    It's how I found out that there were a bunch of 
different pumps that for the most part all looked alike.   I also 
went to a local rubber & seal outlet and asked them about things like 
diaphragm material and check valves etc.


I then made buddy-buddy with John Moody and bought a batch of pump 
stuff off him.    If mechanical fuel pumps suddenly go out of supply, 
or the sources for them start making crap pumps, I'll rebuild them as 
needed myself.  I've already rebuilt a couple.    It has come to my 
attention that the local seal outfit carries material that's used in 
commercial pumps intended to stand up to some pretty ferocious 
solvents, same thickness as what's seen in a 'Vair pump and glass 
fiber reinforced.   They gave me a sample, enough to do a pump, some 
tough stuff.

It's not impossible to rebuild your own pump.   I've also replaced 
the check valves in a couple, one of which was an almost new pump 
that had a check valve actually fall out because it wasn't staked 
into place properly.  I pressed it back in place and staked it, no 
more problems with it.


Back When, the average mechanic would rebuild things like fuel pumps 
as a matter of course.   Not anymore... unless you have Corvairs and 
you don't mind a little burning of midnite oil on occasion.



tony..