<VV> 1967 Corvair Monza fuel pump

[Tony Underwood]

At 03:25 PM 7/24/2010, Ron wrote:
>I'm presently running three Corvairs, all with mechanical fuel pumps, and
>have never had one leak fuel into the oil.  What's the problem?
>RonH



Sure, some mechanical fuel pumps sometimes fail.   Most of the time, 
they do not fail.


The 140ci engine in my '60 4-door lasted until 2 years ago before it 
swallowed a valve and broke a piston.   It was STILL running an 
ORIGINAL fuel pump.   Far as I know, it likely will still 
work.   That engine is currently in storage.

I did replace it some years back when the car began acting like it 
was running out of fuel, thought the pump was gagging out, replaced 
it with a known good late pump (with matching pushrod), problem did 
not go away, replaced that piece of rubber hose with the almost 
invisible crack in it behind the driver side rear tire, good to go 
again.    A couple weeks later, I put the original fuel pump and its 
pushrod back on the engine.   It's still on the engine and is still 
likely a good pump.


There's a '66 110 engine in the car now, purchased from somebody who 
told me he took it out of a wreck w/30,000 miles on it in 1971, had 
been stored in his heated basement until I bought it.   It was 
untouched, still had its original (showing wear) spark plugs from 
what I could tell (44FFs) and didn't appear to have ever had a screw 
turned on it.   It's still untouched... and now desperately needs 
tube seals.   However, its 44 year old fuel pump continues to work 
just fine.   (So do the spark plugs)

That's with today's gasoline.   Going on two years now, no leaks and 
no issues.   They say that today's gas will kill an old fuel 
pump...  hasn't killed this one yet.   It never killed the pump on 
the original '60 engine either.

All the 'Vairs here are running mechanical pumps.   The ONLY one that 
ever leaked fuel into the engine of anything was a bogus pump 
inadvertently installed years ago on the blue '69 car, and it had 
those unreinforced gaskets and it slipped by me.  Replaced with the 
correct pump, no more issues.  If you use a mechanical pump that's 
assembled with the Correct fiber reinforced gaskets, it should last 
20 years or more.


I won't be installing any electric pumps.   I know the mechanical 
pumps are capable of working just fine.   And they do.

One last word:  Sometimes a pump will be replaced for the wrong 
reason... and get blamed for a problem that may not have been the 
pump's fault... like the crack in the 20 year old piece of cracked 
hose in my '60.




tony..