Over the last 21,000 miles I have installed 4 fuel pumps. Two times I had to be towed home and one time I trailered it home. I have purchased them from different vendors but have found that they are all distributed by Carter and made overseas, regardless what name is on the outside of the box that the pump comes in. I called Carter and they said to send the pump to them for inspection. I followed up and they were directed by the research department not to spend any time figuring out why the pump failed, because very few of these pumps are sold. However, they did send me another identical pump. I was able to get 94,000 miles on the original pump that came on the car in 1976. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Are there any good quality pumps available? Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks!
So it is the pump?
Greg surfas
I discovered the same thing, all the pumps appear to be the same no matter what was on the box. My issue turned out not to be pump related but it took me a while (time wise, not miles) to get there.
What is the symptom or failure you are having?
If a new fuel pump solved the problem each time, I'd definitely suspect the fuel pump. I went through 4 in 2 driving seasons, about 2,500 miles in a 60 CDV. They are all made in China, and it appears from the same factory. This site had a lot of posts about the issues with mechanical pumps about 2 and three years ago, mine included. They fail due to poor quality and also sitting in a warehouse a long-time allowing diaphragms and seals to dry out, as demand is low per your post. IMHO one solution is to go to an electric pump. The other solution is rebuilding. Preferably an original A/C core (maybe you still have your original) but if not available use a good rebuilder to rebuild the core you have. At least the parts will be new and of good quality. I used Arthur Gould, but there are others. In my case the check valves were popping out of the holes in the casting due to improperly sized holes in the casting. I fixed it by cementing them in with red fuel resistant Loctite, but even then, only got 3 pounds of pressure (5 is needed) so car did not run well up hills or any time a lot of fuel was needed. Good luck with your fix.
Properly done, the check valves are supposed to be staked into their recesses.
I bought a Delco fuel pump from Amazon for my '76 about 7 years ago. It works just fine. I also NEVER use deathanol laced fuel in it.
I would think a diaphragm failure would initially leak either externally or into the crankcase depending on the model and then when it fails worse would just not pump so assuming it was working well enough to keep the engine running there would be some hints that a failure was coming.
Valves tho which it sounds like there is a precedent for would not have any sort of leak and depending on the failure mode could also be somewhat intermittent.
'Hot rods' use a billet pump body that has rebuildable and tuneable. For popular applications they also have a billet main body. For less common applications like say a Cadillac the billet body clamps onto the/a OE style cast main body. That style is available for a 472/500 but its not cheap and the fittings types and locations are not the same as stock and you may have to come up with your own tuning hardware to get the pressure down to a stock level a Qjet would need or use a regulator.