Spent last Saturday at Dad's helping him change the fuel pump. With A/C and power steering on that side of the engine, it's not an easy job. You've never seen such a big car that you can't get your hands or tools in anywhere to work on it.
I sold Dad the fuel pump that was on the car when I worked for Hi/Lo Auto Supply back in the mid-90's. It was a made in USA Carter. It's hard to complain about 23-25 years of service, even if it is relatively low miles. Dad got the pump off on Friday. We cracked the old pump open and sure enough the diaphragm was in bad shape. We already had a new old stock Carter pump on hand that we bought a few years ago, to have as a backup. It wasn't ready to go on the car because we needed to modify it the same way we modified the one that was on the car. A little background:
The pedestrian cars had a 5/16" fuel supply line. The performance cars (HiPo 390, 406, 427) had a 3/8" fuel supply line. When we replaced the fuel and brake lines with new stainless lines ten years ago or so, we upgraded the supply line to 3/8". That necessitated replacing the fuel sender in the tank with one setup for 3/8" feed.
The pedestrian cars had a fuel pump that has a screw on canister on the bottom of it that houses a good sized paper fuel filter. The performance cars had a remotely mounted fuel filter housing that bolted to the front of the Driver's side cylinder head like this......
With A/C and power steering, there is no room for this type of setup. We have a new supply line that is 3/8" but our pump is set up for 5/16" inlet. If we use the performance fuel pump, we don't have a fuel filter. What to do? We decided to modify the pump to accept a 3/8" hose nipple brass fitting. Saturday morning, I repeated these modifications to the new pump. First, pull out the pressed in 5/16" hose nipple....
Then, drill out pump housing and cut new threads with a pipe tap...
Here's a look with the pump mounted on the car.....
It doesn't look that bad but it's not a fun place to work. The lower radiator hose makes it tough. We probably needed to pull it but that isn't any fun either. Anyway, we got it done and the car runs fine again. I think the pump has been going out for awhile now. It seemed like dad had to crank the car more than he should to start it. When we put it back together, we filled the fuel filter canister with gas and primed the carb through the vent. It cranked right up.
You can see the new FL1A oil filter in the pic above. Dad changed the oil the day before the fuel pump gave up. We went with Summit's Mineral based 30W "break in" oil. Anyone running this stuff?
We also spent some time trying to swap the A/C belt. We're out all the way on the adjustment but the belt is bouncing. We sourced a NOS Gates XL Green Stripe belt that was an inch shorter but it was too short. We have one coming that is 1/2 inch shorter and that should do the trick. While I was over there, I took a picture of the ground cable attachment I mentioned in another thread relating to Mr. Sony's FE powered pickup. These are two bolts I welded together to create a "stud" to attach the ground cable to. I did this since the threaded hole in the block is too big for the end of the cable. This picture is for you MrSony ......