Well I didn't know whether to laugh or cry yesterday. You see, about 2 months ago, my son was complaining that the old GM Holden Apollo (Toyota Camry) that I gave him recently was running real bad. "I'm not surprised", I thought to myself, "I've had that car for years and nothings gone wrong with it, and you have it for a month and you kill it." To be fair though, he had it parked in our sloping driveway, pointing downhill, and had spent the afternoon cleaning and polishing it, so he was trying to look after it, I guess.
It would start, run for a minute or so, then conk out? Weird! The fuel gauge was showing a 1/4 of a tank full of fuel, and it was pointing downhill, but it still seemed like a fuel issue, so I told him to call the auto club as I had to get to Army reserve training.
When I got home he told me that the auto club mechanic confirmed that it was a fuel issue, he'd traced the wiring to the tank mounted electric fuel pump, and it had power to it, so he surmised that the pump was shot. Damn. I rang the auto parts store and they told me a non-genuine pump would set me back 360 bucks, and as my son still owed me 600 bucks for some other things (and was in no rush to pay me back either) I loaned him my car (I've got a company car, so rarely drive it) until he could afford a new pump.
I got talking to a mate of mine, an old car racer, and he suggested that I just use an accessory type electric fuel pump, he'd used them for years with big V8 twin carb set ups etc, and said that he had a good US manufactured "Purolator" electric fuel pump sitting in a box if I needed it, for 20 bucks. Bargain! I took it home and tested it by attaching a couple of 4 feet long hoses, sat the pump on the driveway attached to a battery, shoved the hose down into the Camry's filler neck, and it pumped fuel out into a 4 gallon fuel drum, no worries. I then disconnected the fuel filter in the engine bay between the tank and the carb (it's not injected) but the pump wouldn't draw fuel thru, no matter what I tried? "Damn", I thought, "The siezed OEM pump must be blocking the fuel flow!" I gave up.................
I'm going away on an Army exercise the end of this week, so I need my car to get there, (the company I work for aren't that generous that they give me the company car when I'm on leave, but they do pay me to do Army stuff, so it's not all bad) so yesterday, I decided to pull the tank out of the camry and chuck the buggared OEM pump, and do whatever mods I need to use the accessory pump that I was going to mount in the engine bay, so I could have my car back to go away.
Now it's winter here, and although there was weak sunshine, it was cold, and the concrete driveway was slightly damp from a little rain we had earlier in the morning, so crawling under the car was pretty damn miserable. I disconnected the power to the pump and the fuel gauge sender unit and drew out the sender so I could pump the fuel out of the tank, to save tipping it all over myself when I pulled the tank out from under the car. Surprisingly, only a couple of gallons of fuel came out, but I couldn't get the hose into all the corners. It was about now that I should have started asking some questions, but I was too focussed on getting the job done, I guess.
Anyway, I soldiered on and after unbolting the tank, cutting 3 hoses that were too hard to wriggle off and struggling, upside down, to remove the rubber connecting pipe for the filler and tank breather, the exhaust heat shield and couple of other bits, I was able to drop the tank out. I put a jack under it to help lower it, but that proved to be more of a hindrance than a help, so I eventually man-handled it out from under the car.
Interestingly, the fuel pump is mounted at the rear of the tank which is a pity, if it was mounted where the fuel sender unit is at the front of the tank, (anyone worked it out yet?) I'd have been able to draw it out from inside the car. I Pulled it out and was 1. Surprised at how clean the inside of the tank was and 2. How good the pump looked. Hmmmmnnnn...........
I took the pump into my garage and connected it up to 12 volts, and it spun up, with no problems, so I remounted it into the tank, tipped the couple of gallons of gas that I'd taken out back into it, and connected it to 12 volts, but nothing came out, so I tilted the tank so that fuel would run to the BACK of the tank, and woohoo! Gas came out at a fair rate of knots! I then realised that the reason that it wouldn't go, even though the fuel gauge was reading 1/4 full, was because the fuel sender is at the front of the tank, but the electric pump and pickup, is at the REAR. Fark!
I had spent 6 hours lying on my back working mostly underneath a car on a wet concrete driveway in winter, because my sons car was just out of gas..................... Now on the bright side, I've learned a lot about how electric fuel pumps work, and i can use that pump I bought as a fluid pump for my lathe, but I don't know if that's any reward for the embarrassment, not to mention the aches and pains I'm feeling as I'm typing this. Has anyone else got an "I just f*cked up" story they'd like to share? Surely I'm not the only one? Ha ha, Cheers, Terry.
