Question: How hard can it be? rebuild fuel pump?

[tigerv8]

My 62's fuel pump started leaking like crazy yesterday when I took it out for a spin. It's a totally original car with original fuel pump. I took out the pump and did my internet research on either buying a rebuild kit or having it done by someone. My qusestion is this. Has anyone here on the forum ever rebuilt a C1 fuel pump and was it hard to do? It would be great to be able to do it myself on top of saving some money.

 

[Rex S]

It's not that hard IF you can find a rebuild kit. Rebuildable pumps went away long ago. I would be leary of "NOS" kits still out there as the parts are 20+ years old and may only function for a short while. A true rebuild/restoration shop will have new parts and can also repair/replace worn parts that are not part of a kit such as pivot pins and cam follower. Old kits will not like the ethenol in today's gas either.

 

[Tom Bryant]

I haven't done one in years but I will be doing the '59 before I start driving it again. Back in the early '60s we used to rebuild our fuel pumps instead of buying new or rebuilt just because we kids didn't have any money. The cheapest way out was the best with a rebuild kit costing about $1.50 at the time and no special tools required. Even we 16 year olds could do it with good results.

All that's involved is just screws and a few clips.Thoroughly clean the castings and check for cracks or wear and you should be able to do a successful rebuild in an afternoon at an easy pace.

Here is a link to the kit Zip offers for this pump. As you can see everything you could need, other than the housing casting, is included.

Pump kit

Tom

 

[Tom Bryant]

Rex makes a good point about the ethanol content of gasoline. I would hope that any new kit being offered by Zip and others would be modern fuel tolerant. It wouldn't hurt to give them a call or email and ask.

Also, welcome to the CAC.

Tom

 

[tigerv8]

Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

Rex makes a good point about the ethanol content of gasoline. I would hope that any new kit being offered by Zip and others would be modern fuel tolerant. It wouldn't hurt to give them a call or email and ask.

Also, welcome to the CAC.

Tom

I'm just waiting to call tomorrow since today everyone's closed. I have four different places I wanna call, gather information then decide. My first and main question is "modern fuel tolerant" because I'm sure that's the reason this happened. It started to leak all over. There wasn't even an exact place where it was leaking and nothing ever hardly goes wrong with the car. It just turned a real 30,000 miles and I'm the second owner so I'm real careful when I maintain it. I've read where things happen to the carbs too. I'm just keepin my fingers crossed that nothing else goes bad.