Posted by Sherman in Idaho [108.162.246.24] on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 14:52:10 :
In Reply to: Fuel Pump posted by Hickory [173.245.55.146] on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 14:34:00 :
Mechanical all the way. "Then & Now Automotive" sells rebuild kits with alky-proof rubber or they will rebuild them for you. If it's screwed together the hardest part is unhooking the rod from the lever and getting it back on again, which just takes having the right feel for what's going on inside where you can't see it. You can also still buy new fuel pumps for the flatheads, and they even include a glass bowl.
Mechanical pumps will "suck" better than electric ones, which really want gravity flow from the tank to the pump if possible. There's nothing at all wrong with a mechanical pump, and they also have the feature of automatically stopping if the engine stops (e.g. in a wreck) rather than continuing to pump fuel possibly into a fire. Electric is great on a diesel because you can bleed the fuel system without getting the engine running first (a Catch-22), but on a gasser, not so much.
I also knew of beater WM300 being used as a yard crane where the guy solved the fuel pump issue entirely by strapping the gas tank to the top of the cab. You don't even want to think about fire with that setup, though.
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