Jim,
Are you sure the SU pumps you installed were fully "solid state"? If one
stretches the point, you could call an SU pump with a diode instead of a
capacitor "solid state". That is what I have been buying the last several
years. These still use points, but the diode acts as a current limiter and
the points last longer than the old capacitor equipped ones.
It would be interesting to know if these pumps were Hall-effect types or the
diode-equipped points type.
Paul Hunt has a good "point" (pun intended) - a points type pump can be
repaired by the side of the road, whereas a Hall-effect type cannot. This is
the same rationale behind carrying an old set of ignition points and
condenser with you even if you have gone to electronic ignition.
The ultimate in fuel pump ingenuity is to plumb in a second pump in-line
with the stock pump (after making sure that the one-way valves do not offer
too much backpressure). Then when the stock pump begins to fail and the
engine coughs and sputters, you can flip a switch marked "fuel booster pump"
on the dash and you are on your way without having to stop! To get the full
effect, the dash switch should be one of those big old Aerospace surplus
toggles with the red guard over the top - it needs to look like it came out
of an old Douglas DC-6.
Cheers,
PK
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Stuart [mailto:jimbb88@erols.com]
Sent: Monday, August 09, 1999 2:36 PM
To: Paul Hunt
Cc: MGS Digest; V8 list
Subject: Re: Fuel Pump
I have (had) 2 cars with solid state SU fuel pumps. Neither were
conversions,
that is, they were advertised as genuine SU solid state pumps. Both were
purchased from the Roadster Factory. The first I purchased about 5 or 6
years
ago, put over 100,000 miles on it, was still running fine when I sold the
car
recently.
The second pump was purchased about a year ago to replace a stock SU on my
GT. I
had previously installed a Fasctet or some such little square pump in
parallel
as a back up, when preparing for a long road trip. This saved me when the
old SU
crapped out. It also saved me when the new solid state SU stopped after 3
months. Over a period of about 6 months the new SU worked about 1/2 the
time,
refusing to work for an hour or a month with no pattern. It has now been
flawless for the last 5 months. My only explaination is "its British".
Jim Stuart
Paul Hunt wrote:
> My factory V8 came to me nearly 5 years ago with an SU pump with
Hall-effect
> electronics. I have done 45k in the car, the PO had it for several years
> but did little mileage, and although he was anal about writing down
> everything he did to the car (that's not to say he fixed everything that
was
> wrong with it) he makes no mention of the fuel pump.
>
> The pump has just started playing sometimes - weak pumping and fuel
> starvation. I disconnected the fuel pipe at the carb and fed it into a
> bottle so I could test the pump. Each time I turned it on it would seem
to
> make three pumps then miss one, a bit like a horse galloping, before
> settling down to a regular ker-chunk, ker-chunk, ker-chunk etc. After it
> had
> been doing this for about 20 secs or so it would stop for a couple of
> seconds before starting again. During this time I had the end-cap off
> looking at what was happening mechanically. Eventually it settled right
> down - no more galloping or pauses.
>
> To be honest I would expect a pump with points and a capacitor to run for
at
> least 60k miles, and with a 75 car with the electrics end of the pump in
the
> spare wheel well I think I would rather have a points pump and be able to
do
> something with them when it fails. With this pump, if it stops, it is
> stuffed.
>
> Anyone else had experience of these types of pumps?
>
> PaulH
> http://freespace.virgin.net/paul.hunt1/
> or if that doesn't work try
> http://194.168.54.52/paul.hunt1/
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