This is one for the books and maybe one for Barney's grapes of wrath pages.
On Thursday we had a torrential downpour and Trisha and I happened to be out
in my roadster at the time, we had to ford through a 100foot long 6 inch
deep puddle and then decided that there was just too much rain and we should
turn around and seek sanctuary at the grocery store. The roads reminded me
of watching rally cars fording streams, there were huge walls of water on
either side of the car wherever we drove. We turned around in a fire
station and forded the same puddle again, unbeknownst to us, on the deep
side this time. I have a tear in my shift boot and while crossing the
puddle we went down a drop in the pavement, when we did this a geyser of
water shot through the shift boot and soaked us both, we made it back to the
supermarket and wandered around until the rain subsided. When we came back
out the car wouldn't start, I checked the distributor cap and it had a large
puddle in it, first time ever that I have had a water problem in the cap,
but no surprise given the rain.
On Friday morning I started off to help my brother do some work on his car,
roughly 1/2 mile from home the car died and I was forced to pull into a CVS
pharmacy. I was expecting water in the electricals or something similar,
and after some searching I determined that the fuel pump was not working,
given the fact that I had traveled completely downhill since I left the
house I don't think it ever came on when I started the car. I hoofed it
back up the hill to get the g/f's bugeye and went to buy a fuel pump. I got
into the car and tried to push the water from Thursday's downpour off the
passenger side of the tonneau and it all went the wrong way via the cowl and
landed on me; soaked, yet again. The first store I got too only had a
generic 4.5-7psi pump, no luck on the low pressure one; I went to a second
autoparts store and asked for a universal fuel pump; for what car? I said
universal and very hostilly described the square metal ones, I was rebutted
with a we don't sell anything like that. So back to the first store to buy
the too strong one, at this point the skies had clouded up and it was
starting to drizzle.
I bought the pump, some hose, and a cheap wire crimper kit and drove off
praying that it didn't start to rain. Once I got back to the car I decided
that for safety I would install the pump in the engine compartment rather
than climb under the car to work in a parking lot. I installed it near the
radiator by splicing it into my flex line. I ran the power via a toggle
switch that I taped to the steering column so that I could switch it of when
stuck in traffic to avoid flooding the engine. I have always carried wire
and a spare switch but never a crimper or terminals, go figure. After
starting the car and verifying that it worked I drove the sprite home and
started walking back down the hill towards my car. On the way I was stopped
by a woman at a bus stop wondering where I was heading and to bum her a
light; after heading about 100 feet downhill I heard her yelling to me so I
started back up the hill. Upon reaching her she asked me if she could have
a ride and I declined by way of stuttering and headed back out again. This
is, perhaps made funnier by another story so I will digress shortly...
A few years ago on our way to a club Halloween party my clutch exploded and
we were stranded on the side of the highway while waiting for AAA. A car of
kids stopped and asked if we would buy them gas in exchange for taking us to
buy gas. I informed them that we did not need gas and we were waiting for a
tow. They said they would give us a ride if we would buy them gas. I said
no, they persisted; after a number of f-offs and other kind suggestions they
left us alone...
I finished the 45 minute drive roughly two and one half hours after starting
out without issue. After fulfilling my obligations to my brother we took
his car to get a pressure regulator to control the fuel pump and to install
the whole works more permanently.
I had every confidence that my original pump would start working again but
considering that it is currently my only car and it is the original pump I
took this as a sign and decided to keep the new pump. I installed the
regulator and set off home with the g/f behind me. Right down the street
the car ran out of gas and I realized that I had forgotten to set the
regulator, one quick twist to 3.5psi and we were off. 30 minutes or so
later the car fell flat on its face, naturally I assumed fuel.
After some prodding I figured out it was lack of spark, not fuel as I would
have expected. I didn't want to test the theory with open spark because the
stupid pressure regulator was leaking and I didn't want to blow myself up on
a dark road at 11:30pm. I cranked the engine over and there was not motion
of the tack so I felt confident that I was right and set about looking at
the dizzy. I popped the cap and much to my surprise the wire inside of it
that went from the coil lead to the binding post had broken. I'm sure
everyone can relate to an otherwise dependable car having two unrelated
failures on the same day and so I'll spare you my expletives. Out came the
crimper and terminals for the second time today and I made up a temporary
wire to get me home. This time the 45 minute drive only took 1.5 hours.
The next day...Saturday... I set out for my dad's house (same destination as
Friday) to fix up the dizzy and get some other things done. This time the
car ran out of gas every 60 seconds and I would have to sit for 60 to refill
the bowls and get under way again. After about a dozen of those I pulled
the regulator out of the system, cut a chunk from my radiator overflow pipe
off and plumbed it in place of the regulator and finished the drive.
Out came the pressure gauge and I determined that the regulator was not
letting any fuel through. The stock pump had come back to life by now and
was making 3.5 psi 33 years after having been installed. The new pump was
making 6 and when left unchecked was filling the charcoal canister with raw
gas, this would explain why I was able to drive some long stretches, I was
probably pulling gas right back out of the canister into the engine.
Anyways... I pulled the regulator off and shimmed the spring to the point
that I had the regulator flowing within 1/4psi of each of it's marked
settings, and put everything back together. I made up another distributor
lead and in the interest of not making a long story any longer, I have made
it 1.5 days without a problem.
James Nazarian
71 MGB Tourer
71 MGBGT V8
85 Dodge Ram
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