This question is in regards to my father in laws '46 D24. It has the flathead 6 in it. Last summer he had a spell where the fuel pump started leaking out the weap hole and he lost all power to the engine and had to run about 30 mph. This was a sunday afternoon so he couldn't get parts. He parked it for the night at a friend's and the next day it ran fine. No leaks. He replaced the fuel pump anyways. Well, it happened again yesterday when he was pulling the car out of storage. This time only left it for about 10 minutes and he was limping it home at 30. Well after the 10 mintues it quit and started running fine again. No leaks and back at highway speed. Could a plug/loose dirt in his sediment filter or carb be causing an obstruction in the fuel line causing the pump to weap off excess pressure? I am unsure if mechanical pumps are meant to work that way or only when the diaphragm fails it weaps out. In which case why in the world would it start working properly again? Thanks in advance.
You might want to throw this question over to the guys on the P15-D24 site. http://www430.pair.com/p15d24/mopar_forum/index.php?referrerid=1152 I had something kind of like that happen with my 48 P15 except I don't think mine was weeping from the pump when it happened. Mine was caused by 60 years of junk in the gas tank. These old Mopars use an Oilite filter in the tank on the pickup, when you get a bunch of sediment in the tank it can clog the pickup filter cutting off flow. When the engine is turned off and there is no longer a suction being pulled by the pump the sediment drifts away from the filter and allows the fuel to flow again. I dropped my tank, hosed it out real good then put a chain in it and shook the **** out of it to knock the stuff loose inside. Got about a cup and a half of sand/gravel, a fork, couple of popsicle sticks, some broken gl***, several drinking straws and some other unidentified objects out. Hosed it out again and let it dry. Once I had the tank back in and an inline filter just before the pump the problem was pretty much gone. It did happen a couple more times but I would just pull the fuel line from the tank side of the pump, remove the gas cap and blow low pressure air back through the lines. You can hear the air bubbling in the tank. Kept a close eye on the inline filter and changed it a couple of times and have not had an issue for several months.
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