I just had to share yesterday's adventure. A friend was given the family truck - a 1964 Chevy C10 - and I went to help recover it yesterday. The truck was a farm truck - and only has 33,**X original miles. His great uncle restored the body about 15 years ago, and it's only been run for local parades etc since. Due to health, the truck hasn't been run since 2009. When we got to the great uncles farm, the truck was sitting in a barn, covered with dust. We pushed it out into the sunlight, popped the hood, only to find someone had taken the battery and cut the cables. A run to the local parts store later, we had a new battery and cables. I wired it up and it was cranking. I pulled off the fuel line, and pumped out the most varnished fuel I've ever seen. We ran a bunch out, then poured some fresh gas in. After priming the carb, the truck fired right up. After letting it sit and idle for about an hour, we decided to drive it to my house so I could go through it. Now, I should have been on high alert as it had a new looking fuel pump in it, there was another fuel pump in the barn next to its resting place, and a new-in-box fuel pump sitting on the floor. However, since it started and ran so good, those thoughts never entered my mind. So off we went. My friend took off, and it ran great (ok, some missing, but fully explainable due to the fuel and time sitting). We got about 7 miles of the 30 mile drive, and the truck slowly lost power and finally died. I pulled the fuel filters, blew them out, but no fuel was pumping. No problem...we had a brand new pump. Installed it, started up, ran about 5 miles...then dead again. At this point, we installed the 3rd pump....but got nothing. My guess is the lobe is wiped out... In the meanwhile, day had turned to night and our options for parts were nill. No problem I thought...I have a electric fuel pump that was on my Desoto. So home I ran with intentions of bringing back the electric pump. I got home, grabbed the pump, jumped the leads...and nothing. So now, I have no fuel pump. The truck is on the side of the road. we're 20 miles from my house, and I cringe at the thought of calling a tow truck. Unfortunately, I had planned to buy a car trailer and instead used the money at an auction to buy a boat. Fortunately, the boat had the old primer bulb. I stripped off the bulb and hose, grabbed a role of 3/8 copper line...and back to the truck. I cut the fuel line at the tank (behind the seat), and plumbed in the bulb where it could be reached from the seat. A few pumps later, and we had fuel to the carb. With my friend driving, I became the fuel pump and we made the last 20 miles of the trek. I'm feeling a little steam-punk McGyver.....
Great improvisation. When guile and rat-like cunning fail ... experience, innovation, and plain old common sense will prevail.
When I was a kid my Dad had a mid sixties Austin wagon. That had an electric fuel pump in the trunk under a steel flap. Sometimes the points would fail so I'd sit in the trunk pumping the arm up and down so my Dad could drive. I remember lots of drives to the store and back doing that. Now when my kids whinge about being bored on a drive in the car I'll remind them I used to have to kneel down in the trunk pumping the gas forward to make the car run. Tis sadly lost on them. Ed
For a while I used to haul my race car on a 47 ford flatbed truck. We had just recently got it and we wired new tail lamps etc. We went racing on a saturday afternoon and lost the fuel pump going in to the track! NOW WHAT, we raced and I did well but all the while thinking how are we going to get this all home. The race engine was small block 302 chevy and the truck flathead ford so now part exchange. Well we had hose and tape so we put a hose in the fuel filler and sealed with tape. Ran the hose in through the p***enger window and my pit man blew in it to pressurize the tank and wow it runs. So we headed for home and the harder he would blow the faster we could go. One of the problems was when he would let off we would get a wiff of gas fumes. After a while he was getting a little goofy from the fumes. Well I told you I had wired new tail lights and we got stopped by a cop for no tail lamps about dusk. When I got out of the truck I pushed the headlight switch in one notch and went back to talk to the cop.The tail lights were on and bright! He said they were not on before so we shook the wires and all was good. Meanwhile my buddy stumbles out of the truck like he was drunk ( from the gas fumes ) and I thought for sure we were going to jail! While I was talking to the cop I figured out what was wrong with the lights, I had wired them to the parking light post which I did not no went dead when the headlamps went on! Any way the cop let us off and I left the hadlamp switch on the first notch as we pulled away and he turned around and went the other direction. So we got home and fixed the pump and lights for the race on sunday and a new adventure! Gary
I had an electric fuel pump in an ot car wired through a toggle switch on the console, was on a drive of about 20 miles and the inlet needle of the carb stuck and was flooding the engine. to limp home I just became the needle and seat by switching the pump on and off just enough to fill the fuel bowl while I drove and shifted the 4 speed. made it home no problem but it makes you realize how busy the needle and seat are during a drive.
The Jalopy Journal
