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HELP! I have a 59 3100 truck with a 235. A few months back I started having trouble with the fuel pump. To make a long story short, I went through a few of them and eventually resorted to an electrical one. Now that went out. I have a new tank and new sending unit and tested the lines for leaks. All is good, but I just cant figure out what went wrong. Any suggestions??? Thanks

I believe the reasons an electrical one goes out and why the manual ones go out are different except for one common problem seen these days with all things in a box... Poor/faulty production.
I usually begin suspecting my new part @ about the 3rd time things don't work.

Was the elec pump in before the new tank and lines and if so for how long? It could of failed from grit pumped before the swap maybe?

what CASO said - you need to go back to the start and figure out what happened at each step, elaborate on what was the "trouble" with the first pump and each subsequent one? .... how exactly did the elec pump "go out"? .... did you change the lines when you changed the tank, including any rubber lines? repeatedly changing parts you think might be bad is "throwing money at a problem"

Bill

You may be having a problem from alcohol in the fuel. I had 3 fuel pumps go out on an older GM and the mechanic said the alcohol caused the rubber to break down in the pump.
Mine did last longer than yours (12 months or so)and I didn't have anything to back that up.

Just something else to think about.

John

Thank you for your replies. The second and third pump just didnt work at all, they were pumping insufficient fuel to the carb. I hook up a used pump that my mechanic let me use, it worked fine, but it still didnt compltely fill my glass fuel filter. But it worked and it was a good temporary solution. We were going to run it along the frame rail, but now that isnt even working. I didnt change the lines at all, but when I blew air through them theere were no clogs. SHould I just start there and replace the lines?
Thanks again

Don't know about electric fuel pumps and later model trucks, but the mechanical fuel pump doesn't completely fill the Durex glass bowl gasoline filter on my '54 235 Rochester B.
> VIDEO

- Lonnie

Lonnie that's one nice video editing job. I'd guess you've got a several hours in camera to publish time invested in that. Let alone the nice clean engine!

Thanks. The Glass Bowl video probably took me a couple of hours to create. DADS50 could have done it in fifteen minutes! Shot on an iPhone. Edited with Windows Movie Maker, part of Windows Vista. It's called Movie Maker in Windows 7.

The engine took a little longer.

- Lonnie

Many electric pumps are made to push and not pull. Check your install location per pump specifications.

Electric pumps also require heavy wire and solid grounds. I like to run both positive and negative wires right off the battery with a 30-40 amp relay on the positive side. 12 gauge wire minimum. Low voltage can kill a pump pretty quick.

Joe

were you changing fuel pumps because it wouldn't run, or just because it wasn't fillng the filter bowl? There is also the possibility of rust, are you getting rust in anything? It only takes a speck of rust the size of the period at the end of this sentence to shut you down. Besides there was another post by someone else recently who went through 3 new pumps before he got one that worked. There is no reason to use an electric pump, the mechanical pumps work fine, have worked fine for 60 years or so. I changed everything including fuel tank to carburetor, and still got rust, from the little tiny flakes on the fill tube, which is the only thing I didn't change. Prior to that I had been using a filter on the suction side of the pump, but after I changed all the lines I didn't want to cut my brand new lines to install a suction filter, this is where I installed the glass top pump, which has a fine mesh brass screen in it. haven't had problems since. You do have to realize that in this day and age you will have a very, very difficult time getting satisfaction from nearly any product you buy at the substantially inflated prices. It tain't right, but that is the way it is. Try one more mechanical pump, and put a suction filter before it and see if you are catching any rust.