26-06-2024, 12:15 AM
A week or two ago, having picked my stepdaughter up from work, I limped home in the ORT and just made it onto the drive before the engine died.
Removing the float chamber to check for crud, I noticed the fuel level looked a bit low. I tried the pump priming lever and concluded that the superglue repair on a cracked casting to stop an air leak had given up after several years service. This evening I finally found an hour to dig out a spare pump and change the diaphragm for one that's ethanol resistant. I rebuilt one previously, but in a moment of weakness sent it to a chap in Spain.
Now there's been a fair bit of chat about the strength of springs, so I thought I'd try to compare the yellow painted spring in the new pump with an old one from a pump that failed previously due to leaky valves.
The yellow one looked a bit thicker but felt the same, so I started to think how to test both to see if the spring constant was the actually the same. I thought about weights and measuring heights, but quickly realised there's an easy approach to most things...
Removing the float chamber to check for crud, I noticed the fuel level looked a bit low. I tried the pump priming lever and concluded that the superglue repair on a cracked casting to stop an air leak had given up after several years service. This evening I finally found an hour to dig out a spare pump and change the diaphragm for one that's ethanol resistant. I rebuilt one previously, but in a moment of weakness sent it to a chap in Spain.
Now there's been a fair bit of chat about the strength of springs, so I thought I'd try to compare the yellow painted spring in the new pump with an old one from a pump that failed previously due to leaky valves.
The yellow one looked a bit thicker but felt the same, so I started to think how to test both to see if the spring constant was the actually the same. I thought about weights and measuring heights, but quickly realised there's an easy approach to most things...