Club 80-90 Forums

I am just buying another kombi, it is a late square headlight high top rhd camper. It currently isnt running and I have narrowed it down to the fuel pump.
I have not had a 1.9 non fuel injected for at least 20 years but i have definitely never seen the canister on the front side of the carb ( back of the engine bay) . Whattissit?
The fuel line goes from the fuel pump into it, there is a hose going to the carb and another returns to the tank. Is it like an external float bowl? a filter? I cant find anything like it on etka or on Brickwerks.
Also, the i suspect tat the fuel pump is damaged from crap from the tank as there appears to be no filter before the pump. Is that normal? After the last pump was replaced, whoever did it put a filter between the pump and the cylinder on the back of the carb. I shall be putting it before the pump for sure.

vapour cannister 052 127 177 C as fitted on Syncro 1.9, and some other vehicles with 2E variant carbs, also seen on one of the aftermarket carbs that is available recently - can't remember who had it there was thread a few months ago which had it in

so either it's a Syncro or someone has fitted the Syncro carb 025 129 015 M, or it is the new aftermarket 2E3 carb

there should be a filter 191 201 511 A between bottom of tank and the vapour cannister - I don't know exactly where, my guess would be where the fuel pump on a 2.1 goes

is the mechanical fuel pump on the boxers strong enough to pull fuel through the full size aluminium canister filter? I do have one of those here. 

probably not, you just need the small paper in see through plastic can type one which are only a few £

the metal can fine filter is making the fuel clean enough for the injectors and goes after the pump which is producing 3 and bit bar of fuel pressure all the time, the lift pump is rev dependant and is just keeping up with what the carb uses from its own reservoir in the float chamber

OK thank you Aidan.
So I got that van running this afternoon with a new budget pump from Brickies with a plastic filter in the inlet side. For a while I didn't think that pump was working either so we checked it was working with a small jar of petrol and got it running. So I just sucked the fuel through from the tank to the pump manually ( you can go off the smell of petrol pretty quick after a mouthful) and after that it runs beautifully.
The mate who was helping me has an older 1.9 without the cylinder on the back and is also having fuel issues.
Two questions:
1- does the pump push rod wear enough over 40 odd years to not work the pump properly?
2- can you put an electric fuel pump on instead, as they have a return pipe to the tank, and do away with the mechanical pump altogether?

with regards to question 2, the only vans I have ever had with electric pumps were fuel injection ones. 1 is a 1.9 and the other two were 2.1s. 


 

A.
1.
Yes the push rods can wear and the diaphragm in the pump fail, though normally you'd only experience the effects of a worn rod at higher revs, provided the carb float chamber isn't contaminated or empty - I had an issue with water in the fuel once which meant that the float chamber was contaminated with a jelly type emulsion gunk which stopped fuel coming through the primary jet - took a splitting of the carb and clean to diagnose the issue and resolve it - needed a gasket set as the gasket between the two halves split when separating them

2. yes you can run an electric pump instead, I did that on mine as I had LPG conversion on it, so when switching over to gas you basically cut off petrol feed to carb and as the carb float chamber empties and it starts to slow down and miss you then switch to gas. When switching from gas if it runs out you need petrol to continue running and if you are running at low revs and stall then it takes a bit of cranking to re-prime the carb, an electric pump can do that job without you cranking the engine on the starter for half a minute, so you only have to crank to start once the carb is primed in that set up. It was a long time ago and I can't remember the spec of the pump, pretty sure it was a Facet and 1-1.5bar 15-30 ml/minute rings a bell, but it was adjustable. It made switching over while running on gas and running out say on the Motorway pretty easy and predictable and not too dangerous a speed change or a need to stop. The fuel gauge on the LPG system was next to useless so anticipating running out of LPG wasn't always easy.

Someone who has replaced their mechanical pump with an electric one should hopefully be along shortly with more info, or search may answer your Q better