Firewall Forward

Good news! Not only has my new fuel pump arrived, but I was able to sell my old one very quickly. It sold on the VAF classifieds almost immediately. I got $150 for it. I'm very happy. I was able to sell my pump for what my new one cost me. The buyer even paid the shipping, so it didn't cost me anything to trade pumps. I'm so thankful for the internet, and for VAF, and for all the resources we have available to us. Here's my new pump, ready to be installed (looks just the same, doesn't it!). I ordered a new gasket from Aircraft Spruce, but when it got here it was the wrong size and shape. So rather than order another one, wait some more, and still not be sure if it's the right one, I went to the local auto parts supplier and bought some gasket material. It's identical to the stuff the gasket was made out of. I got a whole roll of it for about $6.00. Then I carefully cut out a new one, as seen here. Not bad, eh? I spent some time on this; I'm actually quite proud of it.

Now for the tricky installation. How am I going to keep that rod up out of the way long enough to slip the lever underneath it and push this pump onto the engine? How will I make sure it's all okay? I reached in again and again, lifting the rod up and pushing it up out of the way, seeing how much time I had before it slipped back down. It stayed up momentarily before slipping down each time, but there just isn't enough time to slip this pump in under it. I can't risk it. Finally, I came up with an idea. I put some permatex on the gasket and put the gasket on the pump, and got it all ready to go. I got a long piece of fine thread. Then I made a simple circular loop in the middle of the thread. It took me a few minutes of fiddling with it, but I was able to get the loop inside the opening and over the rod. It was as if you had reached in there and wrapped the thread around the rod one time and brought both ends out to hang on to. That's what I meant by "circular loop". Then I experimented. By holding the thread with one hand and pulling it tight, I reached in and pushed the rod up out of the way. As long as I held tension on the thread, the rod stayed up! So while holding it up like that, I carefully slid the pump into place and pushed the two bolts into the bolt holes. With the pump in all the way, up against the surface of the engine, I knew the lever was under the rod. Then I carefully pulled on one end of the thread to slip it out past the gasket and the pump and pull it out. As long as you haven't tightened the bolts yet, the thread will come out and you won't hurt the gasket. Once free, I proceeded to tighten and torque the bolts, and safety-wire them. Done! Man, am I glad to have this finished!

Above, you can see some special fittings that I put on the pump before installing it. Van's sells these fittings for your fuel pump. There are specific hoses that go on, and these fittings make it all work right. But first, some closeups of the bolts and the safety wire.

The T-fitting on the outlet side of the pump serves 2 functions. There is a 45° restrictor fitting for the fuel pressure hose, and then the fuel line that will go to the engine. Here you can see a white cap on the restrictor fitting. The fuel line comes out the bottom of this fitting underneath the restrictor. It has the cap with the bar code showing on it. The blue AN fitting is for an overflow tube that will drain away any overflow excess fuel in a safe manner.

So now that the pump is on, I can start the plumbing. So next, I hooked up the fuel pressure hose to the restrictor fitting.

The other end goes straight up to the 90° fitting on the bottom spot on the transducer manifold, right below the oil pressure line installed earlier. I'm concerned a bit about this hose scuffing on the firewall. I'm going to have to look into a way to secure it with a clamp, or perhaps put some clear anti-chafe tubing around it or something.

Next, I also bought this 14" fuel hose from Vans. This is the one recommended in the firewall forward kit. I took some time to install it, from the outlet coming through the firewall, up to the fuel pump on the engine. I'm not totally happy with how this fits.

Here's a view looking down from up on top. I had to force this in here, and I think it's too long. You can see looking down that it goes to the left before coming up to the fitting on the fuel pump on the right. In the picture above, it goes forward too far and then has to come back to get to the pump. It almost has a kink in it from the turn it has to make. I undid the end on the fuel pump and did some careful measuring. If it were about 2" shorter, it would work a lot better and I think with less stress on it. I think I'm going to return it to Vans and see about getting one made from Bonaco to a custom length, since this is the only size Vans keeps in stock for this application. But I'm going to wait for now. I'm probably going to have other hoses that I need, too. When I know what else I need, I'll order them all at once.

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