Like it says....I'm still dealing with a hot pump issue.
Yesterday I drove the Monster to work, waiting on the end of the day so that I could go straight to this new cruise-in thing that was being advertised by one of our suburb cities trying to drum up business for the local merchants. In Gadsden, (about 50 miles NE from here), they have a monthly "First Friday" event that is gigantic. The whole town city center becomes a giant festival,..local vendors stay open till 9 PM, 4 live bands are playing on different streets, and the custom/collector/antique cars...(900 of them) are all over the place.
Trussville decides they want that to happen too, so they create a "3rd Saturday". And invite the cars and people to come there as well.
Except there is only one main street running through this part of the city,...It's actually a highway, and the local merchants that are in and around this area offer nothing to the bystanders that would come to gawk at the cars..(i.e. there's a realtor,..a bike shop, a bank, a furniture store, an auto repair shop, a law office,.....that kind of crap) No boutique shops, no restaurants,....no bands...It's Stupid Larry.
But I've never been there and I don't know all of this.
I decided to drive down the highway to get there instead of taking the interstate route. That meant red lights, alot of them, excessive idling,..and 95 degree's. A perfect opportunity to test out my cooling system.
The cooling system worked perfectly however, and just as soon as my "reads 10 degrees too hot" temp gauge showed me 212 degrees,...I watched it stop rising, and hold right there. Then,.....as soon as this car moves through the air, the temp falls steadily down to 180-186... (170-176).
But,.......the fuel pump......
What starts out making the same whirring noise all electric fuel pumps make, and can't be heard over all of the rest of the noise this car makes, now starts to become painfully obvious.
By the time I get to this venue to see that there are only 4-5 cars in attendance, and are taking up what looks to be the ONLY space that the event has dedicated for those cars.. I look over and think..
You're shtting me? Really? 5 cars? I drive by the thing, go up the street (highway) a mile, turn around and come back. When I get in front of the parking area (and decide to blow this venue off and go on to the regular 3rd Saturday night cruise-in) the pump is howlin' bloody hell. I needed to get on the interstate and maybe give the fuel system a chance to cool down?.
But,.....No sooner do I get on the interstate does the engine quit. I pull over at the head of what is the on ramp.
Now what?
I sit there one minute, and try a restart. It starts. Again I merge into interstate traffic.
It dies.
Now I'm further up the interstate......In the middle of nowhere, sequestered to a shoulder w/ giant 18 wheelers whipping by me at 80 MPH...But I get out to see just how hot that freaking pump is.
It's warm to the touch...far from what I'd call hot. I decide to wait a few minutes....But those 18 wheelers convince me that that isn't such a good idea.
I open the hood,...I turn the key and see if I got fuel pressure...I do.
I try to start it,..... it does. Close the hood,..get in the car,....drive home.
When I pull into the garage, the pump sounds like there should be a full moon out, and somehow,..somewhere there is a freakin WereWolf under my car. I should re name the pump to Lawrence Talbot.
So......Perfect.
I got knees coming up. I'm not s'posed to crawl anymore.
When I moved into this house, I bought the FRPP 3.31's, the bearing set, and the T-loc rebuild kit for this car in anticipation of converting the 3.73's over to a more street car friendly gear considering that I have such a deep first gear on the 4R70w.
But haven't done that yet. So that stuff is sitting down there.....new,.....in boxes.
And what I really need is a reliable fuel pump/system.
The only thing left that I can do w/ the tank is to fill the damn thing w/ fuel cell foam. and extend the return fitting w/ a tube that submerges the return fuel outlet into the fuel to stop any cavitation and slosh that's going on. I've already eliminated as many tight 90's as I can,...so there's nothing else I can look at except the damn cheap assed pump.
This is a damn, cheap assed pump.
Originally branded as a Mallory Marine,..I started having connection issues, and had to buy a different unit to replace it.
MSD bought Mallory. So now the pump is listed w/ a MSD model number. Summit has the same pump w/ their model number on it.....and.........So does Aeromotive.
Only the Mallory, MSD, and Summit pump are about half as expensive as the Aeromotive piece. 220 dollars vs 370 dollars.
And everyone of these pumps look exactly the same. So,...made sense to me that it was, and I replaced the Mallory w/ the Summit version.
When I was dealing with this crap the last time, I contacted Aeromotive, and asked them what made their pump so damn much more expensive than the obvious clone that everybody else was marketing...
They claimed that it was better.
Now I'm gonna find out.
I'll send the gears back to Summit tomorrow, and exchange them for that Aeromotive pump. In reality, the gears are really not that much of an issue...having a car that stays running is way more important.