Hello all, kinda new to the Forum, but I've been lurking for a while. I am the proud owner of a '68 SS (probably not real, just looks it). I've had the car for a couple of months now. It has an unknown vintage 350 with a 4 barrel carb, 4 speed car.

As I was driving today, the car stalled on me. It felt like it ran out of gas.
Kind of embarassing (gauge showed approx. 1/8 tank), but I was 5 minutes from home, and had the wife bring me over a gallon of gas. I put most of it in, but the car wouldn't start. I then dribbled a little into the carb, after which it started for about 10 seconds, then was dead again.

It's been a long time since I've dealt with anything other than fuel injection, but my first instinct is "fuel pump." But I don't remember these mechanical pumps failing much, and when they do its usually pretty catastrophic. No evidence here of that.

What do you guys think? I'm leaning toward the sending unit in the tank, but I sure could use a second opinion. Thanks..

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Check your oil. Does it smell like gas? If it is then it is the fuel pump. Just a good place to start. Then check your fuel filter.

 

If a mechanical pump goes bad, it's usually because of a bad diaphragm inside. Although it could leak into the engine, from past experience I would more expect gas to run out of the weep hole in the bottom of the pump body where you would see it.
What kind of carburetor do you have? Depending on which, you might have a sintered bronze filter in the inlet fitting on the carb. Those are very fine, and can clog up if you have gas with crap in it.
Could be that your gas gauge isn't accurate, and one gallon wasn't enough to get it running. But that is one gallon more than you had when it quit, unless the car is now on an incline?

 

i would check filter then if not that try the pump.

 

Working 12 hour night shifts right now, so working on it is tough. But...

I stopped and picked up a filter this morning, and after replacing it, no fuel visible in the filter housing. The car is on level ground, but I forgot to smell the oil. I'll check that this afternoon when I get up. Should I throw another gallon of gas in it? Or is that a waste?

Its an Edelbrock carb, but with fuel not making it to the carb, I don't think the carb is the problem. Gotta be the mechanical pump or the sending unit. At least that's where I'm at so far... Anyone else?

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I'd fill it up with more than a gallon of gas. Start with 5 gals. and then see if it will start. If it wont, then remove the gas line from the carb and put the end in a 1 gal. jug. Disconnect the coil lead and have someone crank the engine and see if it pumps gas into the jug. If it doesn't then remove any filter between the pump and the carb and repeat this. If it still doesn't get gas, then remove the line feeding the pump and check that gas is getting to the pump. Need to troubleshoot these things in a certain order, or you'll end up spending money needlessly.

 

Thanks for the replies. Maybe I need to be a little more clear. The inline filter that I put in has a glass housing, so I can see that there's no fuel getting to the carb. So - as previously suggested, I need to disconnect the line feeding the mechanical pump and see if I get gas to that point.

Edit:

My memory seems to be failing me. I'm getting my fuel injection stuff intermingled with this old school stuff. There is no fuel pump in the tank, just the sending unit for level indication, right? I just need to be sure the line between the tank and the fuel pump is clear.

Thanks again guys. Slowly but surely this stuff is coming back to me...

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After work this morning, I put about 4-5 gallons of gas into the car, and still no start. With the glass filter housing, I could still see that no gas was getting to the carb. 20 minutes and one fuel pump later, we had success.

So the moral of this lesson is that the failure of a mechanical fuel pump is not always catastrophic, there was no evidence of leakage or failure. I suspect the valves inside the pump went bad, but who knows.

Thanks for all the help guys, hopefully this thread will help someone else out too...

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One major word of advice get rid of that piece of crap glass filter!!! they are known to crack/leak spuing fuel all over hot headers/exhaust manifolds leading to a certian fire!!!!! please replace it asap with a good sealed metal one!!!

 

mechanical fuel pumps fail alot , add more fuel to the tank, if it pulls fuel you may have a bad fuel pick up issue in the tank if not, remove the line from the carb and crank the engine no fuel chanes are you have a bad pump, gm fuel pump sening unit from empty to full is 0-90ohms easy to check the sending unit with the sending unit out of the tank, good luck