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Hey everyone,
Just discovered something that seems to get dead fuel pumps working again. This should work for any fuel pump found in 240s, but I caon;t say I know much about the early years.
A couple of weeks ago, the in-tank pump stopped working on my project 240. I pulled it out and had another on hand but discovered it was different dimensions and would not fit in my sender unit. Instead of 'buy another one' or try my luck at the PNP, I just tried to get the failed pump working again. The gas tank the pump was in had problems with bad gas last year and so I suspected this was the cause of failure. After some thinking, I decided to try putting isopropyl alcohol into the intake of the pump and spinning those little vanes back and forth. Sure enough, doing that a couple of times clean up the gunk and allowed the pump to spin freely again. I put it back in the tank and it's been working fine since.
Today I was cleaning up around the garage and I looked through a stack of old fuel pumps, both main and in tank, that wouldn't do anything with voltage applied. Since I had luck with the other one, I gave it a shot again. I started with the other in-tank pump I had that looked like crap with flaky fuel sediments all over it. I flipped it over, dumped in some alcohol and spun the vanes around. Gave it 12 volts and again it came to life!
Ok, so that was easy enough, but would it work with the main pump? I tried and it does work! It wasn't as easy to do, you cant access the vanes so to speak, but I filled it up with alcohol and let it sit. I also gave it some taps around the outside to free up anything that might be stuck. It didn't work right away, but after a few rounds of alcohol and tapping and some light prodding down the input tube of the pump it started spinning again! I noticed some linear play when I inserted a screwdriver into the pump (piece inside moved slightly forward and backward along the axis of the pump. Upon applying plight pressure on that part and giving it 12v is just came back to life instantly. The pump wasn't a bosch, it was an aftermarket made in germany.
I then tried another aftermarket main pump that looked cheap. I let it sit for a little bit with just alcohol and no tapping. When I gave it 12v it spun right up (I didn't try that one before I started, so maybe it was working, but it was in my pile of dead pumps).
Now I've got an official Bosch pump in the vice with alcohol sitting in it. Giving it voltage I hear the mechanical jerk of the motor trying to go, so I think its going to work on this one too!
So steps for recovery:
Remove and place in vice or something to keep pump vertical with pump input on top.
Add alcohol until it overflows.
If in tank: spin the vanes inside with a paperclip or small tool
if main pump: let sit, gentle tapping around the casing, multiple applications of alcohol may be necessary. Possibility of assisting freeing of stuck parts with prodding down input tube of pump
Hope that helps someone in need on the cheep
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'82 245 B21F-MPG-LH 1.0, '83 244 B21FT-K-Jet, '86 244 B23F-LH 2.0
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