Hello,

I have a 122 with fuel injection and have had an odd problem as of late. This last weekend I attended a driver's school and autocross. All day in a parking lot in the sun gets pretty hot. In the afternoons the car would sputter and eventually die after enough of these episodes. Driving back home Sunday I was able to watch the air-fuel meter and saw it would get really lean (off the scale) and then sputter. It generally came back up and off I went for another 50 yards. This got worse until I'd have to pull off and wait for things to cool down. I topped off the tank all the way to be sure it was not an issue with the pickup which did not solve the problem.

Well, I noticed that, when trying to restart after a complete dying, the fuel pump made the same sound it does when I run out of gas. This leads me to believe that the pump is not able to draw the fuel out of the tank to pump forward. The pump is mounted on the spare tire well, as low as I can reasonably get it. Fuel level in the tank is not an issue. There is not an issue with pressure, positive or negative, in the tank, because removing the gas cap does not help it start. I don't think it's an across the board shortcoming of the pumps as my 1800E has never had this problem. The pump was also brand new at the time the car was built about 7,000 miles ago (has it really been that long? Wow).

Any theorists have an idea? Could it just be a bad pump? I think I'm going to replace it with a different bosch unit or some aftermarket number, but want to try cheap fixes first, of course.

Thanks.

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Justin 70 1800E, 66 122E