[VB] diagnosing bad fuel pump?

[Kevin Guarnotta]

We I'm having some trouble with my '65. It has sort of become a weekend
warrior - as I don't really drive it much during the week, I use my truck
mostly during the week, and the bus on the weekends - that is until the salt
starts to fly.

 

Anyway this what is happening, and what I've tried to do to fix it so far. 

 

I go to start the bus, and it starts ok. I drive a mile or 10. I stop. I get
out of car for a bit (stop to get gas, pick a friend up, drop someone
off.etc.) I go back to start bus, and it will not start. It turns over,
fairly strong, but won't start. I try a jumper battery pak - thinking extra
Voltage may help. But it doesn't. Eventually I get it to start, but it take
a lot of babying with the accelerator pedal. 

 

While driving around, sometime I seem to lose almost all power - but it is
not consistent. For example I'll hit a red light - maybe 1 time out of 5 the
bus struggles mightily to get going again. If the bus is in neutral, and it
is idling, and I hit the accelerator pedal, the engine RPMS do not increase
in the slightest. 

 

Sometimes it even stalls. That happened twice today. Kind of a royal pain,
especially when in a busy intersection. Eventually I made it home. 

 

What I've done over the last couple months - tune up, adjust valves, oil
change, new spark plug wires, new distributor cap, took off carb, soaked it
in carb cleaner, replaced gaskets in carb.

 

I'm starting to think fuel pump, as it seems like it is starved for gas, and
I'm thinking the times I have problems, are when I'm going uphill. But maybe
I'm just associating the hill part, and that is correlation and not
causation. 

 

Anyway - as my feeling say fuel pump - is that something that could cause
intermittent problems, or is it something that either works or doesn't. Is
there a way to test it. If the pump is bad, is it something I should repair,
or just get a new one. They look like they are only about $20 to $30. If the
new ones are junk, and I should repair the old one, I could do that..let me
know.

 

Some more info - this is my '65 bus. It has an alternator, it is 12V. If you
need more info to help with the diagnosis, let me know.

 

As usual, thanks for all your opinions.

 

-Kevin Guarnotta

Jamaica Plain, MA

 

'78 Westy

'69 Singlecab

'65 Ez-camper