IML: Fuel Leak

["Eric" <gearhead@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom,
Thank you for sharing your photos of your beautiful '56 coupe. 
http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1956/56Cox/index.htm
It's no wonder 20 people stopped for that beauty!

About your fuel situation. I had a mysterious raw fuel smell with my '64 
Crown Coupe. I never saw a leak on the ground but I did notice the rubber 
hose to the fuel pump was delaminating down to it's threads. I thought this 
was the source of the fuel odor, that it may be seeping from this hose. I 
put it on my long to-do list.

To make a short story more exciting, I'll explain how I learned the real 
source of the odor. I was being tailgated on a stretch of open hiway a 
couple of weeks ago. I thought I'd show the tailgater something so I floored 
the throttle. After losing him in a cloud of unburned hydrocarbon droplets, 
I realized he was lost in a whole lot more smoke than there should be. Then 
I heard a noise, felt a loss of power steering assist, and decided to pull 
my old smokey over to see what broke.

A few days prior to this, I noted one of the twin A/C - alternator belts had 
a twist in it around the bottom of the crank pulley. I had planned a 
replacement of these belts soon so I left it as it was. This belt then broke 
when I floored the throttle, throwing it's twin off, as well as throwing the 
power steering belt off, answering my loss of power steering. The broken 
belt snapped apart the transmission coolant line compression fit connector 
causing transmission fluid to spray all over the compartment, explaining the 
large cloud of smoke.

I made short work of straightning the bent transmission line, reattaching 
the compression fit connector, refilling my transmission with fluid, and 
putting back the power steering and the remaining A/C - alt belt. When I 
started the car, I let it idle and watched for leaks at the transmission 
line fitting. It didn't leak but I did notice a substantial leak at the fuel 
pump. This fuel pump leak was in a spot unrelated to my snapped drive belt 
trouble and I could see that it was spewing gas onto the above mentioned 
fuel hose that had deteriorated.

On one side of the fuel pump, there is a round, drilled hole right above the 
diaphram. Fuel was being pumped out from this hole. As an emergency roadside 
fix, I found a disposed of cigarette butt and compressed it into the hole. 
That butt helped, but it did let a bit of gas to be spit out, and provided a 
wheezing noise. We got a kick out of my bronchitis afflicted filtered fuel 
pump leak.

I've not yet opened up the leaking fuel pump, but I suspect the diaphram may 
have ruptured long ago. I had a used fuel pump that I later replaced it with 
and it is without this hole. Maybe this hole is an early warning mechanism 
to tell the owner that the pump is about to go?  I have a new pump for a 
Slant 6 that does have a similar vent or bleed hole.

Short story of it is, you may want to check your fuel pump for leaks with 
the engine idling.

Hope my long mysterious leak tale helps your situation.

Eric
1964 Crown Coupe
________________________________________________
From: "tdcox" <tdcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: IML: 2,000 mile trip
My wife and I have just returned from a nearly 2,000 mile trip in our 56
Southampton coupe.
...The only odd thing that we noticed on our return trip was that our gas
mileage dropped in half, to about 7 mpg. I was pretty sure the timing =
was off but didn=92t expect such a decrease. When we arrived home, I washed 
the
car and found that the entire passenger side of the car had a thick oily
substance all over it. Also, we smelled gas fumes on the last half of =
the trip. Wonder if this could be a leaky fuel pump; the oil level was fine, 
so
I assume it is fuel related.
 Thanks to the Webmonsters for adding pictures of our car to the
56 Imperials




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