Fuel issue?

[chaseincats]

Hi guys,

I was driving my 78 today and the car died while driving.

I pulled over, checked for spark, pulled the oil pressure switch to force the pump on and nothing.  I have a manual trigger for the cold start valve and when I did it, the car tried to start but after the fuel rail was cleared of fuel, that trick no longer worked.  Eventually, after playing around with it further by pulling the fuel pressure regulator hose it started.  I then put everything back the way it was and it continued to run a little rough but smoothed out leading me to believe the stuff I did under the hood didn't change anything.

The rest of the trip went fine and it ran great including another hour-home drive.  The pump is at least 7 years old (the amount of time I've owned the car) and that could be dying (or dirty) but a strange thing I noticed is during the short trip in which it died (after driving for 45 minutes), the starter sounded different, almost like it was struggling to turn.

After the car died, for all subsequent cranks after that, the starter sounded perfectly normal.  I know these are two different problems but I'm curious if any of you have any ideas as to why both happened on the same trip (the car died about 3 minutes after that starting cranking issue).

The battery is really strong (per the volt gauge) so it shouldn't be that.

 

Any ideas?

-chase

[Zed Head]

Even though the fuel pump motor is bathed in gasoline it can still overheat and stop working.  People have reported similar in the past.

No ideas on the two things happening on the same trip.  The starter motor draws a lot more amps than the fuel pump.  Once the solenoid is engaged it has its own dedicated big wire circuit.

[chaseincats]

11 hours ago, Zed Head said:

Even though the fuel pump motor is bathed in gasoline it can still overheat and stop working.  People have reported similar in the past.

No ideas on the two things happening on the same trip.  The starter motor draws a lot more amps than the fuel pump.  Once the solenoid is engaged it has its own dedicated big wire circuit.

That shouldn't be ok though I'd think, right?  Guessing it's at least a sign of it needing to be replaced sooner rather than later, no?