Bosch 5kcstq fuel pump death after 2.5 years

[Ben Swann]

Well, I posted a few days ago about a 2.5 year old pump that began leaking
through the casing on one of my 4kqs.

Yestereday, I pulled another one - seemed to have just been replaced.  As I
recall the P.O. dumped the car on me for cheap because he kept running into
fuel issues - new filter, pre-filter, and the "new" bad pump were present.
 The darn pump was drawing so much current is was pegging my 6 AMP charger
at 10 AMPs and making a crackling arcing noise, though it did seem to be
pumping begrudgingly, it was too much for the cars electrical.

Put in another newer pump - car runs fine now.  The proud new owner was
there to witness the resurrection of this '84 4kq.  He came by today and
compounded out the paint - beautiful.

Wonder how many other cars like this have been dumped for crappy
replacement pump.  Yes that one did have Czech Republic stamped on it too.
 The tank was drained - no debris and filters were clean.

Is there some kind of recall on these expensive units?

Ben

[Jim -

I'll take another look at my tank for debris at the bottom. I noticed
none previously, but if it's the same color as the tank bottom, I
suppose it blends in. I'll wipe a rag down there.

I'm thinking of doing some flow rate measurements. I intend to put the
pump in a tub of gas and pump into a separate tub. That won't simulate
the pressure that the pump must generate in the car, but still might be
useful. I'll measure volume/time for
(1a) Czech pump as is (with screen still on, 2.5 years use)
(1b) Czech pump with screen cut off
(2a) German pump as is (with screen still on, 13 years use, 2.5 years
sittin')
(2b) German pump with screen cut off

Let's see if I can manage to do this without spewing gas all over
myself... may be best to loosely reinstall the test pumps in the tank
for this experiment...

- Wallace
   '87 5kcstq 190k


james accordino wrote:
> I'm interested in this as well.  Mine is also in this
> time window and is also an early Czech pump.  I think
> they probably had some QC glitchs when they first
> cranked up the factory.  The workers weren't fully up
> to speed, blah, blah.  Hopefully Bob has ironed out
> the kinks by now, but who knows.  I don't think the
> tank level is an issue, as long as you don't have alot
> of debris in there.  I always put in at least 19 gals.
> and have done as much as 20.8.  I can make two
> complete trips to work and back on a tankful and buy
> at a cheap place that has pretty new holding tanks.
> This is big factor.  I've seen the insides of 15-25
> yr. old tanks removed.  Not pretty.  Every time they
> remove the cap to refill, all kinds of crap falls/blow
> down the hole.  They DO have filters, but...  Good
> luck and let us know.
>
> Jim Accordino]