90q fuel pump questions

[Paul Heneghan <paul.heneghan@bbc.co.uk>]

From: quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)

>Order replacement fuel pump mounting bushes.  At least one _will_ be
>defective.  . . . <snip>

Phil, you were obviously spying on me at 20:00 one night in January
1996!

I had to replace one of the fuel pump mounting bushes for an MOT.  The
old one had sheared where the rubber meets the metal.  So, in my
infinite wisdom, I decided to drill it out!  Of course I drilled through
the remains of the bushing and straight through one of those
ridiculously flimsy fuel pipes.

Scenario:  Me lying wedged under car, electric drill rotating at
2,500rpm (complete with blue sparks from brushes) in my hand, petrol
spraying all over the place.

As I needed the car the next day, I had no alternative but to carry on
and try and get the car in a working state for the next morning.  So I
decided to take the pipe off, cut off the mangled bit (fortunately very
close to one end) and try and reterminate the connector at the end.
Needless to say, I couldn't disconnect the pipe from the pump as
everything had rusted into place and nothing was budging.  Not being
afraid of applying a little muscle (beats brains any day) to little
problems of this kind, I put my full strength into it . . . and sheared
one of the electrical terminals off the fuel pump.

I was obviously on a run, so I thought I might as well carry on and
hopefully beat the car into such a pulp that I could claim vandals had
got at it and get lots of money from the insurance company!  Actually,
things did get slightly better after that.  I managed to grip the check
valve tightly enough so that I could unscrew the banjo from it before I
sheared off the other terminal.  The broken terminal was a bugger to
solder though - I'm not sure what metal it's made of, but it doesn't
stick to solder very well.  The fitting on the fuel pipe is rather
interesting - there's no clamp holding it in place.  I heated up the old
pipe in a cup of boiling water to make it flexible and got the fitting
to fit into it.  Although I bought a new pipe the next day, I have yet
to fit it 2.5 years later on.

Of course all this took place between about 20:00 to 01:00 out in my
front drive in January.  It took me the rest of the night to thaw out.
At least it wasn't raining.

This was all because a crappy little GBP2 bushing had disintegrated!

Paul

p.s. Tom - I haven't forgotton your brochure, but I haven't been to an
Audi dealer for a couple of years now.