[TR] TR3A electric fuel pump.

[Philip Ethier]

On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 6:04 PM <johnbmacartney at gmx.com> wrote:

The only time I used a FACET fuel pump it failed on me after about 13,000
> miles in the middle of a major junction in Vancouver in the rush hour!
>

And I know why.  The pump was mounted in the stock location.  After a year
or so, I had to prime the pump every spring.  In Colorado, the thing
refused to work properly.  I drove the Suburban from Brekenridge to Frisco
to buy another one.  That worked for a while.  I finally woke up to
remember that when I put a low-pressure FACET in my Europa, the
instructions said the pump should be placed lower than the level of the
gasoline.   At a Minnesota Triumphs tech session, we repositioned the pump
to the lowest place practical; bolted to the floor of the spare-tire
compartment against the front of the compartment, close to the fuel tank
where it did not interfere with the spare tire.  Not a bit of trouble for
over a decade.  Kicking myself that I did not remember that part of the
factory instructions from so long ago.


> I think this was because it wanted to operate at around 8psi when the
> carbs only needed 2 to 3 psi and therefore a restrictor had to be put in
> the delivery line.
>

FACET made these pumps in two pressure ranges.  I made sure to get the
low-pressure variety. The Europa came to me with a huge AC fuel pump inline
with a pressure regulator.  The pressure was set too high for the liking of
the 45MM side-draft Weber carb, so I turned down the pressure with the knob
on the regulator until the Weber behaved.  In my ignorance, I did not
realize that turning down the pressure turned down the flow rate.  This
came to my attention at a Corvettes Of Minnesota two-lap autocross.  There
was a left-hand sweeper on the course which I drove well on the first lap
of the run, but exiting the same turn on the second lap the car swapped
ends and the engine died.  The exact same thing happened on the second
run.  For my third run, I resolved to go light on this turn on the second
lap to learn what I was doing wrong.  The Lotus engine cut out just after
the turn.  I had not spun the car and killed the engine.  The engine died
when the float chamber emptied and spun the car.  I tossed the AC pump and
regulator in the bin and installed a low-pressure FACET, properly as low on
the car as possible and preceded by a filter, and had no problems
thereafter.


> I wasn’t aware Lucas made a fuel pump - apart from the ones for the fuel
> injected cars -
>

Dick O'Kane wrote about Lucas pumps long before fuel injection was a thing
in common British cars.  These pumps were installed inside the fuel tank.
 O'Kane wrote that if you ever put too-large a fuse in a circuit for a
Lucas fuel pump you could have a "truly epic fire".

Phil Ethier
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