dalef62 Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 (edited) I inherited my fathers 48 Lincoln coupe with V12 and I am having troubles with getting it to start. I remember him saying something about the fuel pump not working right. He had changed the fuel pump and it is still doing the same thing. I got it to start to move it to my place by taking the line off at the carb and blowing back and forth, thinking one of the check valves were stuck in the pump. It started pumping fuel right after this. I was thinking that the valves in the pump may have been stuck because it sat all winter and that would be the end of the problem till next year, not! I went out the other day to start it and same problem, dump fuel in carb, runs for a few second and then dies. I blew air through the pump from the tank side line and still no start. What could be going on here? It could be dirt in the valves in the pump, but there is a inline filter just before the pump. Thanks for your help. Edited May 10, 2022 by dalef62 (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Harwood Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 I had this issue with my Lincoln and wrongly assumed that it was vapor lock. It was trash in the gas tank. It would run fine for a variable amount of time, but eventually it would die by the side of the road. I rebuilt the entire fuel system, new electric and mechanical fuel pumps, added a filter, and it still happened (hence my belief that it was heat-related). It turned out to be trash in the gas tank settling over the pickup and starving the engine for fuel. It wasn't getting to the filter because the flakes were too large--they just plugged the pick-up. Blowing back through the fuel lines would unclog it for an unknowable amount of time, but it would inevitably get plugged again. If the car has been in storage for a long time, I can guarantee that the gas tank is going to need to be cleaned and sealed. Hopefully that's the problem, but any diagnostics will be difficult without a clean tank. I'd recommend starting there. Hope this helps! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
19tom40 Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 (edited) I agree with Matt, you probably have debris in the tank. Try removing the copper coated steel line from the flex line and blowing towards the tank. If the pump starts delivering fuel, the problem is in the tank or the line from the tank. The inline filter could also be a part of the problem. Most of them tend to leak vacuum and the fuel pump needs to develop at least 12 inches of vacuum in order to get fuel from the tank. You have a very nice Continental and if it was my car I would drop the tank and have it cleaned at a radiator shop and sealed to prevent rust. Then you can throw away your inline filter. I would also replace the steel line from the tank to the firewall as they tend to rust internally and the flex line from the steel line to the fuel pump as they deteriorate internally. If the coils have not been rebuilt by Skip Haney in Florida, I would sent them to him to be rebuilt. Then I would test drive the car to make sure it was reliable, so I could enjoy driving it. I would address any problems found. I don't own a trailer and have driven my cars to all of the meets that I have attended and know guys that have driven their Ford products cross country by doing the things that I recommended here. I believe that you can get the correct fuel line from Third Gen Auto https://thirdgenauto.com/ Some radiator repair shops will service the tank for you. Edited May 10, 2022 by 19tom40 (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimy Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 Flex line can also be coming apart internally creating its own debris.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray500 Posted May 12, 2022 Share Posted May 12, 2022 The old fuel lines on these cars were ordinary steel, subject to rusting and corrosion. i am replacing mine with a new 1/4" stainless steel line along with a new electric fuel pump to assist the engine in starting and running. Some might say it's not the original type, but it's functionality that is the subject here and keeping things running. Same with brake lines. Yes cleaning out fuel tanks is important too since we can't get new replacement ones that also can be made of stainless steel. Any new stainless steel fuel tanks are just 'boxes' to hold fuel, not to mimic original tanks. I don't like the idea of coating the inside of the fuel tank with coating material, it can in time break up and clog the system, that's what the filters are good at preventing. But the nature of rusting steel, junk gas with ethanol that adds water to the gas is the big problem. But remember these cars were never produced to last 100 years of which we've shown them can actually happen! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
19tom40 Posted May 12, 2022 Share Posted May 12, 2022 Properly applied tank coatings last a long time. If the surface is clean and the coating is applied in a coat thin enough to cover the tank and allowed to cure, you should have no problem with it. A common mistake is to drain the excess coating through the drain hole instead of the sending unit hole it the top of the tank. By draining the excess coating out the top of the tank, you leave the thicker coating in the area that is most exposed to air and H2O instead of the bottom where the fuel protects the tank. About 1/4 of a quart of Bill Hirsch's coating will do a 15 gal tank. I coated the tank on my 40 Coupe in 1978 and it was still in good condition in 2005 when I decide to remove the dent in the bottom of the tank. The removal required heating the metal, so I had to remove the coating. After the repair, I re-coated the tank and have had not problems with the coating. That is 44 years of experience with tank coating without a problem. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalef62 Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 OK, I am back at working on the fuel problem on this car. I removed the rebuilt pump, tore it apart and checked the check valves in the pump, seem to be sealing good. Diaphragm looks in good shape, no cracking or tears. Pump arm looks good, but I did pull it out and it has an oval shaped hole for the pivot rod, designed that way. rod from cam seems to move about 1/2"- 3/4" up and down. Replaced fuel filter and tank is clean and lines are good! I put it all back together and it will not pump fuel... Dump fuel in carb, fires up and then dies. do this several times with no change. take fuel line off before fuel pump, force gas in the pump glass filter bowl and connect everything back up and put a little fuel in carb and.... away it goes, runs like a top! The fuel pump is a recent rebuild, 2008, Airtex 571. I suspect that the fuel pump is not sealing good enough to pick up fuel when it has dried from the pump after sitting for a day or two. Would a new pump correct this problem? Or do I just get an electric fuel pump and hit it just to prime the mechanical pump then shut it off? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray500 Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 What, no electric in line fuel pump to get things moving? This is all very basic. You can always put on a new fuel pump if you suspect it isn't working. You can also activate the main engine fuel pump off the car to see if there's any vacuum on the input of it. Put some gas in a small container, rig up the pump to pump from that to another container as your work the lever the pump rod does. If not, toss the pump and get a new one! They're too cheap to get stalled by the side of the road. The electric in line pump is necessary at times to get fuel moving into the carb! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
19tom40 Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 You have symptoms of a vacuum leak on the supply side of the fuel pump. If you have the fuel pump with the glass bowl, the bowl gasket may be leaking vacuum. I would replace the gasket with a rubberized cork gasket. If that did not solve the problem, replace the flex line before the pump. Make sure that all connections are tight but not over tight. I am not a fan of electric fuel pumps or inline fuel filters. I like to see a solid steel fuel line from the tank to the firewall, to prevent vacuum leaks. My 40 Mercury sits for months and starts withing 30 seconds. Before I replaced the fuel line in 1990, I had to prime the carburetor several time to get it running after sitting more than a week. I had to move it from one garage to another last week. I had not started the engine since June 30th, due to health problems. It started right up within 15 seconds. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalef62 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 3 hours ago, 19tom40 said: If you have the fuel pump with the glass bowl, the bowl gasket may be leaking vacuum. I would replace the gasket with a rubberized cork gasket. If that did not solve the problem, replace the flex line before the pump. Make sure that all connections are tight but not over tight. The glass bowl has a thick cork gasket, I will change it out to a rubberized cork gasket. Will let you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalef62 Posted November 28, 2022 Author Share Posted November 28, 2022 I believe I have solved the problem. I had several fuel pumps, the one that I was using was a new one and I didn't like the arm setup, it had an oval hole for the pivot pin hole and felt that it wasn't allowing full travel of the diaphragm. I changed out the diaphragm from the new pump into the older original(?) pump and tried that. Tightened the bowl and sucked and blew on the inlet and noticed that the bowl was still leaking air. Tightening it more solved that problem and now the car will start on it's own. After two weeks of sitting I started it, took a few seconds of cranking but it started on it's own! Now to get a rubber gasket for the filter bowl and it should be good to go! Thanks for all the assistance on this problem, on to the next... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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