Larry wrote- >Last, if someone has been injured or died from a single point failure of a >mechanical fuel pump >I suspect there is more to the story. Just my guess.
Yes, there is more to this story. I don't know if anyone has been injured or died from a single point failure of the original mechanical fuel pump on the Corvair, but those pumps are certainly not the way to go on a flight Corvair conversion. They are a diaphragm type pump with fuel on one side of the diaphragm and the other side open to the crankcase where the actuating pushrod comes up from the eccentric that pumps the diaphragm. Failures of the diaphragm -a single point failure- have occurred, sometimes in significant numbers depending on the timeframe when those were manufactured. Raw fuel dumping into the crankcase through the ruptured diaphragm will not do anything to improve engine lubrication and pumping fuel vapor out the breather creates a fire hazard. Worse than a total rupture would be a tear or a hole in the diaphragm, which could allow the engine to continue running for a considerable time in that condition before it quit from fuel starvation, seized from lack of l ubrication, or something caught fire from the fuel being pumped around inside the engine and vented out the breather. In the early days of aero conversion of these engines, the simplicity and lack of need for any external power to operate the stock fuel pump made them attractive, especially for those on a budget. Just connect hoses and you've got pressurized fuel from a simple, low-profile, stock pump. Not a good idea on flight engines though. Oscar Zuniga Medford, OR Air Camper NX41CC, A75 power 164cid Corvair partially converted ________________________________ -Please see LIST RULES and KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html -Change list delivery options at https://list.krnet.org/list/krnet.list.krnet.org/ Affinity List Info Board -Search recent KRnet Archives at https://list.krnet.org/empathy/list/krnet.list.krnet.org/ -Search John Bouyea's decades of archive at https://www.mail-archive.com/krnet@list.krnet.org/
