Thanks Ted. With my old fuel pump, which was on the engine for decades, the pressure in the fuel rail would evaporate virtually immediately. There was also a very consistent wavering of the fuel pressure when running, almost like a very quick windshield wiper action, between 3 and 4 lb, as shown by the inline gauge. This would seem to indicate to me some kind of consistent inefficiency in the pump’s action. Yet it performed well under all load conditions—only replaced it due to the oil leak.

I had a ’68 Cougar that had a series of fuel pump failures in a short period of time.  The pumps would simply fail to pick up fuel from the tank.  In some of the instances when the engine quit, the fuel line could be reverse blown back to the tank and that would fix the problem for the short term.  But the problem would continue on for several months with several pumps simply failing from what ended up being a problem with the fuel line from the tank to the pump.  The steel line had a natural trap built into it due to having to run around various bends in the frame that caught debris and rust from the tank and that unwanted material would simply plug up the line where it had to make an uphill transition.  Blowing the line backwards would temporarily clear the obstruction but because there were too many bends in that line, the debris was not getting cleared out regardless of the line being blown out from front to rear or rear to front.  Eventually found the problem with the line and simply replaced that section which cured the problem.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Thank you Ted. I did blow compressed air backward through the fuel line from the pump, and I heard strong bubbling in the tank immediately. That is to say, if there was/is an obstruction there was no delay in clearing it, at least temporarily. In any case, I think the next logical thing is to check out the line from the fuel tank.

Is there a "sock" on the fuel pickup in your tank? I've seen them get plugged up before and cause fuel starvation.

"FREE SAMPLE"

I don’t think so. I think my car pre-dates the sock.