Fuel pump & relay problems

[craigy]

Thursday brought me my first experience of low loader - TVR association. Roof down, lovely sunshine, Sussex countryside...... and sudden silence from my scaffold poles/ Exhaust.
With an hour to wait for Recovery Services I thought i'd have a tinker as I had a suspicion it was fuel starvation. Low and behold no fuel delivery. Traced to fuel pump relay which had melted.
Bought new relay which got the car going, but it still seems to be heating up a bit. I also now notice a distinct whir of the fuel pump on turning the ignition on (which was not noticable before). The noise doesn,t sound as if the pump's faulty but it seems strange that it was silent before this problem.
I have checked connections etc, which seem ok. Could it be a blockage or is my fuel pump knackered. By the way the car still drives fine. Any help would be appreciated along with tips on removing the pump / accumulator or anything else that may affect it.

[apache]

had exactly this with my Griff, in the end pump and relay were changed. makes sense really, if the pump was beginning to seize up the current accross the relay contacts would rise and overheat

[chingers]

Craig, Suggest you search my thread of feb 23rd 2002 (fuel pump help) which details this exact problem . In summary the relay burning out was caused by a wiring fault into the back of the block so I would look at this area first to prevent your replacement doing the same thing. I found that there are two types of relay you can fit one has a pump priming sequence when you turn the ignition on and the other does not. I linked this to a starting problem at the time but with hindsight this was not the case and you may find this has no effect on starting. Hope that helps.
Chris Page

[ras3]

Might also be worth checking your fuel tank. Gunge builds up in bottom and can eventually get sucked into the pump, which makes it strain and overheat...