[Public-List] A-Bomb (and electric fuel pumps)

[John Birch]

Lukas Pumps (Lukas the Prince of Darkness) and Jaguars.

Manny many years ago I bought an old 1958 Mk IX Jag Sedan which had been 
sitting in a field out behind an auto body shop. I fell in love with it and 
so I bought it for $500.

I had to fix nearly everything, but I was young and it was such a cool car. 
So I found a second one for parts - that helped a bit.

So what does this have to do with Albergs and A-4's.

Well one of the stunts the SU carbs (there were 2) liked to do was jam their 
float bowl floats. This was not an uncommon problem with the SUs and Jags.

The net result was that the Lukas fuel pumps would not shut off, pumping raw 
gas non stop, flooding the gas until it poured out down the outside of the 
intake manifold falling down on to the exhaust manifold ( the 3.4 ltr double 
overhead cam engine was not a cross flow head, so the gas landed on the hot 
exhaust manifold.)

To add to the insanity of the design, there was no choke the way we are used 
to seeing.

Rather, in the middle, between the 2 SUs, was a CO2 shaped cylinder called 
the Auxiliary Starting Carburetor. Ah, the English sublime sense of humour.

It was electrically operated and the thick thermostat wire that sensored for 
it also carried current. It had a fun practice of unplugging itself from the 
Aux Starting Carb and shorting out against the the exhaust manifold and 
block causing sparks.

While I never had a fire, magically. I did witness a MkII Jag of a similar 
vintage burn to the ground in a parking lot, flames pouring out around the 
engine. When I looked into the cabin I could see the key was turned on and 
could hear the Lukas pumps (there are two on Jags) merrily pumping away.

I knew exactly what had caused the fire.

The bowls had jammed, and, as there was no back pressure to shut the pump 
off - they ran until the wiring burned out completely and the battery 
destroyed.

So my point is, with electric fuel pumps, being independent of engine 
operation means if for any reason there is a leak, float jam or whatever, an 
electric pump will merrily pump fuel until it runs out of it.  On a boat 
that means into the the bilge.

Anyway, there it is - food for thought.

Pip pip and all that

Cheery-o

John



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Amos" <p.a.amos at hotmail.com>
To: <public-list at alberg30.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 8:21 AM
Subject: [Public-List] A-Bomb


>
> I had a similar problem when I had an Atomic 4 on a previous boat.The 
> filter was being fed by gravity but the diagphram on the manual pump was 
> stretched or perforated and fuel not getting to the carburettor.I fitted a 
> cheap 12v pump from Napa and that solved the problem for me.Pete  ex Tait 
> Tait #478
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