Trap Door Fuel Pump Swap: Pictures and How-To

[Darren]

Looks great Brian!

[bigjon88]

Looks great u put so
e rtv on that plate????

[Derek]

weird, on my old v6 I don't remember messing around having to glue/solder a bucket, must be different with all years.

[steddy]

weird, on my old v6 I don't remember messing around having to glue/solder a bucket, must be different with all years.

I wouldn't doubt that theory. I know a lot of things changed from year to year with those. Almost too many to keep track of in many cases.

[meissen]

so you can go full throttle now?

Well - I've been a little hesitant. Before, Steve said it was OK to go WOT but it was just a little lean. Now that it's holding fuel pressure, I'm honestly a bit afraid of going WOT and having the system get flooded now that it has all this fuel getting to it. I can tell you that the few times I got on it a bit I felt a lot more "seat of the pants" power - the fuel it wanted was finally there to support it.

So let me see if I got this right: you used a solder gun to melt the bucket back together? I've been kinda back and forth with the idea, but really don't have the $700 for a shop to replace. Hey Larry, could I offer payment for such a hole? I don't have a cut off wheel at my disposal around here...that is, if you wouldn't mind.

They said to use glue and to melt the bucket together to "tack weld" the bucket while the glue dries. I'll let dad speak up on whether or not he wants to cut another hole We'll see if his nerves can handle it again.

Looks great u put so
e rtv on that plate????

Yessir - bought RTV at Murrays and layered that all around the hole, then put the plate down and dad screwed it in.

weird, on my old v6 I don't remember messing around having to glue/solder a bucket, must be different with all years.

Could be - did you have to pry the bucket apart to get to the pump or was it already two pieces? For mine, it was glued together and we had to use a screw driver to pry the bucket apart, then glue it back together when we were done. Although - I do remember a pic where the bucket was in two pieces in the middle. For mine, the bucket came apart right at the top. Was yours the same way?

[TSTONE]

nice write-up - good job guys

[98blackbeauty]

weird, on my old v6 I don't remember messing around having to glue/solder a bucket, must be different with all years.

If you replaced the whole assembly you wouldn't, but we replaced just the pump so there was "some assembly require".

[ITSSLOW]

Great little thread. I'm cutting a trap door for sure.

[BP_Z28]

did you add this into the tutorials??

[steddy]

did you add this into the tutorials??

Not a bad idea. Could save upwards to $500 on R&R if you did it yourself, in which case, this would make it EXTREMELY easy (15 min. out).

[meissen]

15 minutes to expose the pump - the swap from start to finish probably took us about 3-4 hours. We really took our time and goofed around a lot.

[DETROITMUSCLE]

its the same on ls cars larry, those damn pinch lines suck but they get easier every time.

[JoeliusZ28]

derek - LS1 era cars have plastic fuel tanks, LTs have metal - could be the reason

[Derek]

Its been a couple years but I don't remember breaking/prying ANYTHING, mine came out easy and everything bolted up just like stock, I didn't have to do any prying that wouldnt go back together on its own. I bought the racetronix fuel pump kit and put the new hose and such on there with the new pump. Ls1 wiring connected right up perfect on my v6. One thing that I found incredibly stupid was the fancy red cover on the racetronix kit. There was NO way I could install the fuel pump into the stock housing with that silly cover on there. They could have forgotten that and gave me 15 bucks back.

[c0ncEpT]

derek - LS1 era cars have plastic fuel tanks, LTs have metal - could be the reason

98 cars have metal tanks. :]