Electric Fuel pump

[acoster]

My elan +2 has an electric fuel pump in engine bay. After leaving out covered over Christmas, it won't start and fuel light is on. I added two galls but still fuel light stays on. Could it be wired as an indicator for electric fuel pump, which I suspect is not working? How Can I tell?
Previously in the summer I ran out of fuel and could hear the fuel pump from driver seat, but no fuel light came on?

[stugilmour]

Maybe a few problems at once?

To check the low fuel light, check wiring at the sender. Three wires behind the front boot bulkhead. Both the gauge and the low fuel light work to ground at the sender; power is supplied to the gauge and the low fuel light at the dash end of the circuit.

• Black................Tab near centre of sender.........Should have no resistance to ground on battery.
• Black / Brown....Tab around three o'clock...........From low fuel light. If wire is grounded, light goes on.
• Green / Black.....Tab near seven o'clock.............From gas gauge. If wire is grounded gauge reads full.

Electric pump is of course non-stock. Mine (the Facet cube pump type) is located at the back of the car below to bottom of the tank. This ensures the pump suction has a bit of pressure and is not in the under hood heat. Generally the pumps are better at pushing the fuel rather than sucking it, but this varies depending on the pump used. Check pump function and flow through filter (there is a filter?) by disconnecting fuel line at the carb and pumping some fuel into a jar. You will need a helper on the key to do this safely, and should have a fire extinguisher handy. I would expect you would have had previous drivability problems though if the pump was having difficulty supplying fuel; the pump failure mode is often intermittent. Just fixed this issue on my BMW and car was stalling out repeatably.

HTH

[alexblack13]

What type of fuel pump is it Bud? Most types one can hear running. If it is completely silent it may indeed be not working.

If your pump is not running the 1st place the check is for a fuse. Do you know how it is wired? This will help if you do. If the fuse is ok then you need to check for power and if you have power to the pump, then check the earthing. If that checks out ok then you have a dead pump... Probably.

Let us know how you get on..

Alex B....

[kstrutt11]

Just giving the pump a tap often gets them working.

[acoster]

Thanks for useful suggestions - will check them out this weekend.
I will look for make of fuel pump and report.