Alfasud Electric Fuel Pump Wiring - Advice Needed

[riargs]

Hi Folks,

I am in the process of totally restoring a 1978 Alfasud Giardinetta Wagon, and I have decided to add an aftermarket electric fuel pump to the car. I did this because I have installed a 1995 1.5 liter code "84" engine with dual Weber 40 IDF's in the car, and am thinking that pushing fuel through fuel filters to two carbys on opposite sides of the engine may be problematical - at best.

The previous pinhead owner had a totally rotten fuel system in the car - rotted out fuel tank and lines, backwards throttle bar assembly, and - worst of all - dual Dell'Orto 48's(!) on the poor engine. The car never ran below 3,000 R.P.M.'s with this hideous abortion of a fuel system in it, so I had to start from scratch and replace or restore everything in the system.

I had to source a NOS main fuel tank from Deutschland after removing the original fuel tank and finding an unbelievable orange "jello" sludge in it - it had the consistency of old oatmeal and reeked like King Tut's tomb. Still hoping to salvage the original tank - I am in the USA and there are absolutely NO vendors in this country selling Alfasud parts of any kind whatsoever - I took it to my metal cleaners for boiling out.

They returned to me the fuel filler neck with a small patch of metal attached after the fuel tank was boiled out - the rest of the rusty and wafer thin metal of the fuel tank simply dissolved away in their chemical vats.

How's that for rust?! I've never seen an Alfa fuel system so horribly maintained...

Sensing major problems with moisture in the fuel system after the fuel tank disaster - this car lived the first 25 years of it's life in the cold rain and snow of Torino in winter - I next tried to blow air through the fuel delivery and fuel return lines on the car - and couldn't get more then a tiny whistle of air to go through either line. So I replaced the lines with all new metal tubing and insulated the lines like the Factory did.

At this point upon seeing how bad the fuel delivery system on the car was I decided to go for broke and beef everything up substantially so I would have the peace of mind of knowing that the new Weber 40 IDF's on the engine would always be getting clean fuel and plenty of it.

I adapted one of those huge 105 series original FISPA fuel filters from our USA spec. SPICA fuel injection system Alfas - it mounts nicely in the front inner left hand side fenderwell - and that's pretty much the only place to locate a good size fuel filter in the tidy but somewhat cramped Alfasud engine bay.

Then I added one of those smallish square Redline electronic fuel pumps to the system that puts out 3.5 to 4.0 PSI of fuel pressure (which has always worked with my Weber carb'ed Alfas in the past) - and I mounted it close by the fuel tank right behind it on leading edge of the sheetmetal for the spare tire well. I grounded the body of the pump to the spare tire sheetmetal and just for fun ran an extra ground wire from the pump housing to clean sheetmetal nearby the mounted unit as well.  In my experience with my Alfas in the past 99% of electrical problems with these cars stems from bad grounds, as many times the Factory seemed to think that paint makes a good ground - which it obviously doesn't.

I ran the power wire for the new electric fuel pump inside the car from the pump forward in the bundle of wires for the rear lights, and have it up by the dash now.

My question is: do you folks have any recommendations for which circuit I should wire the new fuel pump to? On a 750/101 Giulietta or a 105 Giulia I usually wire my electric pumps to the ignition key circuit, so as long as the ignition key is "ON" then the fuel pump is spinning, and I haven't had problems with blown fuses using this method. Is the Alfasud ignition switch and associated wiring any more fragile then the previously mentioned older cars, or is there something else I'm missing not having had prior experience with Alfasuds? Weak wiring? Weak ignition switches? Weak fuseboxes?

Or ?

Any help from you guys is greatly appreciated! 

[riargs]

I think I have down scaled the resolution on my digital camera enough to attach some pics of where I'm going with the Giardinettas fuel system now Folks...

Here are some shots of the FISPA fuel filter I installed - it comes from a 1969 USA spec 115 series Alfa Berlina and was standard up here for use with the USA-only SPICA mechanical fuel injection cars. It can handle a huge PSI - the SPICA systems ran at over 20 PSI at all times...

I mounted it on the inner fenderwell of the left hand side of the engine bay right behind the headlight housing. This was the only spot that made sense to mount it at - as the fuel lines coming from the fuel tank also run along the left hand side under the car...I made a simple mount to bolt to the fenderwell, painted it body color and then made sure the filter unit stood out enough from the sheetmetal so it "looks right" vertically and horizontally and mounting it this way makes it easier to change out the filter as well...

[riargs]

Here are some shots of the new fuel lines I installed under the car...

The clear sheathed tubing is 3/16" Kunifer copper alloy brake line, the green insulated tubing is the 5/16" Kunifer copper alloy fuel delivery line, and the red insulated tubing is the 1/4" Kunifer copper alloy fuel return line.

The line mounts - or clamps, or brackets or whatever you want to call them - are a nifty aftermarket aluminum alloy clamp bracket offered up here in the USA for off-road Jeeps. They are slotted for one 3/16" line, one 1/4" line and one 5/16" line so they are perfect for this generation Alfasud... I used 5 of them under the car to secure all the new lines to the underside of the body...

[riargs]

This is where I put the new electric fuel pump...wedged in the back between the rear axle beam and the underside of the spare tire housing...

I mounted it as low as I dared to make pulling fuel from the tank as easy as possible, then I fabricated a hard line to feed it from the fuel tank...

The later Alfas here in the USA had a few safety provisions added to them over the years - one of them being a protector shield for the electric fuel pumps on the later cars. I used an old fuel pump protection plate from an Alfa Spider to protect the rather exposed new electric fuel pump I put on this car.

There was and is a certain symmetry to using and adapting other genuine Alfa parts to this poor little Orphan Alfasud, right?

I don't know if you can tell from these pics, but that is a NOS rear axle beam and new springs, brake calipers and discs, brake splash shield discs (an option for northern countries like Sweden and Norway and Finland that AFRA in Milano had sitting on their shelves for 40 years until I asked for them), brake proportioning valve, NOS outer hub carriers, NOS connecting links and Panhard rod with stick bushings, custom made rear springs (made to order and 200% stiffer then stock) and NOS Koni red shock absorbers in the rear of the car now.

This car was so rotten with rust that the rear springs had broken in half and collapsed into pieces, the suspension links were as thin as toothpicks, the main rear axle beam had rotted out so that only rust was holding the springs in, and the outer hubs had begun to lose attaching bolts and were barely attached to the axle beam.

While both rear springs had broken in half and collapsed from rust, the front springs were also broken from rust - on one side the front main MacPherson strut spring was broken in half, on the other it was broken into three pieces!

Anyway, anybody have any advice on wiring my new electric fuel pump?

C'mon now, don't be shy!

[blazingsud]

WOW!
Thats commitment there....Amazing job

I've sent out a feeler to the only sud wagon I know here in Melbourne via a friend who knows the owner....Hopefully one day I'll be the next custodian....
nigel

[Trikes]

Here in Tasmania Australia Targa Tasmania 2017 has just finished. The Motor Sport controlling body say the Electric Fuel Pump has to run off the Alternator. That being because if there is a prang and the Driver is knocked out or what ever. If the engine stops the fuel pump stops too........ Not a bad idea. But if you have no Fuel in the Tank it will need priming of some kind. My Targa Sud runs an Electric Pump to Manual Pump.