Small metal pieces in fuelpump?

[Zithlord]

A friend has a 73E. His car stopped running, he managed to restart, but it died again with some popping noises. He noticed the electric fuel pump was silent, so he removed it. After dismanteling the end of the pump he found some small metal shavings(shiny metal, not corroded). The pieces was under 1mm, but they managed to stop the pump at the roller bearing. After cleaning and reinstalling the car runs fine.

But where does the metal pieces come from, are they from the MFI, and if so could this be a sign of something serious? As I understand the pump was quite resonatly rebuilt/overhauled in the US.

I see from the manual that there is a fuel return from the MFI to the filter, is it possible to dismantle the fuelfilter and check for more metal shavings? Does the fuel, when passing the filter from the MFI back to the tank actually get filtered or just passes by unfiltered at the top?

John

[Zithlord]

Anyone have a clue about where the metal shaving/piece might come from.

John

[edmayo]

I can't say where the metal is from, it could be from the electric fuel pump itself, I think I would pump the fuel out of the gas tank and pull the filter sock from the feed line. If there is no metal there my guess would be that the metal came from the fuel pump itself. Even if there is metal I don't know how it could be from the injection pump, since I don't see how the mechanical part of the pump could get into the fuel supply, I think they are pretty much separated. If it never occurs again, just put it down to cleaning out machining remnants, if it keeps reoccurring, well then you know what you have to do !