Possible dead fuel pump

Hi, i have an ‘81 1600 tin top gti so no tank lifter pump.

Hadnt started it for a while so battery was a bit flat. Jumped it and started fine but fuel pump has been noisy for months. After 10mins died and wont start.

I have recharged the battery and turns over nice and fast.
I now cannot hear the previously noisy/buzzing fuel pump.
.
Thought Id check the fusebox/relays. I’m a bit confused but think this quote applies to mine:
“Some early series 2 models had a series 1 style fuze box with xtra relays and fuzes mounted on the top (eg. Fuel pump relay with built in fuse ) .”

I have in position L on the fusebox a larger relay with a fuse on top which i think is the fuel pump based on the above. Fuse looked fine but changed it anyway but no joy.

so if thats all correct i think next thing is to connect a multimeter to the wires at the pump and see if there’s current. I know based on the pump being noisy for ages it’s probably just finally given up and died but wanted to eliminate electrical supply issues first.

sound about right?

Hope fully you don't have a clogged swirl pot which can cause a noisy primary pump, which after a while can cause the pump to burn up.

Measure the Voltage at the pump when you first turn on the car..   Voltage, bad pump.

Fuel pump relays go bad as well, as that is an original FPR for the 81..  

See cabby-info.com as not all Fuel Pump (FPR) are the same some work some don't and she has the ones that don't and the ones that do.

Thanks Briano1234 as ever for your advice.
1. Swirl pot - yes had planned to check
2. Voltage at pump - yep will do
3. Thanks for the FPR info. Mine is 321906059 C. I'd better hope it isnt broken as seems impossible to get hold of in UK/Europe atm 😳…

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185733140798?epid=658239170&hash=item2b3e8ed13e:g:~FIAAOSwzV1h94EI&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoCMCseJ%2BWTSbFZBD9Zj86OWsdWSpbbA%2FlDyMhYyoOnZEX%2BM1HxeH39HSi%2FkPIKc%2BYPlbAGcUB6zGfLKFLx0K3aUyjK0aYxsqrJ0rDdHil8ZJhM%2BOvlFP17wXrbaeyuMjLu5CN9EaGyMBpykCpakl2sHowGp%2Fs8JNcdxl5KnbDP3OJFAOXPO4EB%2FMAWhkOkJyCRF%2FA7xWBd8i2hpSguYLmKk%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4bIvIzQYQ

150.00 usd DANG that is a lot of dollars almost the amount of a pump.

There was a TSB that was out so you could take the relay out and move it to a new location above then use a different  relay, as you used a jumper from the relay location to the attachment point above the fuse panel.
Rub Johnny may know more about it, I have seen it in the breakers years ago.

http://www.cabby-info.com/Files/Relays.pdf

Ouch. They're about £60+ here but none available anywhere.
I spoke with Mark at classic-vw and he said he'll try and get some more but that he'd stopped stocking them as they're so expensive - but when he did, they still sold out quick! Bit stuck if you need one so you've got no choice other than to pay I guess.
rubjonny any ingenious ideas/alternatives?

So did a bit more investigating by removing the fuel pump relay and bridging the terminals - hey presto: pump runs constantly - so the fuel pump is good 😊
Now i have the problem of a very expensive fuel relay. Have found one for almost £100 but read they're actually quite prone to breaking.
Is there a better long term solution or is it just one of those things with bits on old cars being expensive..?

Not sure if it's possible but later cars had a different type of fuel pump relay without a fuse on it, can you use one of those and some sort of inline fuse?

Quick search and this came up but you need to check connections and not sure if it will work?

Need some sort of electrical wizz (which I'm not) to check…

HELLA 4RP 008 189-091 Relay, fuel pump - 12V - 5-pin connector : Amazon.co.uk: Automotive

Hi thanks for that suggestion. It’s almost right - but not quite. I need the part ending in C and this one is G. The smaller 5th pin is in a different position. I reckon it does the same  and you could probably create some sort of wiring harness to adapt it.
But then I ran Mark as Classic Vw and he can get the original part. Still best part of £100 but I’m accepting it as just one of those ‘if you buy an old car then some parts are expensive’. Remain calm…
Will order shortly and let you know.

I did see on another post incidentally that there’s an additional later loom which moves the relay to another position on the board to prevent the pins burning out from the current. You can see it on the caddy diagrams  [mention]Briano1234 [/mention] sent a link for earlier. But again, very hard to get hold of and not cheap.


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So got the suffix C pump and car started and ran lovely. Pump still hums loud so will check the tank pick up. But overall, good news! Went for first drive of the year.

For info for others: the 1.6 EG engine needs a slightly different relay. Ie theres others ending in F and G etc but these are slightly different and won’t fit.
Here’s a pic:
C on the left(my old broken one I took apart to fix) , F or G on the right. As you can see the 5th smaller pin is in a different position. I suspect this is the coil ‘pulse’ pin

Interestingly my car has always ran poorly and stuttered under load. May be placebo but seemed much better today.
I wonder that if my old relay was on the way out, it wasn’t sending a good/consistent signal to the pump so it didn’t run ‘as much’ as it needed to? Or is it a simple on or off thing and I’m overthinking it?
Most importantly, she’s alive again!
Thanks for the advice chaps


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