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I run Carter 6 volt rotary fuel pumps on both my Packards. They have never given me a problem, in fact one has been on my 1939 120 for over 20 years. Recently, I noticed that the pump on my 53 Cavalier seemed a little noisy. Fearing a bearing failure, I decided to do some preventative maintenance and replace the pump with a new one. The new pump looked like an exact match and it went in without problems.

On my first tour with the new pump, it failed after less than 25 miles. The Packard came home on a tow truck for the first time ever. Since my previous experience with Carter pumps had been good, I replaced the faulty pump with a new one. Two days later, I once again embarked on a tour. This time the pump failed after the first mile! I walked home, got my tools and replaced the new pump with the original noisy pump and everything is back to normal.

Has anyone else experienced a problem with these pumps?

I checked to see if there was some obstruction putting excess stress on the pumps. I run a filter before the pump and it was clean. I blew out the gas line and there was no blockage.

I took the faulty pump back and got another. This time I set up an experiment off the car and hooked up the pump so it would recirculate gas in a gas can. The pump ran for over an hour with no problems. I will keep this pump for a spare and I recommend that anyone who wants to use one of these pumps check it out in this manner before you install it on your car.

Sorry, no insight into your problem but just curious why you chose to use an electric as your primary fuel pump - the mechanical pumps are extremely reliable, generally more so than electric pumps.

There are a lot of Chinese knock offs using brand name logos. If you find a really cheap "Carter" pump - beware

If the logo/text on box looks like this....beware!

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Hah - that's a good one!

Years ago I added an electric fuel pump between the tank and the mechanical pump just incase of trouble. I generally only use it to pump gas up to the carb after the car has been sitting for a while. My mechanical pumps in both Packards have never failed me but I felt it was cheap insurance.

I took my Plymouth Woodie to a show about 200 miles from my home years ago only to have a new fuel pump fail at the wrong end of the trip. It took me hours to talk a gas station mechanic into looking at the car. We finally determined the pin that held the arm to the pump had popped out leaving the arm in the pan and the fuel in the tank. I spent the weekend at the gas station and missed the Woodie show (with my very understanding wife along for the ride). They finally put an electric 6v pump on and I drove the car back home. Once I got home I rebuilt the original pump I had replaced with the shiney new one and have had no problems since running on the mechanical pump. But now I run a backup electric pump on all my vintage cars. It does give me piece of mind.

I believe the brand I have used is Airtex. I called my buddy at the shop that worked on my Packard and that is what they were using and had installed a bunch of them. No problems so far, but they don't get used much. Just like insurance.

I have an electric pump installed back near the tank and wired to an underdash switch. I only use it to prime the system when the car has been sitting for an extended period or for vaporlock issues when I lived in Calif. But 99.9% of the time, I am running off of the rebuilt mechanical pump.

If you go this route, make sure you get an impulse style pump as opposed to rotary style pump, as most rotary ones do not allow the mechanical pump to "suck-through" when off.

Also, always wire the switch off the a circuit that is powered when the ignition is on and has it's own fuse close to the source of power.