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94 Fleetwood Fuel Pump Access hatch

18K views 21 replies 8 participants last post by  jayoldschool 
#1 ·
I think I may have to do my fuel pump AGAIN.. I don't trust my mechanic anymore, and I'm going to do it myself. Question is, have any Fleetwood guys cut an access door in their in the trunk like the f-body guys do? Any pictures of locations to cut? Or am I pretty much reduced to dropping the tank one last time and figuring it out from underneath?
 
#2 ·
I would just drop the tank down. I think the F-body guys do it out of necessity. I used to have a Typhoon and people used to cut holes in the floor of those, too, because there was not enough slack in the lines to easily drop the tank down. You don't have the problem on the Cadillac.
 
#4 ·
That's awesome! Thanks! I think I'll wait for you to tackle the Fleetwood and wait for those instructions lol.. That said, if the weather clears up I may pull the trunk liner and try to figure it out myself, although ultimately while I'm not afraid to cut up the car I'm more reticent if I'm not going by someone else's instructions.
 
#5 ·
Dropping the tank is not hard (at least to me it seems easier than going through the hassles of cutting, then rust proofing the bare metal all while the tank is in place) and it also gives you the opportunity to double check the integrity of the fuel tank straps and mounts. If I hadn't recently dropped the tank on my Wildcat, I never would have seen how much the little mounts were crumbling.
In all likelihood, if you get a good Delco pump, the next time you'll need to drop the tank will be when the tank itself starts leaking.
The joys of Canada....
 
#8 ·
Dropping the tank is not hard (at least to me it seems easier than going through the hassles of cutting, then rust proofing the bare metal all while the tank is in place)
You missed the whole point of me cutting the access door. When the fuel pumps goes, unless you're extremely lucky, it's not going to happen in your backyard. It will probably happen when you're atleast 50 or 100 miles from home; maybe 1000 miles from home. It happened to me 150 miles from home at 10 at night at a gas station. I just filled up. Needless to say, it was a big hastle; no more. It is a 1/2 hour job at most now! If you think dropping the tank to change the fuel pump on a Fleetwood, who knows where, is easier, you are sadly mistaken.

That's awesome! Thanks! I think I'll wait for you to tackle the Fleetwood and wait for those instructions lol.. That said, if the weather clears up I may pull the trunk liner and try to figure it out myself, although ultimately while I'm not afraid to cut up the car I'm more reticent if I'm not going by someone else's instructions.
If I had an extra sending unit, so I could see the route of the tubes, I would make an access door for the Fleetwood.

Tom C.
 
#6 ·
The joys of Canada indeed.. Which is why last winter was the last this car's going to see while under my ownership. She's still solid, and I want to keep it that way.

That said, I'm pretty sure my tank is plastic (possibly replaced already?), so the odds of springing it a leak are limited to something puncturing it from underneath.
 
#7 ·
:bang2: Right, I was thinking the tank would be the same as the 80's since the platform is the same, but the tank is really more of a body part. I just did the tank on my 85 a few months ago as it was leaking at the seam. It hasn't been driven in the winter under my ownership and has been oil sprayed regularly, but the turned up lip on the 80's tanks still catches moisture badly.
 
#9 ·
In my experience, they give you some warning before they fail. I've never had one leave me stranded, and I'm old. I've had at least 5, maybe more, fail. Cutting a hole in the floor, in my opinion, is overkill for what should be a once-in-a-vehicle's-lifetime event. But, I swapped transmissions in my GTO in a parking lot at college, so I guess my tolerance for "roadside repair" is different.
 
#11 ·
The way I see it, regardless I need to drop the tank - if I don't cut an access hatch, I need to. I'd rather drop the tank if I do. BUT.. if I cut the hatch then I'll theoretically never have to drop it again..

I have an increasingly sneaking suspicion that some electrical gremlins could be frying my pumps, so until that's sorted I'd rather be able to swap them easily if I keep frying them. And if not, then the peace of mind knowing I can do the job much faster if I ever need to again is good enough for me to spend the extra time cutting, sealing, painting and fab-ing a neato cover..
 
#13 ·
Tom. I have no issue with you showing what you did. I'm still concerned about taking a grinding wheel (cutting wheel, whatever you want to call it) that close to a 20 year old gas tank. That's all.
Safety concerns are something I don't like to keep to myself. :noidea:

If you're suspecting the pumps are doomed to burn out, then making a hatch makes sense.
 
#14 ·
Dropping the tank is super easy (easier than I thought, even on my first try) and it can be done by only one person. I had my husband close by to catch it if it started to tip off the jack when I lowered it, but surprisingly the tank rests snuggly in the indentation under the tank. I put together a video of the work I did. The fuel pump replacement was a complete success! I did everything myself, and I'm a girl, so there isn't any advanced skills or strength needed to do this task.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG6DlVWkil4
 
#15 ·
You rock girl! :rockon:
Love the video, put a lot of us chicken guys to shame!:shhh:
You made that look simple enough that even I would try it. I subscribed to your channel and look forward to future installments. Thank you for joining the forum and for sharing your work with all of us.

Beautiful Cadillac! :cloud9:Can't wait to see it returned to it's glory!:bouncy:
 
#16 ·
Thanks! :D Glad you liked the video. Wow, thanks for subscribing. :) More videos to come soon. My next task is putting the harmonic balancer back onto the crankshaft (I just did a timing chain replacement). I have to make my own tool for that so that might be an interesting video! (no crankshaft bolt, and no harmonic balancer installer kits have the right adapter).

Anyways, good luck with what you decide to do. :) Feel free to message me on youtube if you have any questions about fuel pump project. ...For some reason I haven't figured out how to get Cadillac forums to send notifications of messages and replies to my registered email account. :( I'll have to comb through the settings here again and see if I can figure it out.

----------

((Oops! Talismandave, I just realized you weren't the original posting member (Poda). Sorry about that!))
 
#17 ·
I really appreciate the vid :) Thanks! I'm still not sure if I'm going to do the hatch or not, but if I do I'll post up how I went about it.. Already have some ideas in terms of a clean finish, and looking factory which is the only way I'd do it.
 
#18 ·
I went back to read some of your replies because I wasn't sure I was clear on your motive for possibly cutting an access hatch, and even in the case where you're having repetitive failures, dropping the tank more than once a day (worst case scenario) really isn't that big of an inconvenience compared to the time and risk of cutting into the Caddy.

Before you cut into the car, you'll probably, at minimum, want to know how everything is laid out underneath (and if you cut a hatch, I'd probably do it with the tank down anyway), so I'd say drop the tank, do your fuel pump replacement, re-assess whether you want to cut into your car based on your experience dropping the tank and analyzing the space you'd be cutting through, and once you've put everything back together, if you're seeing further failures and really want an access hatch, go for it. I wish I were there to walk you through the fuel pump replacement to help you resolve the issue, and possibly save you the work of cutting into your caddy. If you have any questions at all or need photos or diagrams, feel free to send me a message, and I'd be happy to help you as much as I can. I even soldered the new pump's wiring harness to the old one and got it right the first time, all with very minimal soldering experience, so if you're worried about repetitive failures because of that, I'll go dig through my photos and see if I can write a tutorial.

Good luck. I'm curious to see how it goes. :)
 
#19 ·
Thanks nebulosity!

I have the FSM, so wiring diagrams, etc are covered. I was planning on dropping the tank if I did this anyways, so figuring out the layout isn't going to be a problem. At the very least, I have next week off so the tank's coming down, pump, sock, etc are getting done, wiring investigated and I'll take it from there. If I have an electrical problem prompting multiple failures, it *probably* won't be at the harness at the pump or the harness running the length of the car. Both of those were replaced about 6 months ago, but then that's when my hard-start problems and stumbling under partial and full throttle started. But then, the replacement pump frying within hours and having to get done again could have messed up the harnesses again.

So yeah, if anyone has the body harness for the fuel pump on a 94-95, I'll buy it off you just in case..

This is going to come across as heresy to some, but I'm not afraid of cutting into the Caddy and in it's current shape (looks awesome from 20ft, but tons of little issues) it would take a herculean effort to bring it to concours level which is the only way I'd be fully satisfied with it. Especially when I can just get a mostly pristine example from the US for much less (which I will in the next little while). So instead, if I'm going to put that much time, money and effort into it (and because I'm sentimentally attached to this particular car for a variety of reasons), I'm going in another direction and that's going to take some pretty severe modifications - cutting a fuel pump hatch is a simple job compared to some of the other things I have planned. But again, only if it looks like the factory could have done it, which is my design and build mantra for this project.

Yeah, there'll be a build thread starting this winter :)
 
#21 ·
Because fuel pumps do fail (and sometimes not just once), I keep a spare one in the trunk. I am also considering cutting an access hole just in case I am not in a position to drop the tank.

Does anybody have drawings/measurements I could follow? I do not want to restart the discussion about whether it is worth doing or not, it is worth to me. Thank you.
 
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