Driving home last week in the 70 beetle., along the old Pacific highway.
55 mph, & the smell of petrol fills the car.

Pull off the road, shut it down, head for the back.

There is petol running out from the engine lid. Open the lid & the brass pipe on the fuel pump has come away from the pump itself. This is the one from the pump to the carby.

So my engine bay is covered in fuel. BUT the car is not on fire, even though this has been pumping straight on to the distributor.
Undone the clamp, removed said pipe from the hose, tapped it back in & put the fuel line back on. Nursed it home, pulling over when ever I thought I smelt fuel again.

I change hoses & clamps religeously every 2 years. The fuel pump falling apart is one of those things I guess.

Could have been a lot more dire.

Use tie wire around all the pipes on pump. Bring wire from around the front of the clamps and tie around body of pump. Prevents them popping out. Same for carbs or use screwed in pipes which can't come loose.

DH

WOW..................... reckon i would put that in the "lucky" category

Buy a lotto ticket......

very lucky

Had the same happen to me many years ago and just last week the same happened to a customer's type 3 KG. But the type three had loose foil on the engine lid that also arced on the coil wiring.......boom. Lucky they stopped immediately at some roadworks and a fire extinguisher saved the day. ALL GOOD

those new fuel pumps are the way to go i reckon. one piece top section so theres nothing to fall out. your story definately is in the lucky category

the exact same thing happened in my mates 68 bug when we were heading down to valla back in 95 or 97 on that quiet stretch between grafton and coffs right where that seedy old mechanic with the 100s of green mack tow trucks are (very wolf creek-ish)

i was in the back and we all started smelling fuel so pulled over and got out and the decklid was soaked in fuel
how it didnt go up was anyones guess but we just tapped the fitting back into the pump and off it went
same thing happened again about 12 months later. new fuel pump this time

also the brass fitting in the carb that the hose connects to has been known to do the same thing

I had a fuel line on one of my carbs work its way off on the drive from goulburn to wollongong, the car was still running fine as the fuel line was just butted up against the brass line on the carb, just spraying fuel all over the passenger side corner of the engine bay. I thought i could smell a bit of fuel but i was stuck behind a petrol tanker so I assumed it was a bit fumey! only realised id been leaking fuel on the freeway for the last 2 hours when my dad noticed when i pulled into the driveway the back wheel was covered in some oily gunk. The fuel had been running down the tarboard, all over the exhaust into the wheel somehow.

This may be thead hijacking but not to big of a fan of joels new signiture line.

Changed the pump today. the joy of having 3 cars is there is no rush to do anything.

Found the inlet pipe is screw in. Obviously I'm not the 1st one to have a problem with this pump.