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MG MGA - Facet Fuel Pump

Has anybody experience of fitting a Facet fuel pump to MGA. My car is pos earth and as for as I can see the manufacturor of the pumps says neg earth only.
As both the "cube" and the "plastic" pump have two wires coming from them as long as you connect correctly should be OK. Unless the metal bits become "live".
Any ideas of other pos earth pumps apart from QH or SU?
Or should I swap the car to neg earth?
David
David Murgatroyd

I have a Facet cube fitted on my MGA.
However why not simply swap your car to negative earth.
This requires swapping the battery connections swapping the terminals on the coil, possibly swapping the connections on the blower (if it sucks instead of blows) and "flashing" the dynamo when battery has been swapped.

If you are insistant on remaining positive earth (and there is absolutely no reason for that then if you insulate the pump it will work but be carefull if you have metal fuel pipes these must be isolated from the pump.
Robert (Bob) Midget Turbo

Won't the fuel also conduct? You should switch to negative earth, easily done (see Barney's site) and a lot less fiddling than what you think is the other way.

Don't forget too to switch the coil polarity when doing the polarity swap.
dominic clancy

But what do you do if you have an original radiomobile 50T positive only radio fitted??
J H Cole

Dominic,

The fuel by itself will not conduct current. I fitted a plastic fuel filter in the fuel line with two lengths of rubber hose and then had to connect the two sections of the fuel line with a piece of copper wire to get the fuel gauge to work again.
David Werblow

The Facet pump can be hooked up either negative or positive ground. As near as I can tell, the negative ground only is a carry over from the days when the pump was grounded through the case, the newer pumps (as in at least the past 10 years) with the red and black wires coming out of them can just be hooked up black to negative and red to positive and will work fine that way. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

I have used the 'red top' facet pump for many years on a Ford Anglia Rally car, with absolutely no problem. Had a service and stand-by set up, but never needed to use the stand-by.
This encouraged me to do the same on my positive earth MGA (some 6 or 7 years ago). I was allegedly supplied with a positive earth model. Sadly it stopped working in the middle of a French Touring holiday. Fitted a replacement pump - again, allegedly a positive earth version and again after about 150 working hours it failed.
If you strip the pump down, it's difficult to see why it should ever fail, but it does when fitted to my MGA.
On the recommendation of Gower and Lee - excellent company - I have now fitted a HUCO pump. So far so good, but with the Cape to Cape event in N Spain only 2 weeks away, I am getting nervous.
Watch this space..............
Geoff
GM McGladdery

I have fitted Fuelflo (NZ?) fuel pumps to both of my MGA's (1600 roadster and coupe). Much quieter than Facets and no trouble after several years. Both cars are negative earth, having fitted radios (which I never use!). I also have a Fuelflo on my 1933 F2 Magna (routed through the original SU Petrolift). Fuelflos are very light and do not need mounting, the rubber hoses easily support them. I have been told that the HP type SU pumps (which were a new model on MGA's, now giving trouble) cannot, in practical terms, be effectively (or economically?) overhauled.
Barry Bahnisch

Forgot to mention that I have also fitted a Fuelflo to my daughter's MGC GT (which I restored a few years ago). Keeps the fuel up, even on long (1,000+ k's) runs.
Barry Bahnisch

This thread was discussed between 19/04/2011 and 01/05/2011

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