Carter mechanical fuel pump seals

Since in another thread on stringers there's a bit of disagreement on fuel pumps and the vent hose routing on them, I figured I'd take apart a Carter pump and show the upper seal where the operating arm connects to the diaphragm and seal assembly.

Here are a couple of pictures of the upper seal and sealing surface on a carter single diaphragm marine pump off of a 351w so you can see the upper seal and the sealing surface it seats on.




In the first one, the red pointer is pointing at the sealing surface which is pretty cruddy and in the second one the pointer is pointing at the flat rubber coated metal seal.

It's a little hard to see, but the rubber is degraded in a few spots on the seal

The big spring keeps things seated , but like everything else wear and tear takes it's toll and this one looks "not perfect but it's still good"

You can draw your own conclusions about whether it can leak gas from a bad diaphragm past this seal into the crankcase.

I'll agree with Gary S on his answer in the other thread.

Pump's all back together and working again. This one lives in my plow truck these days

It just got a cleaning and check of the diaphragm, mostly took it apart to see that upper seal area and take a couple of pictures.

It should be good for another couple thousand hours which in the plow truck probably translates to forever or maybe the diaphragm will crap out in a few hrs. Who knows