How a Carburetor Works With a Fuel Pump
- A car's fuel pump, which is normally located inside the gas tank, is connected directly to its carburetor by way of a metal fuel line. This fuel line transports gasoline from a car's fuel tank directly to its carburetor. Normally, a fuel pump is located directly inside a car's gas tank. When a car is started, the fuel pump is activated and begins pumping gasoline stored in the fuel tank. The pump sends it directly to the carburetor, where it gets combined with outside air and then enters the engine cylinders to be burned.
- Once a car is started and begins to run, the fuel pump supplies a steady flow of gasoline to the carburetor. Once fuel reaches the carburetor, the amount of fuel that reaches the engine is adjusted by the carburetor throttle, the part of the carburetor that is operated by a car's gas pedal. Once fuel reaches the carburetor, it is combined with outside air to create a specific air/fuel mixture, otherwise known as the engine air/fuel mixture, which gets ignited by the ignition system. If there is a problem with the fuel pump and it doesn't pump a steady supply of gasoline to the carburetor, serious engine malfunction can occur.
- Both a car's fuel pump and carburetor contain a small filter that serves to filter out any impurities from within the fuel and fuel line. The fuel pump filter filters out any impurities from the gas tank that might clog up the fuel line and prevent fuel from being pumped out of the gas tank and into the fuel line. The carburetor has a small filter located at the fuel line/carburetor junction. This tiny filter serves to filter out any fuel line debris that might be picked up between the fuel pump and the carburetor filter. If either one of these filters gets clogged or plugged up in any way, fuel flow can be severely restricted and/or stopped completely, both of which can cause a car to either run very poorly or fail to start at all.
