Title says it. I had just dropped my 1983 Toyota pickup off at the shop to get an issue where I wasn’t getting power at highway speed or uphill. They couldn’t find anything wrong with it and I went to drive it home, pulled out of the lot and made it all of about 10 feet before the truck died. The shop was closed at this point so some nice strangers helped me push it to a safe spot. I started playing with it and decided to pull the pump and I saw that the metal arm that drives the diaphragm had snapped clean off. I was able to get that out but then I realized the spring was missing so I guess it has so be in there somewhere.

im really not a car guy but I’m assuming I can’t just put a new fuel pump on there and be good to go. That spring would do some damage being somewhere in there, right?

does anyone have any ideas on how to approach this? Do I just need to get someone to pull the top off and get the spring out? Is it possible to just fish it out?

 

You suspicions are correct, you can just leave the spring in there, as it may cause further havoc. It may be possible to "fish out" the spring with a pair of needle-nose pliers, if you can see it & reach it. If not, you'll need to remove the valve cover to get clear access to it. The fuel pump arm is operated by an eccentric (off-center) metal ring on the end of the camshaft. Taking the valve cover off gives you complete access to the camshaft & it's components.

If you go that way, you may want to order up a complete new valve cover, grommets & "half-moon" plug set like this one to replace your old parts:
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...10710&jsn=1005

Lord knows how old the old stuff is, & if you don't replace them you will likely have oil leaks after putting the valve cover back on. Putting a new valve cover set isn't too hard to do. Other thing - don't overtorque the nuts that hold the cover down. Torque spec for those is 8-10 foot/pounds; much more than that & you'll deform the gasket and/or the grommets and have an oil leak.

Whether you tackle this yourself or not, if you get the valve cover off, it would be a good time to check the valve clearances too. Info on how to do that plus specs are here:
https://lcengineering.com/engine-20r...ve-adjustment/