well after my first autocross on saturday, i realized i need to clean my feul pump prefilter because i was getting that nasty cut-out during hard left hand turns. let me tell you--it makes for some interesting slaloms

so yesterday i read the thread about how to do it and looked at sureshot's pics and set out to work. i got the plate in the hatch of but then i look at the plate holding the pump itself in the tank and i notice that all the screws are rusted out to the point where they are stuck and dont even have a head to get a screw driver into. i tried pliers on them but that didnt work either. normaly i'd just drill them out but this is my gas tank and i figured that might not be a very good idea.

so, how do i get those screws out and get my pump out without blowing my car up?

the only other idea i have is to get a dremel and cut slots back into the screw heads and try turnig them out with a flat-head driver. but flying sparks doesnt exactly sound safe either right above 18 gallons of gas.

 

Mine were rusted as well.
You take a chisel, and dig the corner of it into the edge of the screw head, use a hammer on it to rotate the screw around...
Works amazingly.

I then replaced my screws with stainless allen head screws.

Thats what I hate/love about my car... all of the "bling" is hidden...

 

The screws are not torqued very tight.
If you can get them to budge, they will come on out.

Try dressing the nose of a small vise grip plier on a grinder to give a good square bite on what's left of the screw head.

 

thats what i did was used vice grips. and man i love my fd fuel pump.

ej

 

ah thanks for the suggestions. ill have to give that a try and hunt down a pair of vise grips. hopefuly these ideas will work.......

 

Just did mine a few weeks ago. Totally rusted, wouldn't budge.

I whacked off the heads with a cold chisel, then removed the pump and then used vice grips to grab and unscrew the shaft of each screw. Messy and annoying, but it worked...

 

nuts off spray, much better than WD-40. let is sit for a while and chisel or cut a small line on the screw head to use a flathead screw driver on - should work