So, I pulled the pump hanger and looked at the removable screen to see that it was covered with a tan/whitish powdery substance. Blew it out with carb cleaner, put it back in place and hooked everything back up.
Thing ran like a dream. Doing half-throttle pulls on the new motor and decel with vacuum, repeat. After about 10 minutes the same thing happened. Fuel pressure goes to zero and the engine bogs when you step on the gas.
By now, I know it's something in my gas tank so I decide to flush it. I have no history on the car and it could have sat for years before I bought it, so I figure draining it, rinsing it, and putting fresh gas in it would be a good idea.
So, i drain all the old gas and put it aside. I take a high pressure garden sprayer and spray around the inside of the gas tank through the hanger hole in the trunk and fill it up by about a quarter tank at a time. I see this tan-white clumpy stuff floating around the surface. I decide to jack up the left side of the car so as I siphon the water out, this clumpy stuff will end where i can wipe the stuff off of the bottom. I repeat this about 15 times until no more of this clumpy stuff can be seen. I dry it as much as I can with a shop vac, and then with a leaf blower aimed into the tank and moving it around for probably 10 minutes.
Once it's bone dry, I fill it up with about 5 gallons of fresh gas. Pat myself on the back, and start making the 35 mile journey to Clemson from Greenville. Finally, I'm driving the car I have been dreaming about for 2 years. Nevertheless I've got half a chubby at this point.
Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes it happens again. The engine bogs under throttle, zero fuel pressure, etc. So I have to pull over 4 times on the trip back to pull out the fuel pump hanger and clean this crud out of the screen on the Walbro. I don't have a sock for it, but I've thought about finding one for it - however it's only going to take longer to clog that up.
WTF is this s***? I've searched online and found everything from aluminum oxide, to something with the ethanol that they put in gasoline reacting with something, flour and sugar from enemies. I highly doubt the latter two because it doesn't look like that - especially by the way it behaves in water (floats around in small clumps).
I don't know what to do. I've got a half tank of gas in there and really no easy way to drain it. The gas itself looks clear and I cannot detect anything visually, but it's obviously still there.
Aside from calling it a loss and finding a new gas tank (where the hell would I do that anyways), what can I do? I've obviously put a lot of effort into cleaning it but that obviously didn't help it! I'm afraid "fuel treatments" could dislodge more of this crap from somewhere, making the problem worse.
Once it dries, it's a powdery-white substance (you can see it on the tip of my middle finger and thumb)
