Fuel pumps

[lmehr@domain.elided (Louis Mehr)]

Hello Stag owners,

This weekend my 73 Stag failed to start.

No fuel was being delivered and the fuel pump was failing to click as it 
usually would.

The problem was caused by the fuel pump which I removed and inspected.

Two important things were clear:

1/ the bakelike housing for the electrical part was cracked  (not 
preventing the car from starting but a potential explosion hazard I would 
have thought)
2/ the electical contacts within the unit were pitted

After just playing with the contacts (I didn't even clean them) I applied 
power to the unit it started to chatter so I reinstalled it and it did 
indeed work.

However, petrol was weeping from the inlet banjo nut - not good so I packed 
up and went to bed.

Here are my questions:

1/ are these fuel pumps generally reliable ?
2/ are there some precautions to take to avoid weeping ?
3/ is it worth replacing just the electrical part of the pump or is a 
complete unit advisable?
4/ How does the fuel pump work ?  The freqency of the chatter reduces as 
the system fills with petrol.


Thanks

Louis Mehr (Mr)
Manchester
England