SixxGunn,
A few months ago I started having problems with my '00 4-cylinder Contour (105k miles). It would be hard to start and sometimes when I was tarvelling along, it would run rough for a minute, then cut out. Most of the time I could get it to the side of the road, then start it once or twice and it would strat and be fine....for awhile. I tried plugs, wires, fuel filter and gas booster type products. I was torn between fuel pump and/or fuel regulator and I wanted to be sure because they're both pretty expensive. In these forums and elsewhere on the web, and part store sites, it seems that there is much conflicting information on what fuel pump is available.
To make a long story short, not knowing what what the problem was and what to do about fixing it when I found out, I decided to remove the fuel pump and at least take a look at it. Afterall, th car was running like crap anyway.
I'll say that I don't consider myself a mechanic but in my younger years, I didn't have any problems doing intermediate repairs. This time, the propect of spending about $600 forced my actions.
I took the backseat out and promptly was met with a hole that was too small to anything meaningful through. I used some boltcutters and modified the size of the hole.
Once that was done, the rest really wasn't too much of a problem. Call it dumb luck or my newfound mechanic ability but I took out the fuelpump unit, diassembled it, cleaned the screen, and put it all back together (with the old gasket). That was about 1,200 miles ago and I haven't had any problems since.
That's not saying that it won't start acting up again tomorrow but I must say that something good came out of it. The only problem I have now is that the arm that controls the fuel guage must've gotten stuck because I'm perpetually showing a full gas tank.
There is a section in these forums under "Mods" that show some excellent pictures of the fuel pump removal and installation. I found them to be very helpful and I thank whoever published them.
Good luck with your endeavor,
Rod