Is my fuel pump leaking?

[NatySailor]

After a month away from my boat, I've had trouble starting and running the engine. The problem seemed like a fuel issue because I could get it to ignite for a moment using starter fluid, and also because I could eventually get it to run weakly. Also, a few weeks earlier I had done a weekend trip where the engine ran fine for something like 15 hours. Perhaps some water had gotten into my tank?

So I pulled off my racor fuel filter which I hadn't done for a while, and there was a lot of sediment in the bowl. So I replaced that with a new filter. While I was at it, I also had my old monel fuel tank cleaned by a professional tank cleaning service, put in five gallons of fresh fuel, and cleaned out the old fuel from the fuel lines, fuel pump sediment bowl and my new Racor filter. I should now have nice clean fuel all the way to the engine.

BUT -- it still wouldn't start/run well. Argh...

I did a quick check of the fuel pump by pulling the hose off the carb and squirting some fuel into a glass jar. The pump seemed to be working fine, but the fuel looked cloudy and separated into two layers. Hmm.. How could that be?

Came back the next day with a fresh can of gas and ran a new fuel line directly from a gas can in my cockpit to the fuel pump. (I wanted to eliminate bad gas as a source of my issues) The engine still wouldn't start and again I noticed the fuel coming out the fuel pump looked cloudy. What the hell, I thought?

I've attached two images to this post showing fuel in a glass jar. The clear stuff is straight from the gas can, the cloudy stuff passed briefly through my fuel pump before going into the jar (bypassing the rest of my fuel lines, Racor, gas tank, etc).

So... what's going on here? I'm thinking there must be a hole in my mechanical fuel pump diaphragm that is letting some oil in. I don't think there is a way for water to get to the fuel pump (is there?)

Really curious to hear what you all think of this mystery!

Thanks
Dennis