What shold I look for?

there is an "emergency fuel shutoff" killin' power to the pump. You'll find the reset button on the driver's side kick panel. It's a red button.

Couldn't find shutoff....but the fuel pump is kicking in, runs for about 4 seconds and it shuts off.

is the ground okay? the negative battery cable with it's battery terminal, the other end what connects to the chassis, and to the engine...it this is weak (check the date on your battery) and connections to the positive and negative are corroded because the battery is old, replace the battery with a new one 1990 would make it a 13 year old, waay dead- already- batteries degrade by not accepting charge 10%/year, so according to one Electrochemical Engineer (my dad) should no longer be able to take a charge anymore with the age of this battery. Think you need a tad bit of cleanup and assuring solid connections what could stand a 300 CCA load on them-

get reliable ground on your buggy. chassis ground, engine block ground, the fuel system depends on solid ground.

Engine cranks good, no problem with that end of starting.I have fire at the spark plugs, took out number one spark plug and the spark looked great. Again my guess is it has something to do with the fuel system. The fuel pump kicks in, then shuts it's self off. So it seems the fuel pump is working..but is it working right? When the hose popped off the fuel gauge should the pump started pumping on it's own when is sensed there was no fuel pressure?

...and when you re-attached, it suddenly quit?

does the fuel pump keep runnin'? can you hear it whirr-whirr? then when it quits like someone cut power to it?

Should keep runnin'. no panic shutoff.

when I reattached the fuel line to the fuel pump it didn't start pumping again, until I turned the key off, then back on again. When I did so the fuel pump started pumping,ran for about 4-5 seconds then quit again.As I understand it this is normal, when it builds up pressure it is supposed to shut down....but what I'm trying to figure out is....is it supposed to start up again on it's own when it no longer has pressure? It seems if this is true the fuel pump should of kept pumping gas when the fuel line came off of the tester..it didn't and would not start pumping again until after the key was turned off, then on again.

the assumption the it shuts off is incorrect. Fuel keeps flowin' thru the fuel rail providing those hundreds of pounds of atomizing force for your injectors.

the unused fuel goes back thru a return line~

hopefully there's enough gas left in the tank to keep the pump cool.

overheat....then fail, classic ford error in judgement....don't let it run dry!