Breakthrough!

I installed the diagonal and harness bar last night. Until the door bars come, that's the last of the cage for now. I can almost see an end to this part of the project.

Ed showed up and helped me with the harness bar and then we moved onto getting the car running. We did some additional troubleshooting with the fuel pump. We moved the electric pump back to the engine compartment and wired it to run when the key was turned on. We installed a see through inline fuel filter to monitor the fuel flow. We got the car started and it ran. And ran. And ran. It ran until the temperature gauge actually lifted off C and settled in the middle of the gauge. Around this time, the fuel filter ran dry. The pump was still running and spitting a little bit of fuel in the filter. After about a minute, the car stalled and died. The fuel gauge was showing almost 1/2 a tank of gas. We pulled the sending unit out of the tank to see what the heck was going on. Well, the tank had plenty of gas, but the sump, where the sending unit sucks up the gas, was empty. Huh? That's right, there's a self contained sump (for lack of better word) in the tank where the fuel pickup (or old electric pump) would sit. I think it's there to allow fuel pickup during turns, acceleration and braking. I put on a nitrile glove and stuck my hand in to see how the gas got in the sump. There's a small metal tube on the very bottom that goes to another part of the tank and pulls fuel from there. So the tube must be clogged. I tried to run a stiff wire through the tube, but there's too many right angles and not enough room to get a good grip with the gloves on. I then tried a plastic tie wrap. I was able to get it about 6-8 inches in the tube before it stopped. That still didn't allow the sump to fill up.

Grrrrr...What next? I'll call a few radiator shops and see if they can clean the tank. Is it possible to get the tank split in half and see what the real problem is? If not that, then a fuel cell may be the next option. There are some on sale through Lemons. A 15 gallon cell would be just under $600. That's out of the budget, so we need to make the existing tank work.

This has been one of the best work sessions in terms of problem resolution. The car ran for an extended period and then we discovered why it was dying. We wouldn't be at this point if it weren't for all the people that have come over to help look at the problem: Ken and Ed S. and of course my constant team mates, Eric and Ed G. That's about all the internet fame I can offer you guys at this point. :-)