Hi, Listers,
Well, as planned, I got the tanks back from the rad shop late last week. One
tank and the middle balance pipe were ready on Thursday. The second tank and
the two corner balance pipes were ready on Friday. Overall, I am very happy
with the appearance and workmanship on the finished product. The outer paint
job is decent, although not a work of art, and the plastic coating on the
inside seems solid. I would certainly recommend this type of service to
anyone wanting to service the tanks, but I'm sure that a person could save a
few bucks by applying the coating themselves. Total cost for the rad shop's
servicing two tanks and three balance pipes: $300.00 Canadian (~$200.00 US).
Although I did have some difficulty getting the balance pipes and the filler
neck installed, things went together over a few hours and the finished product
is very satisfying. Once installed, I tested the connections with a gallon of
gas and then got ready for the BIG MOMENT. Ignition on, quiet buzzing from
the fuel pump (non-stock), then LOUD buzzing from the pump (it sucks!!), turn
the key and...
VROOOOOOM!
What a lovely sound!! it's really amazing how the engine will actually run if
it gets gas!
I think that I have a pretty good handle on what happened. If you recall from
my earlier posts, when I got the tanks out, they really didn't have much paint
to speak of inside. Also, the tanks were painted a nice, only slightly dusty
gloss black, when everything else in the trunk (breather line, filler neck,
etc.) was covered in Wedgwood Blue from the re-spray about 12 years ago. It
seems pretty obvious that a previous owner had the tanks out at some point,
probably to address the paint problem. UnfortunateIy, the cause of my
problems seems to be related to user error. When installing the new rubber
balance pipe connectors (sort of like thick radiator hose sections), I took a
close look at the old ones only to find a substantial amount of clear silicon
attached to these rubber pieces in several places. Those who have read the
previous installments of this saga will recall that I found a huge ball of
stringy silicon lodged in the balance pipe and blocking the fuel line. I
guess that the person working on the car didn't like the idea of using only
the clamps to hold these pipes together and felt safer covering them in
silicon too. I surmise that the type of silicon used was not impervious to
gasoline and quickly separated from the rubber only to collect inside the
balance pipe. This was the root of my fuel starvation problem.
In retrospect, I probably could have avoided having the rad shop service the
tanks as flaking paint was not the cause of my problem and the inside of the
tanks were actually in pretty good shape. On the other hand, removing and
replacing these tanks is not really fun and I consider it good insurance to go
completely through them while they are out. YMMV.
One final note: I took the list's advice and created my own cork gasket for
the fuel sender. I had ordered one from Victoria British (SS and CS were out
of stock), but it didn't arrive on time. The VB gasket arrived today,
however, and it looks like it would work fine. It's actually made up of two
separate layers of thin cork as opposed to one thicker piece. I will NOT be
removing the driver's side tank again to install this gasket, however. A nice
side-benefit to all of this is that my gas gauge seems more accurate now than
it was previously. I'll take all the good I can get!
That's all for now. Thanks to everyone for all of your advice and support
during this experience.
Shaun
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