Part 27: 11/16/2015
Not much to report, but found a bit of time in various weeks to work on the car.
The major hold up has been the fact that the car had quit running altogether, and we are at the point that it really needs to move under it's own power. At first, I figured that the new fuel pump I had (New a year ago, anyway) had just failed and I would warranty it out and be back in business.
In actuality, that was partially true, but not entirely the issue.
The reason the car wouldn't run is because the hose that goes from the pickup to the metal output line had failed, and the pump was simply pushing the fuel it picked up right back into the tank. However, the condition of the pump itself was alarming to say the least. I have to thank the local Autozone for agreeing to warranty the pump, because it's condition is pretty awful! I believe the problem has stemmed from condensation in the tank causing it to have excess water, creating the perfect storm for a really rust prone environment. The tank was left pretty low on fuel, which it probably shouldn't have been.
Once we installed the new pump, we also found out that the filler neck seal had a nice hole in it, so I had to replace that before we could fill it totally full of fuel. That has since been done, but that day our woes continued.
With the new pump, the car started, but it was still running terribly. Pulling the plug wires off the coils one by one led us to the fact that #3 cylinder was dead. After pulling the plug, we found it was pretty fouled. Changing the plug fixed the running problem, but we decided to go ahead and change them all (I had the plugs for a while, but just hadn't ever gotten around to changing them) to get everything up to snuff.
Unfortunately, sometimes the most simple jobs are the ones that cause the biggest headaches, and this one didn't disappoint. Due to the way the Intake is designed on the 2.3L, the fourth plug is pretty difficult to access. Not impossible with universals, though. It was really my own fault, but while getting the spark plug socket seated onto the plug, I managed to snap the schrader valve right off the fuel rail. So, the car had run for 30 seconds, and I had put us right back where we started in less than 5 minutes.
Due to the tight location of the fuel rail, we ended up having to remove it entirely so that we could get an Easy Out to remove the remains of the old schrader. No parts store caries the valve (or even the rail) but it turns out that Late Model Restoration actually sells the darn thing, so I was able to order it from them and get it back together this past week along with the filler neck seal.
The only good part to come out of that whole scenario was that we had to pull the fuel injectors to get the rail out, and after seeing their condition we decided to replace them all. I can happily report that the car has never run better, and I was able to cruise it to the gas station to fill it with new gas without a hickup.
Once we got back, our intention was to install the MM subframe connectors. We soon realized that time was not going to be on our side with that project, but did manage to fix a really annoying (and self inflicted) exhaust issue that had been bugging me for a while. In our haste to get the thing together for inspections early on in the project, we really never got the muffler to sit properly under the car. Since we had it in the air, we decided to go ahead and address it.
I didn't take an after shot, but suffice it to say we were able to straighten out that embarrassing problem and get it nice and tight to the body underneath.
The next thing to do on the car is get the subframe connectors installed, and then we will move onto the interior.
Although it is going to wait for a bit because the weather isn't great for painting right now, we do have to fix a problem on the rear bumper cover.
Pretty annoying!!! We really had to fight to get it on there, and I'm pretty sure we screwed it up when we did that. I think I am going to loosen the cover, tape off the entire car, and just respray it on the car this time.
