When I got the engine in and tired to fire it, we didn’t seem to have any fuel. I picked up a new fuel pump, and was ready to see just how bad the tank is.
The safety minded engineers at Toyota were nice enough to locate the tank in the middle of the car. This is a great way of not have Pinto-esque problems, but doesn’t make this the easiest tank to remove. Of course the first problem was that the tank was close to 100% full of really old crappy fuel and a couple of gallons that I dumped in to apparently make my life harder.
Everything was going relatively straight forward draining the fuel into a 5 gallon bucket until both buckets ended up to full to really move with out spilling. Since I didn’t have a hand pump I grabbed a battery, fuel pump, some Jerry cans, and a bit of hose. This was working pretty damn well right up until it didn’t. One of the alligator clips on the pump moved just enough to spark and POOF. We had a 5 gallon bucket of fuel on fire. Or the vapor off the top of it anyway. Luckily a quick squirt or two from the fire extinguisher was enough to put things out. Then I just had to clean up the mess so I could continue.
With the fuel drained and cleaned (or burned) up I could drop the tank. Once the tank was out it was easy to see just how rusty the pump assembly (lead shot) was. It was no wonder it wasn’t working. The tank insides weren’t much better. I decided to borrow the tank from Whitey while I figured out where to have this one cleaned and sealed.
Just a few shots of Whiteys tank being transitioned to Red. It’s always nice when siblings can share and help each other out.
With the fuel situation sorted, we were finally up and running!
And then while I was “gently” driving it around the lot the timing belt decided to let go! The pin holding the tension spring is gone, and the spring is embedded in the belt, so I imagine the pin is the culprit here. Guess I have to wait another day to drive it. I don’t have a spare belt here.
