Florida Interlude Two
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 7:38 am
Arrived at Weisswurst Farm & Implement Repair to find a Weisswurst employee repairing an implement, a newly acquired little runabout with three flat tires.
The old one sat forlornly drying out from a dunk in the lake. It bravely sports an attempt at styling. "Rakish," I say:
This visit was devoted to fixing the fuel gauge, come what may. What may sure came. But in the beginning, I was luxuriantly lazy in my ignorant innocence. Rather than diving into the Main Event, I lolled about the edges, clamping edges in fact, with Weldwood's finest 1970 Bus Headliner Cement:
Visited with the farm denizens. Said hi to the pigs, they have grown authoritatively more piggish. Said hello to the goats, the little one pranced towards me, warming my heart ( it must like me! ), and right on past towards some expected food source. It was moments after the above photograph was taken that Life On The Farm took a turn from bucolic to belligerent. See, that little adolescent rooster knew to keep his beak shut around the Big Rooster Boss, but here, today, his hormones overtook his common sense and the first crow issued forth from him. Then the other adolescent rooster took to his first crow. Man, things change always. The Weisswurst Farm & Implement employee takes the tires to be repaired. Look at that gorgeous double cab Vanagon in the middle of its day:
Oh yeah, the fuel gauge, the fuel gauge, I had to fix the fuel gauge. Dropped Naranja's engine four inches with the floor jack, and removed the fuel tank bulkhead. Appreciatively noted the newnewnew! decel valve connections and gleaming double relay spade terminals under the Fred The Oversprayer overspray. This bulkhead came out with a resounding pop because the right side of the vehicle has been displaced forward a good 1/4" from the impact that was highlighted in the battery tray replacement thread. I painted it with grey fillable primer followed by a few distant clearcoat sprays (the distance was to allow the paint to dry midflight on the way to the bulkhead so it wouldn't be grossly-too-glossy:
Oh yeah, the fuel gauge! Why doesn't the fuel gauge work? Here's the Naranja Westy as I approached the fuel gauge repair:
I saw only one wire attached to the fuel sender. That's it! I knew it! Fred The Oversprayer had pulled on the fuel sender-to-gauge wire and detached the connector. Found the connector and reattached the wire. Yay! I don't have to deal with crusty varnished corroded senders and seals!
( I am taking victory photographs here, idiotiam )
Asked Jeff to turn on the ignition and tell me all about how much fuel is in the tank. " . . . . . . . ," he said. Well hell's bells. Went to the gauge and re-checked electrical supply and continuity. It was all fine. I guess the sender really did get terminally glopped and crudded up in that grossly varnished fuel tank. Removed the crusty sender unit carefully across the top of the tank and out into the light:
The arm was well and truly stuck and you could see the varnish line on the float where the fuel had evaporated away slowly over its twenty year sit. Yay! A little WD-40 and freeing up the arm, and it will be as good as new! Enjoyed a nice dinner with the gracious and hospitable Weisswurst Farm & Implement Repair family, then excused myself to go enjoy my now-functional fuel gauge.
"Is it going to be a late night?" asked Mrs. Weisswurst Farm & Implement Repairperson?
"No, it'll be easy," said the ignorant Innocent.
Put the now free sender in the tank, buttoned it up, turned on the ignition and the fuel gauge was as it ever was with the needle buried hard left past the reserve mark. Now what? Damn sender is clearly toast. Everything is apart. I am in Florida. I will not leave this Garden of Guinea Hens gaugeless, I will not. It is late. I am tired. Tore apart the sender. Damn. I see a burnt off plastic-with-rivet end to the impossibly thin winding wire. The little copper buss bar over to the positive terminal of the sender was just laying there in crud. It is hopeless.What was I EXPECTING? Duh. Really. Probably burnt right off when I first turned on the ignition on October 4th. How the heck do I repair such a thin wire riveted to a burnt off piece of plastic and how do I what? solder it?? to the terminal? Stupid bugs. What's that itch? I am ready to flog myself with an extension cord . . .
Four hours later, I have:
a) unwound three turns of the sender winding wire
b) knotted one end of this new extended wire into a slot cut into the plastic board so that the windings remain tight on the board (if the wire were to loosen, the float sweeper would rip them into a mangled mess of tangled jumble)
c) cut a double slot into the terminal end that juts into the tank and wrapped the free end of the wire around the double-cut terminal
d) all of the above all over again when the damn wire snapped - at this point, we have stolen four loops of sender wire off the board:
Now we have a neck ache, a back ache, a right hip ache, a halogen light burn on my right arm, and an even more hopeless attitude,
"this stupid f**ker is never going to f**kin work in a f**kin million years, give it up!"
Turned on the ignition. Fuel gauge needle moved for the first time in twenty years. Dayam.
Calibrated the Itinerant Air-Cooled Hack Rebuilt Fuel Sender Unit:
Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, this gauge goes to just a whisker past the full mark and glides smoothly down to the left side of the reserve red.
Don't worry, I am yet to be punished for resurrecting the dead.
Next day, Mr. Smug Aren't I A Genius? attacks the driver's door rust behind the door seal:
Tried out the new Five Can Paint Recipe:
Painted the underneath fuel tank bulkhead screws just like the BobD had:
Reconditioned and painted the engine hangers. Don't you like to see the reflection of your ratchet in the engine hangers? I do:
Re-installed the engine compartment bits, used dielectric grease on all electrical terminals all polished nicely, especially the heater blower and double relay/series resistors. Very much more BobD-esque now:
"Step ASIDE, I shall go fill up the gas tank," I smugly told these very nice farmers. Filled the gas tank to the first "click off" of the dispensor at the local station. Drove home with a "full" reading on my gas gauge, because I am perfect. Pulled into the building.
"What the *@%! is that pouring liquid sound??"
Fuel. From a fuel hose. Cut almost in half when the engine sagged due to my failing jack.
Drank beer with Farmer Jeff and replaced the fuel hose. Only slightly humbled, I left for Jacksonville the next morning with my new fuel gauge proudly reading "full", then, after some time of perfect motoring, "half".
Stopped at a filling station in Gainesville FL. Let's see if it takes exactly one half of the tank's capacity, seeing as, after all, it is at "half" on the gauge. That would be 7.35 gallons, I believe. And the dispensor clicked at 7.1. And I added just a dollop. And that guy said,
"Hey BUDDY, YOU'RE LOSING GAS ALL OVER THE PLACE!"
I sat there for thirty minutes, waiting for the gas flood to evaporate before I could even think about starting the car. I bet it was that little thought I had back at the farm. I had back then thought, "this sender sure did turn and lock mighty easily on the tank."
MR. Perfect, I think, may not have the seal on correctly . . . .
The old one sat forlornly drying out from a dunk in the lake. It bravely sports an attempt at styling. "Rakish," I say:
This visit was devoted to fixing the fuel gauge, come what may. What may sure came. But in the beginning, I was luxuriantly lazy in my ignorant innocence. Rather than diving into the Main Event, I lolled about the edges, clamping edges in fact, with Weldwood's finest 1970 Bus Headliner Cement:
Visited with the farm denizens. Said hi to the pigs, they have grown authoritatively more piggish. Said hello to the goats, the little one pranced towards me, warming my heart ( it must like me! ), and right on past towards some expected food source. It was moments after the above photograph was taken that Life On The Farm took a turn from bucolic to belligerent. See, that little adolescent rooster knew to keep his beak shut around the Big Rooster Boss, but here, today, his hormones overtook his common sense and the first crow issued forth from him. Then the other adolescent rooster took to his first crow. Man, things change always. The Weisswurst Farm & Implement employee takes the tires to be repaired. Look at that gorgeous double cab Vanagon in the middle of its day:
Oh yeah, the fuel gauge, the fuel gauge, I had to fix the fuel gauge. Dropped Naranja's engine four inches with the floor jack, and removed the fuel tank bulkhead. Appreciatively noted the newnewnew! decel valve connections and gleaming double relay spade terminals under the Fred The Oversprayer overspray. This bulkhead came out with a resounding pop because the right side of the vehicle has been displaced forward a good 1/4" from the impact that was highlighted in the battery tray replacement thread. I painted it with grey fillable primer followed by a few distant clearcoat sprays (the distance was to allow the paint to dry midflight on the way to the bulkhead so it wouldn't be grossly-too-glossy:
Oh yeah, the fuel gauge! Why doesn't the fuel gauge work? Here's the Naranja Westy as I approached the fuel gauge repair:
I saw only one wire attached to the fuel sender. That's it! I knew it! Fred The Oversprayer had pulled on the fuel sender-to-gauge wire and detached the connector. Found the connector and reattached the wire. Yay! I don't have to deal with crusty varnished corroded senders and seals!
( I am taking victory photographs here, idiotiam )
Asked Jeff to turn on the ignition and tell me all about how much fuel is in the tank. " . . . . . . . ," he said. Well hell's bells. Went to the gauge and re-checked electrical supply and continuity. It was all fine. I guess the sender really did get terminally glopped and crudded up in that grossly varnished fuel tank. Removed the crusty sender unit carefully across the top of the tank and out into the light:
The arm was well and truly stuck and you could see the varnish line on the float where the fuel had evaporated away slowly over its twenty year sit. Yay! A little WD-40 and freeing up the arm, and it will be as good as new! Enjoyed a nice dinner with the gracious and hospitable Weisswurst Farm & Implement Repair family, then excused myself to go enjoy my now-functional fuel gauge.
"Is it going to be a late night?" asked Mrs. Weisswurst Farm & Implement Repairperson?
"No, it'll be easy," said the ignorant Innocent.
Put the now free sender in the tank, buttoned it up, turned on the ignition and the fuel gauge was as it ever was with the needle buried hard left past the reserve mark. Now what? Damn sender is clearly toast. Everything is apart. I am in Florida. I will not leave this Garden of Guinea Hens gaugeless, I will not. It is late. I am tired. Tore apart the sender. Damn. I see a burnt off plastic-with-rivet end to the impossibly thin winding wire. The little copper buss bar over to the positive terminal of the sender was just laying there in crud. It is hopeless.What was I EXPECTING? Duh. Really. Probably burnt right off when I first turned on the ignition on October 4th. How the heck do I repair such a thin wire riveted to a burnt off piece of plastic and how do I what? solder it?? to the terminal? Stupid bugs. What's that itch? I am ready to flog myself with an extension cord . . .
Four hours later, I have:
a) unwound three turns of the sender winding wire
b) knotted one end of this new extended wire into a slot cut into the plastic board so that the windings remain tight on the board (if the wire were to loosen, the float sweeper would rip them into a mangled mess of tangled jumble)
c) cut a double slot into the terminal end that juts into the tank and wrapped the free end of the wire around the double-cut terminal
d) all of the above all over again when the damn wire snapped - at this point, we have stolen four loops of sender wire off the board:
Now we have a neck ache, a back ache, a right hip ache, a halogen light burn on my right arm, and an even more hopeless attitude,
"this stupid f**ker is never going to f**kin work in a f**kin million years, give it up!"
Turned on the ignition. Fuel gauge needle moved for the first time in twenty years. Dayam.
Calibrated the Itinerant Air-Cooled Hack Rebuilt Fuel Sender Unit:
Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, this gauge goes to just a whisker past the full mark and glides smoothly down to the left side of the reserve red.
Don't worry, I am yet to be punished for resurrecting the dead.
Next day, Mr. Smug Aren't I A Genius? attacks the driver's door rust behind the door seal:
Tried out the new Five Can Paint Recipe:
Painted the underneath fuel tank bulkhead screws just like the BobD had:
Reconditioned and painted the engine hangers. Don't you like to see the reflection of your ratchet in the engine hangers? I do:
Re-installed the engine compartment bits, used dielectric grease on all electrical terminals all polished nicely, especially the heater blower and double relay/series resistors. Very much more BobD-esque now:
"Step ASIDE, I shall go fill up the gas tank," I smugly told these very nice farmers. Filled the gas tank to the first "click off" of the dispensor at the local station. Drove home with a "full" reading on my gas gauge, because I am perfect. Pulled into the building.
"What the *@%! is that pouring liquid sound??"
Fuel. From a fuel hose. Cut almost in half when the engine sagged due to my failing jack.
Drank beer with Farmer Jeff and replaced the fuel hose. Only slightly humbled, I left for Jacksonville the next morning with my new fuel gauge proudly reading "full", then, after some time of perfect motoring, "half".
Stopped at a filling station in Gainesville FL. Let's see if it takes exactly one half of the tank's capacity, seeing as, after all, it is at "half" on the gauge. That would be 7.35 gallons, I believe. And the dispensor clicked at 7.1. And I added just a dollop. And that guy said,
"Hey BUDDY, YOU'RE LOSING GAS ALL OVER THE PLACE!"
I sat there for thirty minutes, waiting for the gas flood to evaporate before I could even think about starting the car. I bet it was that little thought I had back at the farm. I had back then thought, "this sender sure did turn and lock mighty easily on the tank."
MR. Perfect, I think, may not have the seal on correctly . . . .