Pinguis Vir Cursor: Milestone

Wow! The project is now in the garage! It's actually been in there for about a week (note the cushions from the patio chairs being stored on top of the cab - it's going to be a challenge for me to keep my dear truck clean of "storage" items), but posting to the blog has taken some time.

I wasn't planning on putting the truck into the garage that Thursday, but I had just gotten tired of not making any progress on the truck, and came home angry about it that day. I decided that, ready or not, the truck was moving into the garage that afternoon. Got home, pawned the attention-hogging child off on his mother, and told them I was going out to move the truck. On my way out the door, my loving wife was saying something about the garage smelling like gasoline. As I stepped out and closed the door, I was thinking, "Huh? Why's it gonna smell like gasoline?" Oh yeah, the hole in the fuel tank. Dammit - I'm not going to let that stop me, I'll just drain the tank after I get it into the garage.

I got the battery installed, finally got the engine to crank, and backed into the garage. I thought that I'd be slick about it and just run the engine until the gas tank was empty. I opened all the doors and windows, turned on a fan, and waited outside for the tank to run dry. After a while, I thought that I'd check the mileage record and found that there was just under twelve gallons of gas in the tank. It's going to take hours to empty the tank!

Plan number two was to drain the tank via the fuel lines. It seemed like a good idea, until I found that there was no way to crack a line open except for the fittings up by the fuel pump. I pulled the clamps and the gas started to flow out of the line. Well, not really flow...more like a pathetic trickle. Without the pump pulling fuel through the line, this idea wasn't going to work.

On to the plan number three: I'm going to stick a hose down the filler neck and start a siphon out to my portable gas cans. Great idea, except I don't have a hose long enough to do the job.

Plan number four: Drop the tank. Easy. Just remove the rusty nuts from the hangers, gently lower a nearly full tank, and all's good. Did I mention the time limit? At this point, I've been working with the truck for thirty minutes. I'm really supposed to be inside cooking dinner. (Special thanks to lovey wife Cari for finishing dinner and handling Levi's bath that night!) Some crazy voice in my head told me that it was no problem, I'd have the tank removed in a half hour, tops.

I had the tank removed in seventy minutes. Not too shabby, considering that the hangers and hardware are near impossible to get a good hold on with the wrenches needed. I patiently held the hanger rod with one wrench and turned the nut off with another wrench - one agonizingly slow eighth of a turn at a time. Hopes ran high as the nuts reached the end of the rods and the tank was almost free.

The floor jack that I was using to lower the tank slowly to the floor turned out to be not so helpful. It held the weight all right, but the tank wouldn't clear the frame while on the jack. The jack came out, and the tank started to move clear - until it hung on the filler hose. Did I mention that I smell gas? There's a hole in the tank, the nearly full tank is hanging at an angle from the filler hose, and gasoline is starting to drip down my arm. That crazy voice in my head (the one that was so confident earlier) started to hum. The hum slowly built into a buzz that shortly exploded into a shrill scream of AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHHAAAAAAAAA as it tried to tell the rational part of my brain about the explosive properties of gasoline vapor. HURRY! GET THE FILLER HOSE DISCONNECTED! I SMELL GAS! IT'S GONNA GO BOOM! DON'T DROP THAT WRENCH! OH NO, THE TROUBLE LIGHT IS A HOT BARE BULB REALLY CLOSE TO THE LEAKING TANK! Damn, that voice in my head really freaks out sometimes. I think I'll just keep moving quickly but carefully towards disconnecting the filler and vent hoses...

After a few (remarkably long) minutes, I got the tank free and out of the garage - out to the open air, where an explosion would be a little bit easier to deal with (right?!).

This counts as major progress towards goal number one! The truck is in the garage and the fuel tank is dropped. I'm making a list of the parts I need to replace the tank and re-plumb the fuel system; once I price that out, we'll move forward on making this thing a daily driver.