June 6, 2007
Frank the car is vexing me sorely. I came to the realisation this past week that having a car that doesn’t work is worse than having no car at all. This is because having a non-working car is like not having a car in that you can’t drive anywhere; it has all the bad things like the time and money that you end up putting into it to try to make it work again.
I now know that the reason for my Frank’s previous problems and the basis for its current inoperability is the fuel pump. For those of you who only know as much as I did at the start of this, the fuel pump is located inside the fuel tank. There are various good reasons for this, but it makes getting at said fuel pump a real pain in the neck.
A bypass option is to install a second pump outside the tank. In theory, this should work by drawing through the other pump and supplying the necessary fuel to the engine that way. In practice, if the first pump isn’t working because it’s blocked, the second pump does nothing but suck air through tiny gaps in the line.
So I need to figure out how to either unblock the first pump, or else find another way into the gas tank. I’m thinking about the second option right now.
Woohoo!
June 7, 2007
Frank is alive! After much effort and more than several dollars, the Frank is riding smooth once again. The final solution remains a mystery, due to an unscientific final push. For the last push I did two things. I went to Canadian Tire and picked up a gas can, a siphon kit, and a small tube of thread sealer.
I first tried to siphon gas from the tank. I have a good reason for this, but it didn’t matter because I couldn’t get any gas from the tank anyway. So much for that idea.
So I went to the nearest gas station and bought 10 litres of fuel. I transferred this into my car, and Tried to start it. No luck. So the final option was the thread sealer. I used it to seal any gaps that might have existed in the hose fittings. Tried it again: no luck.
Then I realised that I hadn’t re-connected the jumper supplying power to the fuel and ignition system. Silly me! So I reconnected that and Voilla! It started right up, and stayed started. So either I was out of fuel (possible, but not likely), the new fuel unclogged the old pump, or the thread sealer did the trick.
Okay so Frank works. Woo!
2 comments:
Do both you and Adam have red cars?
Congratulations on convocating! I am a rather icy individual at times but convocation brought out a fair amount of sentimentality in me. I hear that Amy also convocates. Good job the Forsyth stock. You seem like a car genius. I guess that is a good skill.
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