Now that we have all the time in the world to pursue our love....and I don't mean chasing your bride or girl friend around the house! Of course thats measurably more fun! Found the ambition to finally pull my gas tank on my 34 to correct a fuel gauge issue....never was accurate from the get go. Did I tell you I "despise" do overs of this magnitude. Especially ones involving laying on the ground disassembing body parts in prestine painted condition. After carefully taping all body parts disassembly started. Admittedly I should have left it be but I'm getting whackier as I age and this down time opens up new souces of aggravation. What a pain in the ass this turned out to be. The gas tank float was set up per manuf. specs at build time but never would show more than half a tank. Had to cut ,bend and otherwise come up with a more accurate float . Six hours later I'm done, sore and pissed off at the minute scratches I had to compound out . Lesson learned! Now I get to pull a door panel to tweek a cranky door latch... did I say lesson learned?
The gas gauge sending unit in my 58 Chevy Yeoman started reading empty all the time. Luckily, the tank has a drain plug. I found a new one on ebay (chinesium) and installed it. Not too bad. Maybe a year later, same thing. Dammit. Drain the tank and check the sending unit, still works. What's this? The brass float cracked in three places. Found another new unit on ebay and bought it. This one has a 10 year warranty. Installed it, and about 6 months later, it's reading empty. Drain the tank again, this time installing a petcock. Pull the unit, and the brass float exploded. Seller sent me a new brass float, but I bought a new float off ebay that is a hybrid; brass where the holder holds it, the rest is some kind of plastic material. I threw it into a bucket of water, and it practically bounced out. It's now on my original unit, in the tank. The newer one is in the drawer as a spare. BUT, I will not be using the full brass floats any longer. At least the underside of my car isn't painted, so no buffing scratches.
I bought another model A in January, (nice original stocker i was going to drive around this summer)I worked on it pretty heavily until about two weeks ago. Everything started to cancel out, so i turned my attention to the house. So, after 110 years, & countless paint layers, l'm ass deep in a re-siding, re-window, re-door, As well as a new furnace. Sealing, & filling gaps & rot as i find it. Found out yesterday afternoon that Back to the 50's has been cancelled. More time to finish up the "garage extension"
Have three cars to occupy my time so all is good here. BTW...... fixing the door latch was a relative breeze. LOL
For me, the attitude I have at the beginning of a project usually dictates how that project is going to go. If I'm mad, or unhappy about doing something, it usually rewards me with being a hard, crappy job, but if I approach a project with an easy going attitude, the project usually goes pretty well. Of course there are some projects that are just plain crappy, but a good attitude often lessens the crappiness of even those projects. Its only taken me 40 years to discover that, but there are still those times I forget... Gene
The Jalopy Journal
