Since I’m pushing the low-cost repairs as a way to keep your old car hobby up during the recession, here’s an update on a couple of things I’ve been trying at. Minor projects, but complicated by my inexperience with the work at hand… one of the frustrations of the hobby is finding enough time to work on the cars. Between work and quality time with friends/family, there’s not a lot of time left to play with 4 cars. And it bothers me when my cars are not running properly or need repairs!
Archive for the ‘Repairs’ Category
Alfetta upgrades, first try
June 22, 2009
Replace your fuel pump
May 22, 2009As I’m catching up on all the little projects I’ve done over my brief ownership of my Lancia Beta, I realized I’ve got things a little out of order – I was having problems with the fuel pump, so decided to replace it. All the jiggling of the metal fuel lines agitated them and caused the leakage mentioned in a prior post. Anyway, on to the replacement of the pump – once I’d realized it needed occasional hitting to get it to run, and since it appeared to be the original pump, I decided to replace it with a modern pump to remove another possible point of failure. Based on recommendations, I got the Carter P60504 from Pep Boys – it’s easily available and more-or-less fits the original mounts, and at $51.99 including a pre-pump filter it fits the criteria of being a budget repair.
Smokey Says, Only You Can Stop Fluid Leaks #2
May 21, 2009Here’s another installment in this apparently all-too-necessary series, mostly based on experiences with my new-to-me Lancia Beta. While replacing my fuel pump, I noticed a pretty intense fuel smell in my car, and had problems with some oily goop dripping out from under the passenger compartment. I also had issues with the fuel getting to the electric fuel pump, and then from there to the engine. After finishing replacing the pump, I pulled up the carpeting in the car, and guess what, the metal fuel lines run inside the passenger compartment, under the carpet, next to the cotton-fiber-and-tar matting that acts as insulation and sound-proofing material. Apparently the matting had absorbed moisture at some point in in the car’s 30 years, which resulted in rusty fuel lines… or maybe the moisture was in the fuel lines from the long years of storage, since there was a plastic coating around them. In any event, the fuel lines from tank to pump and pump to engine were perforated and leaking as much fuel as they could into the matting.
Rusty But Trusty 