Some progress has been made on the
fuel pump cannister, but it's two steps forward and one step back.
I soldered the connector for the Walbro onto the Herko
fuel sending unit - unfortunately it appears the insulation on the Herko can't take much heat. The insulation on the Walbro connector wasn't bothered at all, but the Herko insulation swelled on the black wire and melted back an inch and a half on the grey wire. Absolutely wonderful. Lucky for me, I'd cut the largest diameter heat shrink tubing extra long. That's all I had of that size, I didn't think I'd have enough left over to be worth saving if I only cut what I thought I needed. So I just cut it in two, and it ended up being long enough to cover the exposed wire on the grey wire.
The yellowish shrink wrap turned out to be more garbage, it didn't shrink at all, and had to be cut off. This job has had so much win in it.
I've had a piece of this stuff soaking in gasoline for a week now, and it hasn't gotten soft yet, so it looks like the linked polyolefin will be fine in the
tank.
I'm extremely unimpressed with the main
fuel line. Look at how the original one kinks. That can't be flowing good.
I still haven't gotten a new one to go on, and have pretty much given up on it. I melted one end of the new line. I tried practicing on the other end, and noticed that I mashed it into an oval trying to push it onto the nipple. At that point I decided just to reuse the original line, although I did buy extra new lines. Now that I've noticed the constriction in the old line though, I don't know.
I'm pretty upset about the main
fuel line and the venturi line, but the truth is, this wouldn't have been bad at all if I'd known to -
a) Take the little black venturi line off of the pump first, using only a little heat (it doesn't take much to make it workable, and not much after that to melt it). Then take the cannister bottom off and get the little black venturi line out of the way.
b)pull the pump (unclip the plastic box and get it out of the way, take the
fuel strainer off the pump, and push it up), and then use heat to take the main
fuel line off only the pump. The nipple on the pump is smaller than on the cannister, and it's not hard to get the
fuel line off this end.
Out of ignorance I made this harder than it had to be.
What did you guys do with the plastic box the pump wires go through? The top pic shows it in the correct position - middle pic shows it pushed up by the Walbro, which is taller than the stock pump. That definitely changes the amount of dampening the springs do. I haven't heard anyone complain about it, but it isn't right.
I tried putting the pump in the stock position, with the connector on the outside. I managed to knock the venturi nipple off with the plastic box before I noticed the interference issue. I suppose the pump has to be orientated with the
fuel line nipple on the outside and the connector on the inside. Ironically, I initially, accidentally, installed the pump that way, before I realized the rubber sleeve is keyed for one position. I made the effort to "do it right," and rotated the pump to what is pictured, only to end up knocking off my venturi nipple. And then breaking one of the grippers on the plastic box taking the pump back out.
I could have had my car running a couple days ago if I'd just been lazier. Now it could be down for another week, who knows, maybe more! I ordered some JB Weld
Tank Weld to glue the venturi nipple back on. Maybe. The threads are stripped out on the Walbro, but if I coat the nipple threads with glue, it might hold well enough. The
Tank Weld looks like it could be too thick for this job, I'm not sure I can get a thin enough coating on the nipple threads, to then go down into the hole on the Walbro. I'm also not sure if the
Tank Weld is better than the Steel Stick (which I have on hand). The
Tank Weld may not bond as well to plastic, but I'm not sure the Steel Stick will either. No glue really works all that well on plastic. The
Tank Weld should handle being immersed in gas better, and the venturi nipple will probably be held in place more by having the glue jammed in the threads than by adhesion to the metal nipple and the plastic pump housing, so I'm guessing the
Tank Weld is the stuff to go with. If I can get it in place. I suppose I'll find out in a few days.
If I can get the nipple situation fixed, that leaves me trying to figure out what to do with the plastic box. Did you guys leave it as in the middle pic, or do something else?