I woke up this morning and tackled the fuel pump. For the most part, this was a pain in the butt, but not as bad as I had thought it would be from other's testimonials. When dropping out the tank, you should start by removing the rear storage binnacle and the center armrest console cover to expose the wires for the fuel pump and the fuel level sender. After the wires are disconnected I had to remove the coverings on the bottom of the chassis to expose the tank and the radiator piping and A/C lines and such.
I disconnected the E-Brake system to get it out of the way as well as a few other lines. If you look, you can see everything dangleing off the bottom of the car:
After all cables and what-not are out of the way, you can undo the metal straps that hold the tank in. More than these straps hold the tank in, it seems, as after the straps are undone, the tank won't just fall to the ground. I had to masage it out from inside the tunnel. But when it finally comes loose, just be ready for it. I also noted that the small lines that are the biggest pain to disconnect and reconnect don't need to be disconnected at all! There is this weird metal tube with other hoses that connect to it that runs up the middle of the cab-to-engine compartment firewall, normally under the plastic cover. This is the piece I'm talking about with all the little pipes going into it. You can unbolt it from the car with most of the hoses still intact (the ones in the back that are really hard to get on and off can be left on for this procedure) and just drop it out with the tank. In this pic, you can see it still attached to the tank out of the car.
This made re-installation 1000 times easier! Installation was reverse removal. I tied some string to the wires for the fuel pump and fuel level sender so I could easily pull them back up through the chassis tunnel.
While I was reinstalling the tank, the car parts store called and told me that my flywheel was in, so I went to pick it up after I finished with the tank. So I get the new flywheel on no problems. But when I'm torquing down the pressure plate, one of the studs snaps INSIDE THE NEW FLYWHEEL! I was very angry, needless to say, but some slow gentle persuasion was able to back it out. I then recalled seeing an almost identical bolt that hols a cable sleeve thingy for the e-brake. This became my replacement. The whole dilema took about an hour to solve. So after I get the clutch assembly back together I work on mating the tranny back up to the block. Not an easy task...
Clutch alignment wasn't an issue, it was just too awkward for me to get everything ligned up properly to get the tranny on by myself. About 45 minutes later, I was finally able to get them together. So far this was the hardest part of this whole ordeal.
A concern I'm having is the amount of free play in the clutch release fork. It seems at stationary position that the slave cylinder is already pretty far extended. I', not sure how much this clutch is going to be able to release. If I have to pull this engine out again I'm going to be very unhappy.Here's the engine mated to its new 5 speed C50 gearbox. I say new because this engine came with an auto.
That's all I did today. Tomorrow I'm going to start off by lengthening the wires on the harness for the starter and the O2 sensor, then the engine goes in. After I get the engine in and supported on its mounts, I'll get everything that needs to be hooked up from underneath back on and put Mister 2 back on the ground. Once that's done, I'll roll him out to swap out the 86 wiring harness for the 88 so i shouldn't have too many crazy wiring issues to deal with. I'm hoping to get that all done tomorrow. If I have extra time, I'll get all the fuel hoses and coolant hoses and everything hooked back up and try to get the air ducting and intercooler seated as well. I also have to go back to the store to pick up lots of fluids and some serpentine belts, and if everything goes well, I'll be running by Monday!
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