Monday, August 30, 2010

FAIL !

I hope that this isn't the start of things to come but I may now be keeping a blog about failures. I have 1.9 hours on the engine and the first breakdown.

This morning I staggered downstairs and the lower I got the more I could smell gasoline. Eventually I got to the kitchen and it really was quite overpowering. The culprits were going to be the 63 Galaxie, the 2009 Soltice or the cart. Hoping that a kitten may have accidentally opened a can of gas and then tipped it over I ventured into the garage and found a puddle of gas under the cart. A quick look and it was clear that the gas was leaking from, of all places, the exhaust manifold. This as you can imagine was quite confusing but by a process of elimination (thank you Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) I worked out that it has to be a split diaphragm in the fuel pump. Casting caution and my wallet to the wind I drove to Martinsville and picked up a new pump. It is about the only part that I have not replaced so what the hell. Of course with the new pump fitted I had to check out the old one and here it is.

The diaphragm (steady girls) is bottom right and if you squint your eyes you can just see the crack. Now I don't know if it's all psychosomatic but the little buggy seems to be flying with the new pump, maybe the leak was causing it to run too rich, we will see.

Actually the cart now has a name. It is called the Little F***ker. This derives from Susie saying get that little f***ker out into the yard. Now you might think that was a little uncalled for but she then proceeded to toss her cookies down the powder room. Personally I find the smell of gasoline (and Hoppes No.9 ) an aphrodisiac and I kind of figured with her bent over the bog it might be a good time to plight my troth but you know what, Monday mornings are painful enough without the unpleasantness of a spot of humpty dumpty getting in the way.

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