Interim

Yo everyone.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukah or whatever. Mine was wonderful!  Lots of great family time, play time and car time believe it or not.

Speaking (typing) of which, I've actually been doing a bit of work on the Beast.   She is just about ready to come out and play.  I'll post more soon.

In the meantime, here is a short video demonstrating my superior agility and dexterity - the video is me attempting to take a picture, accidentally recording a video instead...and I have no idea what else I was doing.

Me in a nut shell.

Happy New Years!

F.A.S.T. and EZ

Yeah? Well, more like,  "Slow and... well, pretty straight forward".   eh?

Meh'.  I've been busy so I can't really use the "this is hard" excuse.  But enough excuses, let's get some work done. 

PUSH LOCK

More like - nope I'll spare you guys. 

Good LORD these things are a PITA.  So, to finish up the EFI fuel lines, I have to pop a few push-lock hose ends into some EFI rated fuel hose.  The Internet has a million ways of doing this, I chose 2 versions.

Version 1:  Don't look up anything and just "push" and "lock" it in by hand.

Welp, that went about as well as you would expect.   Got it past one barb and it became the Excalibur.  It didn't go in any further nor would it come back out.  Arthritic hands and some hose cutting later, I did some research.

Version 2:  Put some motor oil on the push-lock fitting and heat up the hose a bit.

It popped right on.  Well, most of the way, about 5 more minutes of twisting, pushing and cursing, it finds its home.

So, after I slap the EFI hose clamp on it, that is one down.  Now for the other end.

There is something messing on this end -- And that would be the hose clamp.   Because of course I forgot.  After cutting the hose and putting the fitting back on AFTER I slide the clamp on, I am good to go.  A few more hoses and I'm done.

I start to hook everything in these next pictures.  I purchased some heat shielding for these hoses because they will be pretty close the exhaust when it goes back in.

This picture above is connecting the pump to the beginning of the fuel hard line.

 
I am terrible at taking pictures.  If I didn't know my car so well, I'd look at the above picture and go "yeah, those are some things".  Well what is actually happening up there is the fuel hose coming from the top of the engine down towards the hardline that goes to the back.

Finally, the top of the engine.  Through a maze of spark plug wires, more wires and other hardware.

One of these cars is not like others

The Beast kind of stands out.  Or maybe she fits right in with this rowdy bunch....

Pictured above: The Beast sharing space with some classy guys and gals.

 Wiring it all up

Not Pictured: Me having a mild OCD/Anxiety attack. 

Ugh.  So many un-loomed wires.  I hate this part so much.  Fortunately, the FAST kit comes with a complete harness that is labeled and pre-loomed.  All I have to do is make a home for everything.

First I need to put in a coolant sensor in.  Fortunately, I have a spare port near the distributor.

 Just need to pop the plug out and....

And badda-boom - screw the pup all the way in.

Next up, I removed a lot of unneeded wiring.  I removed my fuel pressure gauge and wiring since that isn't needed anymore.  I removed all the old fuel pump controller wiring and fuel pump wiring.  Then finally, routed the new fuel pump wiring all the back.

About an hour later - I have most of the things connected and routed properly.

We are looking a bit cleaner now.  I just need to find a final home for the ECU; I'm thinking I'll probably place it in the rear-driver side of the engine compartment.  It has low heat and it is far away from an electrical noise.

Next steps:

1. Finish wiring up the ECU and secure it down.
2. Finish wiring up the fuel pump.
3. Plump in the return line for the gas tank fuel neck.
4. Put the gas tank back in.
5. Put the panhard bar back in(AFTER I FIND SOME STINKIN' BUSHINGS FOR IT)
6. Figure out what an earth I'm doing with the exhaust...(stares at Jacob and Jim)
• (I have great friends)

So hopefully just a couple more friday and/or Sundays and we should be up and running!

Long time, no update!

Tis the season of vacation, cold weather and of course, car work.

It has been a bit since my last update but there has been work done on the car!   Also, I've been to an auto conference in Las Vegas and then I spent a week in Mexico eating thanksgiving with family.  So excuses are done now.

Let's get to a quick catchup on what I've been doing.

SEMA

First a few pictures of some cool car stuff.

Extreme 3-wheeler drifting.   I honestly think this would be a fun side project.

Ford GT.  I Love this car so much.

Honestly, I can't get enough of the old GT's color scheme.

This was my favorite car here.  They took a Charger and basically turned it into a mean rally car.

Not my style but the attention to detail on this paint job was amazing.

Gotta go FAST

Alright, now for some car updates.  I've been working on getting FAST installed.  Slowly.

Garage dog is watching you work.

First goal was to rip all the old fuel lines out, take the fuel pump out and drop the gas tank.

Why drop the gas tank?  I need to plumb in a return line which is required by the new FAST/efi system.  In theory, this shouldn't be too hard, right?  Well, it is me doing this so of course I will make everything harder than it needs to be.

See that thing right there?  That is the part of the gas tank's filler neck.  This is where I want to plumb in the return line.  

The goal is to cut it in half, then put in the piece above - it has a nice little 3/8's tube perfect for what I need to do.

Anyway, gotta disconnect all the rubber tubes from the fuel line on the side of the car and the gas tank.

Almost forgot to disconnect the vent line.

Here is a look from under the gas tank.  I disconnected the feed line and the fuel level sender.   The big tube thing on the right is one of the exhausts and the bar going across is the panhard bar.  I'll go into more detail in a bit.

Short lived but this little mallory 110 gph pump served its purpose well.  

So now it is time to drop the tank.  Easy, right?  Just pop the two fuel straps off and it should just drop down.  

So......

Guys, it's not going any where.

Is it the panhard bar?  (pictured above)  Is it the exhaust?  Well, we are redoing all of the exhaust so might as well start chopping some exhaust out.

[not pictured, my buddy Graham chopping some exhaust out]

 Ugh - STILL not going anywhere.  Fine, we will take out the damn panhard bar.  Alright, let's break this down in steps.

Removing the gas tank from 1972 Ford LTD Brougham:

1. Remove fuel tank straps.
2. Try to lower tank.
3. Spend 20 minutes screwing with the tank.
4. Have your friend cut parts of the exhaust out.
5. Repeat step 2.
6. Repeat step 3.
7. Remove panhard bar.
8. Repeat step 2.
9. Answer 'less than half full' to your buddy when he asks how full the tank is.
10. Get gas everywhere as you and your buddy get the 3/4 full gas tank out.

Results:

Boom.

Let's take a look at what this panhard bar is...

So first off, for those wondering to what my rear suspension setup is; According to some research, My car is a 3-link rear suspension WITH a center panhard bar.  This means I have two lower rear control arms and one upper control arm.  The panhard bar is connected from the frame to the center of the rear end - to prevent lateral motion.

So here is mine.  What is fun about this is you will literally not find this type of panhard bar or bushings ANYWHERE.  Go ahead, look it up.  I have two options for bushing replacement;  re-fab the frame to take a new type of panhard.......... or just get some strut bar bushings and call it good for a year until I start redoing the entire rear end.

I chose option #2.

Return Line

While I was here,  I decided to run some hardline along the frame for the return line.   I got a coil of 3/8's stainless steel.

So time to straighten out the coil and do some work.

Difficulty:  I don't have a tube straightener tool.
Improvise:  Drill a hole through a piece of wood and pull it through.
Results:

NAILED IT GUYS.   Sigh...Whatever, it is straight enough.

Also, I wanted to do some flaring just so the when I put the EFI rated rubber hose on, the EFI clamps will have something to catch on to.

After several attempts, I realize how tough flaring stainless style is.

Good enough for now.  (Hopefully)  I do plan on testing for leaks before any sort of driving or even starting the engine.  So well see how all this goes.

Badda bing.

Exhausted

And to make sure I got some work done, might as well get rid of the rest of the exhaust.  Again, credit goes to someone else when it comes to metal work;  this time Jim at the helm cutting the back end of the exhaust off.

Slowly but surely.

After all that work, it was time for some RnR...

Okay, hopefully next week will produce some good work.

Until then!