I had some time this morning, so i removed the fuel tank. With the rear end on jack stands, I was able to get fuel tank fasteners fairly easily. Most of the bolts released smoothly, but there were a few that even Kroil would not penetrate. The stripped bolts were removed from the top side with a grinder.

Once out, the underside of the Rapier was reveled in all it’s rusty glory.

I drained the remainder of the toxic fuel varnish into a waste fuel container and headed for the radiator shop for a hot tank bath.

Tags: fuel tank
Categories: fuel tank

Within the boxes of engine parts, that were nestled ever so neatly in the trunk of the Rapier, were two miserably dirty oil pumps. Both oil pumps looked like they had seen better days, and both appeared to be unusable. I was hoping that I could take the two and make one good pump, but after I started cleaning them, even that thought seemed unlikely. Both pumps were the same part number, both had worn pump gears, and both pumps had broken distributor drive gears. At this point, I’m not even sure that either are the correct pump for our car.

After a thourough cleaning, I ended up with two usable housings and one pump to block oil pipe. A pump gear and distributor gear would need to be located before the oil pump could be reassembled….Rrrrr!!!

Tags: oil pump
Categories: oil pump

With the car now at our house, my thinking is that I’ll get the car running and safe to drive, so that Liz and the kids can enjoy it before the summer is over. The engine is nearing completion, and really, all I need to do is drop it in and start it up…well hopefully. I had a few hours before work, so I figured I’d work on getting the engine compartment cleaned up before I dropped the engine back in; so I grabbed some simple green from Home Depot and fired up the Kartcher pressure washer. It was at this point, that all hell broke loose. Seems the last paint job wasn’t properly prepared, and the Kartcher made quick work of stripping large. random, sections of paint off.

DAMN, the kids aren’t gonna love this…

maybe they won’t notice.

Tags: backstory
Categories: backstory

Seems my gasket kit did not come with a thermostat housing to block gasket, so I had to make one up from some cork gasket stock. I also took the time to size up the studs that hold that housing onto the block and pre-fit everything together.

Tags: t-stat
Categories: engine

Well, the guilt had finally gotten to me, and our Rapier had been parked at my parents house long enough. So, as a father’s day gesture, I offered to help my dad clean up his yard, and remove our little eye sore from his driveway. The kids and I unpacked the little rapier from it’s blue tarp wrapping and collected all the loose bits for transport.

I borrowed a trailer from work, and during our lunch break, a co-worker and I made a mad dash to my folks house to retrieve the car. The move was fairly uneventful aside from almost loosing the front grill. thanks to Louis and his cat like reflexes, we were able to save the grill before rolling over it with the trailer. That would have been a real drag…. With the car now home, we were off to El Calor for some tortas and horchata. YUM!

Tags: backstory
Categories: backstory