La Bella Ferrara - 20 year project getting closer

[nelsonj]

Looks like Photobucket wants me to pay $59.99/month or $399/year to allow me to link photos to this board. I have two words for them - but I'll settle on one "no". This is really terrible because I've used this a blog and an archive for YEARS, now Photobucket has , without warning, destroyed it. Sick and sad. Time to move back to my flicker account, or perhaps get a class action against Photobucket. I bet there are millions on very upset users out there.

Peace.
Out.

[MrToon]

I found Imgur very easy to work with and it's free. You might want to give that a look. You can add comments under a picture so that would suit your blog style

[AriK]

Seems like photobucket escalated to a new level. They now hold our photos hostage and allow you to view them only as thumbnails. At $60.00/month, that just about equals to what i pay for satelite service and even that, i'll be looking at other options.
Unable to even take a screenshot of the photos, there's no point allowing photobucket steal the photos out of our camera rolls. I have just denied access to them in my privacy settings.

[nelsonj]

Just want to document my latest "issue". Just before heading to the beach on Saturday, I noticed a puddle behind the driver's side rear tire. I investigated and could see fluid dipping off the bottom of my fender. I was losing a lot of gas! I investigated further, and after cleaning out my trunk to look at the gas tank, I determined that instead there is a rubber hose that connects the gas fill tube to the gas tank, and my hose got a crack and a leak. (I also took the opportunity to put air in my spare tire while it was out.)

I repaired it temporarily by wrapping a lot of duct tape around it. Unfortunately my gas tank was full, and the fill pipe is at the bottom of the tank, so I decided to go for a drive to burn some gas, and partially drain the tank. By the time I got home I was well below half a tank but my hose was leaking as I pulled into the garage. I put a plastic container under the leak, and then pumped the gas into my daily driver Toyota. I also jacked up the car to accelerate the leak and get it to where it no longer leaked when on flat ground. My red light is on solid on the gas gauge and figure I've got about a gallon in the tank. Very, very messy experience and I smelled like gas for several days afterwards.

The new hose arrived today (sort of expensive, around $40+shipping) and I plan to install it Saturday early AM. Current plan is to just cut off the old hose, soak the new hose in boiling water (to get it flexible), put some oil on the filler pipe and the gas tank pipe, and hope for an easy slide-on install. I think there are two clamps that need to be loosened and retightened in the process.

I've had a run of cat and dog minor issues of late. None of them that bad, but all of them took me off the road. I plan to start a new thread called "Mean Time Between Failures" and post my findings, and see if others have similar statistics.

Peace.
Out.

[nelsonj]

Quick update: I replaced the gas filler hose last week. Everything works great, no leaks, but it was a bit of a pain. Below are a few tips, and I think I'll put a thread in the general maintenance with with same info.

Replacing the gas filler hose:
First clean out your trunk and remove all the trunk floor panels so you have access to the gas tank filler pipe.
1) I have a 78 gas tank systems, this procedure may vary a bit based on the year.
2) The thick, almost 90 deg hose connects a the metal gas filler tube (where the gas cap is) to a pipe inlet near the bottom of the gas tank that runs parallel to the ground.
3) First drain your gas tank as much as you can (but leave a little gas in (like 1 gal) so you can drive to the gas station when finished)
4) If you don't have a lift, jack up the car form the rear driverside wheel and then put a stand under for safety. You need to get under rear wheel area to work, and you'll have to muscle things around, so make CERTAIN your car is safely on stands, and you should also block a few wheels. SAFETY FIRST AND ALWAYS.
5) The hose is held in place by two hose clamps. One connecting to the bottom of the gas tank, one connecting to the filler pipe. I think there is an 8mm bolt that you need to turn to loosen the clamps, and then drop them either forward or backwards. The bottom hose clamp is easy to get to, but the top clamp is way up there, you don't have a lot of access and it will likely take some time. A very small ratchet, of better yet a small pivot ratchet is your best bet. I recommend wearing goggles because a bunch of junk will fall in your face while your on the ground looking up to the clamp. (And watch out for spiders in the area.)
6) Once the clamps are off just use brute force and work the hose off both ends and remove it.

Now that was by far the easy part. The hard part is getting the new hose on. After a few hours of trial and error, this is the method I got to work...
7) Now just connect the new hose and your done - right. In order to do this, I first removed the filler pipe. It is held in by two screw bolts near the gas cap. The bolts have a nut underneath that's hard to see. After you loosen them a bit, you have to find the nuts an hold them in place (by hand or pliers) in order to get them all the way removed (otherwise they just spin in place).
The filler pipe has an overflow tube and a another connection hose to the gas tank. You have to remove a clamp on the filler pipe and disconnect the additional small hose from the filler pipe. The overflow you can just move away by hand.
9) With the filler pipe "free", pull it up out of the trunk cavity. Put some lubricant (oil) on the filler pipe where the hose will need to slip on. Also lubricate both ends of your replacement hose, and the connection pipe to the gas tank.
9a) Either align the hose clams on the hose or put them our the filler pipe and the gas tank pipe. MAKE SURE they are in place before you go to step 10.
10) TRICK TRICK TRICK: The replacement hose is thick and basically makes a 90 deg turn. From below the car shove the hose into the cavity and shove it as far up as you can towards the now removed filler pipe. Make sure you have the correct part pointing upwards. As you shove it up the cavity, it will "bottom out" when it hits metal in the trunk area but you will be able to see it, and align it from the trunk area. Make sure the hose is generally aligned, that is the other end of the hose is generally aligned to connect to the gas tank.
11) TRICK TRICK TRICK: Don't conned the hose to the gas tank yet, GET A HELPER, and have them hold the hose in place from under the car. Then, from top going in through the trunk, slowly lower the filler pipe, and adjust the position of the hose, and shove/jiggle/cajole the filler pipe into the hose. The hose is thick and you have to muscle the filler tube onto it. But the hose doesn't have much room to escape, especially if the helper is cooperating.
12) Once it's on the filler pipe about half way connected, connect the other end of the house to the gas tank pipe. This part is pretty easy.
13) Push the filler pipe 100% into position and reconnect the bolts that hold it in place, position the over flow tube and reconnect the other fill tube.
14) Simply (Ha, HA, HAAA) put the hose clamps in place and tighten them up.

I had a very hard time getting the filler pipe clamp in position. As a result, I went through the trunk and drop in a second clamp and tightened it up just to be 100% sure it wouldn't leak gas. The top of the hose is below the level of gas when the tank is full (great design...not), so you really have to be sure both ends of the hose are well sealed/clamped.

That's it. Good luck and if you have original rubber down there, I strongly suggest you replace this before it fails. Just make sure you are very, very low on gas before you start.

Peace.
Out.

[nelsonj]

Just documenting a quick repair. About a week ago I noticed fuel leaking as I pulled out from the garage. Looked under the hood and it looked like it was coming from the fuel pump.

I ordered a new pump from Vicks (about $40 delivered), and decided to replace the fuel lines and filter (with parts from Autozone (about $10). The fuel pump wasn't clearly mark what direction was form the tank/to the carb. I tried to manually activate the pump and feel for "suction" or "pressure". In the process of manually pumping, the pump made a "snap", and then stop producing suction or pressure and sounded different (no wheezing). Something was wrong, but fortunately this pump could be unscrewed and disassembled. I took it apart, the the shaft connecting to the diaphragm got disconnected from the activating lever and as a result wasn't pumping the diaphragm. The shaft had a slight bend in it that made it look, to me, it would be prone to falling off again. I turned the diaphragm around 180 degrees, so the bend would be more prone to keep it on the activating shaft rather than sliding off), reassembled, and it worked fine. Simple procedure but I should have to fix brand new parts...

Anyway, put the pump on without issue (make sure to disconnect the battery before removing/installing the pump!!!! Otherwise there is a high probability of contacting the alternator/12V main lead to the battery, creating sparks - and all this in the presence of gas and fumes. Disconnect the battery, period.) I cranked the car for a bit and it did not start. But I used a clear plastic fuel filter and it was clear that the pump was delivering gasoline. (This is a lot better than running a fule line to a can instead of the carburetor to see if your pumping fuel.) I cranked the engine over a few more times, and it started and ran great. It did keep me off the road for a week so this repair is also documented in my "mean time between failures" topic.

Mileage at repair was 43,840.

Peace.
Out.

[nelsonj]

One other thing, something possessed me to make a "drive video" in my car over during the 4th of July period. It's long, but the begining showcases Bella, and the middle showcases PCH (one of my favorite drives - and world renown.) Flame away, again I don't know what possessed me but what's done is done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbkTxTX-xr0

Peace.
Out.

[Danq]

Thanks for doing the video. I lived in Simi for 8 years and I worked in Malibu, near the post office. This brought back some memories. I used Decker canyon to get to and back from work, nice curvy road. I didnt have my spider then but it would have been a nice combination.

[DieselSpider]

One other thing, something possessed me to make a "drive video" in my car over during the 4th of July period. It's long, but the begining showcases Bella, and the middle showcases PCH (one of my favorite drives - and world renown.) Flame away, again I don't know what possessed me but what's done is done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbkTxTX-xr0

Peace.
Out.

I would have liked a little more engine and driving sounds (OK a lot more) included to break up the music but other than that not bad. To me the music should accompany the car and not overwhelm or obscure it but that's my personal preference.

[DRUMMOND]

Great video!

thanks for posting

[nelsonj]

Hello all - just checking in to say hello. The weather here today is really nice, and I just returned from taking Bella for a nice drive to the beach and back. The car is driving really, really nice. What a wonderful way to be outside. Since I changed the fuel pump a bit back, I haven't had any mechanical issues. But they will come, in time.

I need to replace my clutch soon (it's adjusted to max and better to replace it before it starts slipping) - I don't want to do it myself - but I want to start a thread anyway.

Hope all is well - I continue to enjoy seeing all the progress being made on the many lovely cars here.

Peace.

[Kryger]

It's a very beautiful car but isn't it hard to maintain those white seats?
Great video by the way.

Best regards

Mick

[nelsonj]

Thanks Mick. I had the seats redone more that 20 years ago! They used the same material they used to for water skiing boats and it has held up amazingly well.

Every few years I take a bucket, a scrub brush and a few cans of upholstery cleaner and spend half the day cleaning it up. I'm always surprised how white it really is after a scrubbing.

So - it's a bit of work, but noting I complain about.

Peace.
Out.

[nelsonj]

Just note to self on some maintenance:

Performed Saturday (while it was raining) 2/22/2020
I cleaned the electrical grounds under the dash and on the passenger wheel area under the hood. I also applied some dielectric gel. The dash has been dimmer than usual and I hope this helps.

I changed the oil, it took about 3.75 quarts (one gallon)
I changed the gearbox oil with GL-1 mineral oil. I was concerned it was leaking and low, but it turns out the level was fine (it drained out of the fill hole when I finally got the fill plug out using my wrench-with-a-impulse-jack trick.) The oil also looked good but there was a mild amount of shavings on the magnetic drain plug.

Overall car is running very strong.

Mileage: 45,640 at time of oil change.

Peace.
Out.

[nelsonj]

Hello all,
I hope everyone (and your families) are in good health, and perhaps taking some of this "at home" time to work on car projects.

I put in a new (shallow/cheap) MP3 stereo about two weeks ago (my old CD player was dying, and now I have 40+ CDs at my finger tips at all times.)

Virus or no virus, "stay at home" or not, after several days of rain it was a gorgeous day here in SoCal so I drove to the coast. Really interesting drive, all the parking lots/beaches are closed, so people were parking on the side of PCH and just sitting in lounge chairs by their cars (and not on the beach). Famous biker spot Neptune's Net closed their (usually packed with bikes) parking lot with cones and barricade tape, and had big signs "closed for motorcycle parking".

But I guess people were tired of staying at home and I saw a lot of nice cars today. Going over Kanan a caravan of 3 Ferrari's passed me, and I saw at least 4 more Ferrari's during the rest of my drive. On PCH, there was a caravan of three 60ish muscle cars (a 60's Camero, a Chevel SS(?), and a Fast Back Mustang 350 Boss (?)) and somehow I wound up in the middle of them until, ironically, they pulled into a gas station. I saw an old NSX (one of my favorite cars), and on my home stretch there as a caravan of 3 Porsche 911's of various vintages. The only air cooled one had plates reading "80s GRL" and the (female) driver rolled down her window and acknowledge me (my car really) as I passed.

People are going a bit stir crazy - and no one is stopping people from driving their toys (for now). Beautiful day.

Happy Resurrection Day to ya'll.

Peace.