The Ball is Rolling!

So a few areas of the project have been coming together nicely. I've been trying to get the rear-end done so that I may drop the body off the rotisserie in preparation for the engine's arrival. Prepping the rear-end involved doing the rear brakes, and re-bending related brake lines. There was also a little challenge finding a replacement brake hose to feed those lines, bearings and related oil seals for the hubs, and rebuild kits for the wheel cylinders. Ah, the joys of restoring a car that is not only old, but had very little value even when it was brand new... Well it turns out that asking the guys that do only these cars has a lot of value. Bill Colford happened to have the rear brake hose on the shelf of his eBay store, and had a few words of wisdom regarding wheel cylinder kits. Turns out that they are a direct match for the '93 Geo Metro. As for the rest of it, Honda used sealed bearings on the rear hubs that fortunately were still in good shape, as were the oil seals. I had my twentieth high school reunion a few weekends ago, which afforded me the chance to mooch a favor off of my dad, who though recently retired after a thirty plus year career as a mechanic, still had access to a brake lathe. The drums turned out fine, while the rotors were about a millimeter under the nine millimeter recommended minimum. With as rusty as they were, I count myself lucky to be that close. So today, I was able to finally get the fuel tank back onto its mounts. I had to get the e-brake cable and its related guides into place as well as the gas tank vent hose attached before the tank could go in. Thank God I have a parts car to pull from and see how things go together just a few feet away!

The refurbished fuel tank and rear end.

Fuel System Work Begins

I was excited to get to this part of the process, not only to get rid of the vinegary rotten-gas smell in the garage, but it was a quick way to see a big difference. I also knew that there would be a bunch of varnish and rust in the fuel tank that would have to come out, or we'd never get this baby running. The Eastwood Company is an online shop for auto restoration that specializes in coatings that resemble OEM finishes. They carry a gas tank sealing kit that allows you to revitalize your old tank in twelve easy steps! It was a pretty filthy and environmentally questionable process, but it turned out pretty well in the end. The final photo shows the pristine coating in the filler neck that is supposed to be uniform throughout the gas tank's interior. Unfortunately, it was no where near that coated for most of the tank, but it should pretty much keep all the crap out of the rest of the fuel system, so I figure I got my money's worth. One major hurtle was that the 18", or so, of fuel line that act as an intake within the tank itself, was completely varnished shut. After trying to figure out how to clean a piece of tubing that has an inside diameter of less than 1/4" and also has two 90 degree bends in it, I settled on using a frayed piece of bicycle brake cable in a drill motor to ream it out. This, mixed with a little Zippo fuel as a solvent, worked remarkably well. Last thing was to spend a little quality time with my old friend the angle-grinder to clean off the outside of the tank, and shoot it with a special zinc coating for gas tanks from Eastwood's.