Dental plans

Oh, fuel sender. . . What are we gonna do with you?  You crack under the slightest pressure.  Fall to pieces, even!  It's obvious that you've been worn down over time, and I can clearly see that you're all wiped out.

Don't get me wrong, sender - I'll be the first to say you need to relax and unwind, but not in the way you've decided to.

I'm not mad at you, sender, but you need to get it together.  Otherwise, I'll just THROW YOU IN THE DAMN TRASH.

Now, back to reality.  I think we all see what is going on with my most-recent discovery (for the fuel system, at least), so I'll cut to the chase.  In this case, the chase was my extra sender from earlier years that is, unfortunately, not a correct replacement.  Once I popped it open, I found that the resistor wire was in excellent shape, so I unwound a foot of it and found that. . .

The older senders not only used a different sweep range and a longer segment of wrapped wire.  They also used wire a couple gauges larger or so (haven't had a chance to get the calipers a new battery to eat).  Larger wire surface area also brings, of course, lower resistance.  In this case, the old sender resistor wire measured out to be 10 ohms/ft.  My fairly rough measurement and estimate of my original wire was 30 ohms/ft, which is somewhat supported by it looking to be around 36awg.  Swing and a miss.

I'll get accurate measures of the gauge of each after I resurrect my calipers, so we'll see how good I am at gauging wire by eye when my next update is posted.

After coming to terms with the fact that I have another unexpected challenge that rudely invited itself to stay, I changed gears and started working on what would have the most positive effect towards getting back on the road.  At the time, this was determined to be, 1) checking the evap and seeing if a new one would be needed, and 2) finish the sidelined heater box rebuild.  Those may not seem important, but I have to do that to do the exhaust.  See. . .

• Need to hang sidepipes in place for exhaust to be plumbed.
• Doors and fenders should be on to ensure the sidepipes are placed properly, 
• Dash reinstallation should be done before doors are back on.
• Hot and cold boxes need to be installed for dash to go in.

I later determined a more productive direction of effort, but I'll spare you the excitement of reading about that for now.  Know this, though: evap somehow escaped injury in the War of the Hoist (when the York compressor tried to kill me and the AC lines were yanked around like shark snacks) and shows no sign of leaks!  That's saving me a fair amount of time and money, both of which are more critical resources than usual lately.

The "unfortunately. . ." that you probably expect at this point is that the damn AC line nuts are corroded to bejeezus, and I may not be able to break them free without totally chewing the evap to hell.  I mean, look at this (note: this may look a little off because I cut the hard line length of the pressure hose to make this more manageable).  I don't think I've ever seen a nut so thoroughly caved-in.

Long/short, I tried all tools at my disposal except the torch and got nothing.  After nearly ruining the evap twice (still no leaks, though!), I decided to cash in my chips and save the next game for later.  I couldn't quite bring myself to doing the heater box, partly because some supplies I need are at the house, and partly because I don't want to sit around gluing foam and setting rivets.

Instead, I got the radiator in a safer place than it has been by test seating it in the engine bay.  Since it's an aftermarket Jeep radiator that will need some spacers, and I'm going to be using a different AC condenser from the stock part, I had a number of measurements to take and blank stares to make.  When the dust settled, I discovered I found the key to actually getting shit done.  I mean, for real.  I'm sick of writing,  so more on that in the next update.  Until then, remember to brush your teeth.  NOW.