I apologize for the click bait, but I could not resist...
I've spent the last couple of days pulling stuff from a donor 80 in preparation for having the junk man come and drag off the remainder. The last thing is the roof.
I made a mistake recently at an auction for a manual transmission 80 that turned out to have holes in the roof.
Everything else including the interior was pretty nice but the roof.... I call it the 'holy truck'.
What to do.... Over the past few weeks we drained the tanks and changed the oil and the steering column to put in a new ignition lock -- the truck came without a key, and then it sat for quite a while. On Saturday the column went back in and I put a couple of jerry cans of fresh gas in the main and sub tanks, and we tried firing it up. No joy. This 1FE has a mechanical fuel pump and a carburetor. No gas being pumped.
I used a handheld vacuum pump and pulled the gas into the engine bay but even when primed the mechanical fuel pump did nothing. Resorting to squirting brake cleaner into the carb throat we succeeded in getting it to fire up immediately enveloping the entire warehouse in a thick cloud of desert dust. The radiator must have been completely loaded with it. The engine sounded pretty good and with a manual transmission there is less uncertainty about getting the driveline going so it kind of settled it in my mind that I am going to try to bring this poor old truck back from the brink.
I should mention that the parts catalog does give part numbers for replacement roofs, both with and without moon roof. Unfortunately, none were available locally or even in Oman.
I talked it over with a garage owner friend and he was willing to take it on. My friend from Abu Dhabi had suggested that the parts truck that had provided the frame for the turbo diesel could donate its roof to the cause, even though the donor has a moon roof. The garage owner friend confirmed that the sheet metal would be useful even if it needed to have the moon roof filled in, so it was down to me to liberate the roof from the poor old donor, that already had given so much. And not just to me. The transmission and transfer case and a bunch of other related stuff is going to a new friend in Florida, who by all accounts will make good use of them.
I went online and got an angle grinder (in retrospect a reciprocating saw might have been a better choice) and I spent yesterday clearing out the donor and today my friend came up from Abu Dhabi and we set to work.
I've spent the last couple of days pulling stuff from a donor 80 in preparation for having the junk man come and drag off the remainder. The last thing is the roof.
I made a mistake recently at an auction for a manual transmission 80 that turned out to have holes in the roof.
Everything else including the interior was pretty nice but the roof.... I call it the 'holy truck'.
What to do.... Over the past few weeks we drained the tanks and changed the oil and the steering column to put in a new ignition lock -- the truck came without a key, and then it sat for quite a while. On Saturday the column went back in and I put a couple of jerry cans of fresh gas in the main and sub tanks, and we tried firing it up. No joy. This 1FE has a mechanical fuel pump and a carburetor. No gas being pumped.
I used a handheld vacuum pump and pulled the gas into the engine bay but even when primed the mechanical fuel pump did nothing. Resorting to squirting brake cleaner into the carb throat we succeeded in getting it to fire up immediately enveloping the entire warehouse in a thick cloud of desert dust. The radiator must have been completely loaded with it. The engine sounded pretty good and with a manual transmission there is less uncertainty about getting the driveline going so it kind of settled it in my mind that I am going to try to bring this poor old truck back from the brink.
I should mention that the parts catalog does give part numbers for replacement roofs, both with and without moon roof. Unfortunately, none were available locally or even in Oman.
I talked it over with a garage owner friend and he was willing to take it on. My friend from Abu Dhabi had suggested that the parts truck that had provided the frame for the turbo diesel could donate its roof to the cause, even though the donor has a moon roof. The garage owner friend confirmed that the sheet metal would be useful even if it needed to have the moon roof filled in, so it was down to me to liberate the roof from the poor old donor, that already had given so much. And not just to me. The transmission and transfer case and a bunch of other related stuff is going to a new friend in Florida, who by all accounts will make good use of them.
I went online and got an angle grinder (in retrospect a reciprocating saw might have been a better choice) and I spent yesterday clearing out the donor and today my friend came up from Abu Dhabi and we set to work.
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