Sport Truck's '73 Chevy needed a few roadside repairs

I've been offline for the past 36 hours or so and it's time to play catch up. I spent last Sunday night and Monday at my parent's house in Arkansas..

At 4am on Tuesday, I loaded up the Parts Racer and hit the road again, with a goal of reaching Flagstaff, Arizona that same day. Well, that didn't quite work out. About five hours away from my folks' house, I reached New Mexico and then trouble arose. In the middle of a construction zone, which had Interstate 40 narrowed into just one lane in either direction, the engine died. I coasted to a stop on the dirt shoulder and discovered there was no fuel pressure, according to the telltale Holley gauge under the hood. After making sure I had voltage to the electric fuel pump, and cracking open the inlet and outlet lines to verify there was no fuel being pumped from the full tank of gas, I decided to install my spare fuel pump.

It was a different brand of pump that required some re-plumbing and wiring and while I was at it, I cut a few zip ties from the fuel line running on the inside of the framerail to allow me to move the line to the outside of the rail, away from the exhaust. The LS327 engine roared to life and I was back on the road again. In the meantime, a storm front had moved in, which once again proved my old windshield wiper motor to be utterly useless. 15 miles later, smoked poured out from the right side of the truck. I pulled over again, jacked up the passenger side of the truck and found that I failed to resecure the trans cooler lines that were tied to the that fuel line I had just moved. In the darkeness of night, I could just barely see that a portion of the line was lying against the hot exhaust header and it burned a hole right through it.

Thank god for AAA. A tow truck showed up an hour later and towed me (for free!) the next 100 miles to Albuqurque, New Mexico, where I stayed the night with a some friends. The next morning I replaced the trans cooler line and also dropped the gas tank out of the truck to double check the plumbing because once again the fuel pump wasn't pumping fuel. I found a crack in the supply line and replaced it, confident that the truck was once again roadworthy. I hit the road at 2pm and got all of 20 miles down the road before the engine died again, ironically, in a construction zone. I had planned on being back in the office on Wednesday so I needed to act fast.

My last trip to the auto parts store had netted me a couple of 3/8-inch brass unions and some extra fuel line, which I had bought just in case something like this had happened. I had two five-gallon gas jugs sitting in the bed so I decided that rather than remove the stock gas tank again, I'd just replumb the fuel pump to siphon from my plastic gas jugs. I now had a truck that would run, but only for about 60 miles before running out of gas. I made it to Gallup, New Mexico and found a Walmart, where I purchased three more five gallon jugs. My McGyver mechanic skills paid off, the truck ran flawlessly the rest of the day and I made it all the way from New Mexico to Orange County, California by 4am today.

I grabbed a couple hours of rest and am now back in the office. What a trip! Oh and and as for that vibration, I'm not sure what's causing it. I'm too tired to figure that out right now. My next goal is to install a new pickup in the stock gas tank so I can drive a little further between fill ups.