Board Thread:Watercooler 2.0/@comment-6191693-20131230040409/@comment-24.27.188.116-20150502021349

Well, it's been a while since I posted one of these, but this latest calamity certainly warrants a post. You may remember my mentioning on the OOC thread that I bought a truck. http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww253/fanaglia/00P0P_9VJK6ZxtQ5u_600x450_zps5k7aanzy.jpg

I bought it for several reasons. I've always kind of wanted a truck; in fact, with all the body work, yard work, construction, and occasional garbage-picking I do, plus my eccentric fondness for unusual furniture, having a small, fuel-efficient truck (this particular one has a four-cylinder and gets nearly the MPG my little Focus does) actually makes more sense than owning a small sedan, despite my overall preference for small sedans. Reason number three is it's a five-speed and I wanted to get better at driving stick (I've only ever owned autos before and I've only recently learned to drive stick on an old truck at work). Reason number four is I figured it would be a quick and easy job to fix up and sell for a profit like I've done before and would have a fun toy to play with in the mean time until I sold it. After driving it a bit, I discovered I like it more than I thought I would and I'm actually contemplating selling my little Ford and just keeping this instead; the miles are high, but it's in otherwise decent shape besides the body damage and the fuel leak (I'll get to that).

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww253/fanaglia/00W0W_1JiDh40EbD3_600x450_zpsr4yh03av.jpg

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww253/fanaglia/00k0k_894kft6VReI_600x450_zpsccw4ga9c.jpg

So anyway, I bought the little guy for $500, put half a tank of gas in it and drove it as-is an hour away to the junkyard where I work, which was terrifying because not only was it the first time I had ever driven stick on public roads (let alone in traffic or on the highway!), but I was by myself in an unfamiliar vehicle, it wasn't quite as easy to drive as the old Ford in which I learned to drive stick, I had no insurance, no registration, the tags were expired, and the screws holding the shift knob to the shifter were missing, so the knob kept coming off in my hand when I would try to shift. Fortunately, besides a couple of rough starts from stop signs towards the beginning of my trip, I got the hang of it pretty quickly and had no more trouble the rest of the way to the yard. I went out, pulled some of the body parts I knew I'd need, loaded them up, and drove it a half hour home.

Now, when I inspected the truck before buying it, it wasn't leaking anything except for a very slow oil leak, which was acceptable. When I gassed it up, there were no problems. Even after driving it an hour on the highway and into another state, there were no problems. It wasn't until the trip home that I noticed I was going through gasoline much more quickly than before somehow, but didn't think too much of it just yet. Some fuel gauges can be a bit fiddly and I wasn't familiar with all of this truck's quirks and foibles yet. Then I pulled up in front of my garage, got out and heard something dripping and I smelled gas. I looked under it and, sure enough, a steady drip drip drip of gasoline was coming from somewhere.

I was hoping for a leaky line. They can rust out but aren't too hard to patch. But after tipping the bed up to expose the top of the tank, fuel pump, and lines, I saw that there was a giant rusty patch on the tank itself, just below the seam, and it was soaking wet with gasoline.I know the truck had been sitting a while, so I think what happened was that the weight of the fresh gas, the pressure built up in the tank from driving it, or a rock or something from the road flying up and hitting the rusty spot just right, or some combination of the three caused a leak to spring up where there wasn't one before.

The problem is that most junkyards, including the one where I work, puncture their gas tanks to drain the fuel out of the vehicles before placing them in the yard. It's an EPA thing, plus a liability issue because of the fire hazard. Some will sell you a punctured tank (I could probably have gotten one for $15 or so, or they may have even given it to me) and they do make kits to install a drain plug to repair the drill puncture, but I was kind of afraid to mess with it, plus it would have meant a lot more work for me. I did, however, find a full-service junkyard elsewhere in Kentucky, a bit over 45 minutes away from my house, that would sell a used, unpunctured fuel tank for only $50 and they would pull it for me, which definitely seemed worth it. I went out, picked it up, brought it home, and set about installing it.

Getting the old tank out the first time was a bitch, especially since I'd never done it before. Some of the connectors for the fuel lines were very rusty and I was terrified I would snap the leads to the fuel pump, which of course would necessitate replacing the whole damn pump, but, thankfully, with a bit of swearing and sweating, it came apart clean. Then I broke the long bolts that attach the damn tank straps because they were so ungodly rusty. I'm pretty sure these bolts were salvaged from the Titanic. Of course, one of the long bolts is made to the strap itself; you can't replace the bolt without replacing the whole strap, which is like $20, plus I would have to buy a step drill bit to remove the old strap because they're riveted to the frame with some of the heftiest (and rustiest) rivets I've ever seen. I also broke the little threaded braket for the long bolt for the other strap, plus the bolt itself (which fortunately is a separate piece for that strap. So, before I could install the new-to-me tank the rest of the way, I had to go to the hardware store to try to find something to make new tank strap bolts and mounting brackets. With a bit of redneck engineering, though, and a healthy amount of swearing, I managed to make it work and had my new-to-me tank mounted properly.

Now my story goes from mildly irksome to frustrating. Because I'm brilliant, I went ahead and bolted the bed and everything back into place without making sure everything was working properly. I have a little two-gallon gas can like you would use for your lawnmower. I put in that two gallons, plus another two I siphoned out of the old tank and the gallon or so that was in the used tank when I bought it. I turned the key. She cranked over, but wouldn't start. I tried and tried, but got nothing. I figured maybe the pump had lost its prime and I just needed a bit more gas to get her going. I was tired and, with roughly four gallons in the tank, she wasn't leaking, so I turned in for the night, deciding to pick up some gas on my way home from work the next day. Two more gallons, still no start. The next day, I got another two and nothing. At this point, I realized I must have screwed something up when I installed my old fuel pump in the new tank or something. Maybe a wire was pinched or the connectors for the pump weren't tightened all the way down.

Now my story goes from frustrating to calamitous. When I got out of the truck, I heard running water and smelled gas. A lot of gas. I looked under the truck and saw it was PISSING GASOLINE EVERYWHERE! And when I say pissing, I mean a solid, steady piss-like-a-racehorse stream. What must have happened was there was a pinhole leak in the tank and it wasn't until it had the weight of nine gallons or so of fuel that it was able to force its way out. And I had nowhere to put it except my little two-gallon gas can. And nine were pissing out. I grabbed a metal bucket I had, cleaned it quickly, and put it under the leak, not only to keep it from going all over my parking lot, but also to save as much of it as I could to hopefully re-use. I ran and got my siphon pump and started pumping fuel out of the hemhorraging tank and into the little can, trying to figure out what to do with it. I looked to my little Ford and decided to put it in that, but I had filled up the day before and I was only able to fit barely over a gallon into it. I ran to my Cutlass to try to pour some in there; with a half-empty gas can, it wasn't too hard, but when I made a second run with a full gas can, I found out the hard way that the filler neck on the Cutlass is so low and at such an odd angle that there was no way for me to tip a full gas can enough for the spout to reach the filler neck without spilling profuse amounts of gasoline all over the floor of my garage. Which of course is a thing I did.

Panicking, covered in gasoline, and crying, I went around knocking on all my neighbor's doors to see if anyone wanted any free gas. Of course, no one was home except for the old lady across the way who doesn't own a car. I called all my friends; everyone was either at school or work, didn't have a car, or lived on the other side of town. With still some five gallons left in the truck, which was quickly making its way onto the blacktop, I decided to improvise, siphoning gas into anything that could hold it...which wasn't much. First I filled to the brim the metal bucket I mentioned earlier. Then I grabbed an empty wine bottle from the trash and put gas in it. Then I grabbed the half-empty bottle of wine in the fridge, chugged it, and put some in there. Then I realized something -- my metal bucket is apparently not quite water-tight. Not only that, but it was becoming less and less water-tight by the second. I flailed my way to the garage to find something to put the leaky bucket in and, in doing so, tripped over one of the open wine bottles full of gas and spilled it all over myself and the floor. I found an old, dirty drywall bucket. I knew any gas that leaked into it wouldn't be re-usable, but at least it wouldn't be all over the parking lot. Then I started filling empty beer bottles and, when I ran out of those, I got some old tea cups I don't really use and started filling them, too.

Eventually, my best friend got off work and hurried to my house. She said I looked like I was hosting the most depressing redneck tea party ever because I was laying on my back in the middle of the parking lot, covered in dirt and grease and gasoline and surrounded by tea cups and beer bottles full of gas, with the truck still peeing everywhere behind me. She helped me pour the gas I had already rescued into her car, then we siphoned the rest (or as much as we could get out with that method) from the truck, which was almost enough to fill her tank. Thank God she hadn't also filled up the day before.

And so came the end of the Great Gasoline Deluge of 2015, and it wasn't even a happy ending. I called the junkyard back because the tank came with a 30-day warranty. Of course, that just so happened to be the only one that appeared to be good that they had in stock, so I had to drive another 45 minutes out and 45 minutes back just to get my money back and, as luck would have it, even though I put a plastic tarp under it when I put it in my trunk, the small amount of gas still left in the tank managed to infiltrate my upholstry and stink up my whole car for a whole week. Then I left my windows cracked while I was at work (the forecast said it was supposed to be sunny and dry all day) and when I came back outside at the end of the school day, it was raining and my back seat was soaking wet.

I did finally cave in and order a brand new tank from the internet, which arrived today and I just got back inside from installing. No problems with it so far.