[rechinca]

Went to start mine for the first time in about 6 weeks. I had to make some repairs to the electrical in that time as the external regulator harness was chaffed so I installed the solid state regulator and a new pigtail. Fixed the tail light wiring and painted the inside of the housings gloss white for some better light reflection and new lenses. Perfect let's start it...NOPE! Heavy fuel smell, leaking from a crap connection where PO had cut hard line at the pump and put in a piece of rubber hose to connect the two. OK got that done and new line ordered. Get home from work the next day to a puddle of fuel on the driveway from under the cab. Truck had two saddle tanks back in the day and removed before I got it. But the hard lines from them to the selector valve were still in it with the valve. In-cab tank was plumbed to the valve still and the rubber line from the tank to the selector valve hard line was rotted and leaking. Ripped it all out in 30 minutes and installed a new line with a metal canister filter between the tank and the hard line inside the frame. Just in time for a torrential downpour and two more days of work with rain...I just want to start it now and make sure I have all the fuel line good.

Of course rain still pervades here in NorCal (we need it bad though) and I discovered this truck had 5/16" fuel lines for the 350 from the factory so new hard lines and sender ordered to replace the old ones and hopefully prevent any starvation (has Edelbrock carb/intake on it). I'm going out on limb though and guessing the fuel pump will need replacing (Merry Christmas to me) since that's my luck. If I don't get it running as is, it will remain a driveway queen until after Christmas. I feel mission creep coming on as the radiator and heater core are also suspect, those hoses look really shady right now and it's pouring outside once again.