With the exhaust sorted out, I switched over to the other side of the frame and reinstalled the fuel tank and evap canister. The fuel lines were in good shape except for one spot a few inches long where they had been retained by a plastic clip that clearly allowed water to collect:
I needed to shorten the lines by 8 ½ inches due to my drivetrain setback, so the rusty area was the natural spot to do the shortening. I started by laying each fuel line on a table and tracking the outline, as well as marking the top of the fuel line so that I could rejoin it perfectly after removing the bad spot:
The bad area was removed, along with enough good material so that I lost 8 ½ inches:
The 2 remaining pieces were joined with a compression fitting, being careful to line up the sharpie marks that I had added earlier (I snapped this shot before doing the final alignment):
And then the sharpie outline on the tabletop was used to bend the line back into the factory shape (shot taken just prior to bending line to conform to sharpie outline)
The size of the compression fittings (and the need to be able to get wrenches on them if needed) meant that I had to space the lines a little further apart, but there’s all the room in the world along those sections of frame, so I used rubber lined fuel clips to secure the lines:
The factory lines had been secured against the inner frame rail just ahead of the fuel filter by this plastic clip:
Moving everything back 8 ½ inches put this clip where the frame had narrowed a bit (and the result was the clip pushing the lines out of place). By spinning the clip around 180 degrees and by sliding it forward an inch, it now held the lines in exactly the right spot and I could secure it with a bolt to the tranny crossmember shelf that I had welded to the frame. The fit was perfect in every dimension and once again it was due to pure 100% dumb luck.
With the fuel system done I could deal with the rear brake lines. I installed the main line that runs from the ABS to the rear flex hose (ABS will most likely be deleted so the front of that line is not yet hooked up to anything). I added a new rear flex hose and new rear brake lines. I had forgotten what a treat it is to use that nickel-copper stuff. I then tossed the rear shocks back on. The front brake lines and the ABS delete can wait till the truck is on the hoist to save me a lot of crawling around. All in all, moving the stock S10 drivetrain back while retaining all the stock S10 fuel and exhaust components proved to be easy and required very few parts. I believe that its now time to seriously hit that cab as there is a ton of stuff to do there.
More to come!