I have had a good think about things (didn’t I say that last time I thought I had it figured out??) and now believe the fuel pickup may have been shifted into an elevated position due to a couple of possible factors such as the weight of the fuel in the tank at Hampton Downs shifting (gently bending) the fuel pickup lines and/or moving the pump upwards away from the floor of the tank when I went out with 3/4 of a tank the first time, or that when I removed the pump assembly I bent the pickup and pump assembly upwads as I twisted the assembly out of the tank, no matter how carefully I may have been or thought I may have been.. I thought of that when I ran out of gas right outside Caltex because the car was leaning down on the passenger side and fuel was settled away from the pickup area but this wouldn’t usually be a problem unless things had moved.. the way she ran out the other day was similar but different to the usual pattern and the  problems picking fuel up when trying to restart the car even though when the car rolled intot the workshop it was having no problems picking fuel up and things should have been exactly the same so-to-speak.. hope the fuel pump is ok..

I sent an email to Paul at Firestone Wainui and asked about some hoist time, I reckoned on about 30 minutes to clearly mark and remove the assembly, tweak it with a proper tubing bender to get the pump sitting lower in the tank and refit it using enough light to see into the tank as I reinstall it.. I don’t mind if I can’t do it til next week because I’ll use the runabout this weekend and just wash the family car so it looks great when I head to Firestone.. I also asked for 30 minutes to clean down the patch I repaired and spray a couple of coats of underbody spray over the work area to seal it all in and make it look like the rest of the floor too.. famous last words “an hour should do it” may very well come back to bite me in the arse two hours after I start on it  

The only thing for me is that the family car is sorted for the Reclaim the Capital cruise next Friday the 30th.. we’ve been a bit quiet of late but a few of us put our heads together and have come up with a revised route and a few other things along the way that we hope will entice more numbers and form a strong core of regulars.. it’s looking good and with a bit of work on publicity and profile we should have a fairly solid roll call on the last Friday of the month..