It's been a while since I last worked on the FMT but where I left off was with the removal of both fuel tanks, with the plan to retain the front fuel tank on the trunk and replace the rear tank with a spare tire mechanism to hold said spare tire under the truck versus in the bed, like on the F250. Another thing that I had to address was the idea that since I'm converting back to a carbureted powertrain, there was no need for the high pressure EFI system that the fuel tank/system centered around.
This meant having to modify the fuel pump/sending unit to omit the pump motor and keep the sending unit portion to be able to read the fuel gauge. I originally planned on adding a short piece of hose inside the housing that would connect the top cap with the output/input metal tubes with the plastic tube in the housing that connected to the strainer at the bottom of the housing. In the process of trying to do this I broke off the inner piece of plastic holding the nipple, So I ended up just drilling out the hole where the strainer plugged up to and just installing a longer length of hose to connect the metal cap's tube with the bottom of the housing so the hose can pick up fuel from the bottom of the tank. I would have to install a fuel filter before the pump to keep the pump from sucking up shit that can ruin the pump, along with the carburetor. It's enough that I had to vacuum out a lot of rust dust and crud from the tank prior to installing the sending unit and the tank. With the sending unit ready to go I reinstalled this piece into the fuel tank. I had to borrow a rubber bushing and a vent hose from the other fuel tank since the front tank didn't have either of these. Of course after I put the hose back on I cut it short and capped off the hose with a bolt so this won't be a problem at all when it comes to losing gasoline from evaporation. The fuel tank is held in by two straps that lock in place on one end and are held up by a single nut and bolt on the other end. I had to get the tank staged on a jack to hold it up while I worked the fuel filler tube onto the port on the tank. Once I had this tube clamped down I was able to get the fuel line connected to the output nipple on the sending unit. A short piece of rubber fuel hose connected the sending unit nipple to the end of the main fuel line I ran under the truck. Once I had all this connected I was able to get the straps in place and clamped so I can tighten everything down. With the bolts tightened down I plugged the sending unit up to the plug from the truck, completing the whole installation. At least now one of the major components of the FMT is taken care of. The next thing that I want to do on the FMT is install the new ignition switch that I got since I had to mutilate the old one trying to remove it from the steering column. Afterward I have to do some circuit tracing to isolate the lines that will feed the different gauges on the gauge cluster so I can mark them for hooking up to the engine once its installed. I don't want to have to install aftermarket gauges when the original units are plenty good. Besides, I want to try and retain the originality of the truck so using the old gauges is an important task I have to do on this build.
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May 2023
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