Removing LPG parts / installing a new air cleaner

The ugliest part of my LPG kit is the air cleaner. It also sits on top of the carb and I need to know the type so the air cleaner needs to go. And because the fuel valve (also part of the LPG kit) is screwed to the air cleaner, it's going as well!

Above you see the "before" picture. U-G-L-Y...

I removed the air cleaner and finally managed to figure out what carburetor I got: A Holley 80457-2. Nice!

It's gonna need a bath at some point though but for now I'm leaving it in place. One thing I wasn't happy about is that they removed the choke plate when installing the LPG, an unpleasant surprise...

Then all I needed to do was replacing the fuel hose and valve with a new bit of hose.

And why not? I mounted my new air cleaner. It fits perfectly!

Doesn't this look a hell of a lot better than before?

Removing my LPG tank

Today was a good day to remove my LPG tank. This was a job that made me very nervous since it had to do with volatile and flammable gas. But the weather was great and I was getting help from my best friend and good tips from some of the folks over at the Dutch Mustang & Ford Forum.

I drove the car outside as that is safer than doing this job indoors.

Mainly you deal with 2 (pipe)lines. The one from the filler port to the tank and the one from the tank to the engine. Both lines can be under pressure depending on wether or not they are closed by a valve on either end.

>>>>>>>>>> Don't forget to disconnect your battery <<<<<<<<<<

My biggest fear were malfunctioning valves, especially those on the tank. I thought the valves on the line to the engine would be the most trouble-free so I started with that one.

I rather released the gas from the engine-bay, which I did. This hissed for about 5-10 minutes and then it stopped. Good start!

In the trunk I first removed the air-hose from the tank and also I cut electricity to the electric valve.

I then disconnected the line to the engine from the tank. The wiring had to be pulled back out of the seal. Since I had released the pressured gas this was easy.

Now it was time for my new super sexy red gloves. Because they are made for working with liquids, they are also very suitable for poking your nose! ;-)

I put on the gloves just in case liquid LPG would spray out. This is quite cold you see.

Now the scary bit: disconnecting the filler line. This has a mechanical valve on the tank that not always closes properly because sometimes the line remains pressurised after filling the tank up.

To loosen up the valve I whacked it with a hammer a few times (not toooo hard!).

It was fixed very tight and I had to use quite some force to loosen it but in the end it gave way. This was a bit of an anti-climax as it only hissed for a few seconds and that's it. So thankfully I had a working valve and not a lot of pressure remaining in the pipeline :-)

Here is the whole tank disconnected. Yay! This took maybe 30-45 minutes, but only because we worked slow and very careful.

Since everything went so quick we decided to also remove the bracket and later we even removed all the pipelines.

One tank. And only some LPG parts left under the bonnet.

Great stuff!

Removing rust and more (unfinished) painting

On a 40 year old car there's always some rust, especially if some of the previous owners did a bad paint job. Here are some of the results:

Several rust spots on the back pass. side fender:

A crack in the paint left of the trunk-lid:

Rust along the edge of the trunk-lid.

Not very cool and it only gets worse so lets just get some paint on there before it gets too bad. I know I can never get the same colour so I just used the closest match which is the paint I also used on the front bumper. One day this car will be repainted anyway. It can be a sleeper until then ;-)

I found this cool blue flexible tape and I just taped away...

Then I put newspaper around the spots to be painted:

Just in time I discovered this new sanding-disc from 3M. Awesome! This would have cost me an hour of sanding with normal sandpaper. Now it only took 10 minutes:

Then I put on more anti-rust primer. This one will actually stop existing rust as well. But I sanded away every bit I could find.

BAD SURPRISE! When I removed the blue tape, it tore away loads of paint. I was not happy!

I decided to remove all the blue tape before continuing and tape with normal painter's tape instead.

Then I started spraying the first white coats:

These spots too a bit longer because I kept sanding off too much... But eventually I put on white here as well ;-)

Nice!

The colour difference is quite significant unfortunately. I guess the car will have a few white spots the coming years...

I taped off the bottom black decal stripe and put a few layers across the full width of the trunk so you don't notice the colour difference on the trunk at all:

It's a good solid layer of paint everywhere. Now the edges need to be sanded away still. And maybe a few layers of clear varnish.

But I think I'm going to start with removing the LPG first soon...

Taking out the taillight

I spotted rust around the taillights and I want to fix it. I thought this would be a easy fun job. Little did I know...

I took the back of the light off first. This was a bit stuck as well. No idea if that's supposed to be stuck or glued or whatever...

The rubber gasket that sits between the metal and the light was stuck to everything. It took me 30 minutes of gentle pushing and poking before the actual light let go. You wanna be careful and not push too hard or it might break...

The gasket was old and stuck.

Stuck everywhere but particularly in spots with rust.

I pulled it out but some rust was pulled out along with it. I wasn't expecting the rust to be this bad. The gasket itself is in bad shape as well. I need new ones...

You couldn't see this from the outside. Underneath the gasket there was a lot of rust. When I removed the gasket, it pulled out rust along with it and now the edge of the hole that the taillight sits in is pretty screwed...

Well, I wanted a project car, I got one now! ;-)

TO BE CONTINUED!