Oddities

It's funny sometimes when your working on a car, as you get tired and your brain stops processing the basics... Two examples come to mind when I last visited my car.

Gravity:

I was working on the fuel line and I though that with all the muck that was sucked up from the rusty tank, I would clean out the line with an air compressor. I had already removed the tank and it was bone dry. The hard fuel line descended under the car and then popped up to a rubber hose to attach to the fuel filter. I blew compressed air into the line and over the loud sounds of the air compressor, I heard a weird hissing sound. I looked back soon enough to see a fan of streaming gas flying out of the trunk. (Photo is retouched to parody the actual event) I assumed that the gas would have evaporated long ago, or drained out the line but apparently not, it was flying out the end of the line. Thankfully, I had not cleaned it from the other end and sprayed gas all over the engine. Mental note to self, gravity still works.

Gravity Defied:

I was installing the fuel pump back on the car and I took the nuts off by hand. The first one flew off when I finally got it off and it arched a little and gravity took control. I saw it drop below the frame. Knowing that it hit the ground in the shop, I completed removing the other nut and bent down to look for the missing nut. It wasn't there. I grabbed the air compressor and blew the area around the fuel pump and got nothing for the effort but a lock washer... I blew the entire engine compartment and found nothing. I hand felt around and still found nothing! Apparently Gravity decided to take a breather...

On installing my new hood locating pin earlier, I quickly realized that I didn't need two nuts on it due to there being a captured nut on the bonnet. I was sorta upset as the VB catalog specifically said I needed a nut and I obviously didn't. The nut miraculously fit on the fuel pump and went right on! So they were right that I needed a nut, just not right about where I needed it...