Sunday, 7 October 2018

FHC resto nr. 71; Fitting fuel filler and happy birthday


Another smallish job on the car completed. This weekend I found a bit of spare time to fit the fuel filler neck and connect it to the tank. Over the past few weeks I had been searching through my spare parts in search of a decent filler neck hose to use between the filler neck and the fuel tank. But I only found one, and that was badly damaged. So in the end I opted for a more modern approach and ordered a 300mm long piece of universal ø51mm diameter flexible fuel hose from a motor sport outlet.


Another "problem" I encountered was the non vented large diameter fuel filler cap. When I bought the car it came with  a rather bodged rear deck replacement from a later model, so with the small vented filler cap. As a result of which the original "breathing" device (part #158526) was missing. Luckily I found a separator canister (part #UKC2257) from a US specification PI car I broke a few years ago. Which should do the same job. And it turned out that the mounting bracket for this canister was fitted to the inside of the fuel filler shroud of my car's body:


With all parts ready it was time to fit them to the car. I had mentally prepared for a few frustrating moments because there is very little room to manoeuvre inside the shroud. But I had hoped that at least the universal hose would slide onto the tanks filler tube easily (as it did on the filler neck). Of course it didn't!
With the later type of filler neck you can assemble the filler neck and hose to the tank, and fit the everything from underneath. Sadly with the early type the filler neck has to be fitted from above. Which means the filler hose has to be slipped over the tanks tube in a very confined space. Took me well over half an hour to get it on. Time for the next challenge, fit the canister and the various hoses and tighten all hose clips in the now even more confined space. But got everything in position in the end. Only had to turn one hose clip after I took these pictures ...



I also had planned to fit the panel to close of the filler neck shroud, but I remembered just in time that I needed access to the space for fitting the left hand rear shock absorber! And just for the records, yesterday was the cars 42 birthday or should I say registration day, as she was first registered on October the 6th 1976!



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