The previous article on Steering Wheeling brought us up to date on steering wheel cosmetics, turn signals, and horn.
The Imperial was drivable but didn’t feel quite right. Which wasn’t entirely surprising since the entire suspension had been off the car and every part replaced. The good news was that I could now drive it to the local garage for a front end alignment! A call was made, an appointment scheduled, and the car delivered to the tender mercies of the garage.
I will admit to being somewhat surprised that the alignment went smoothly. The car now feels good while driving it around. Not like a new car, and it is still a huge barge, but much better than it used to drive. No strange noises, minimal to no play in the steering, no sudden lurches when turning, and no “excitement”. With the upgraded front sway bar and new rear sway bar it corners flatter. I haven’t tried any “spirited” driving since I don’t trust the old tires. Time to get some new tires and check out the total driving experience.
Some really great news: I had asked the garage to do a “pre-inspection” of the items on the state inspection and give me a list of things I still needed to do for the car to pass state inspection. I was hoping this list would be under three pages…
The mechanic asked me a set of questions: “Do the windshield wipers work? Do the turn signals work? Does the horn work?” The answers were yes, yes, and no – but here is the horn relay that I received after I brought the car in which should fix that problem.
When I went to pick the car up I was informed that it passed inspection, the sticker was installed, and I was good to go. And there was much rejoicing! I’m now completely legal to drive the car wherever I want to!
Another pleasant surprise: they adjusted the choke while working on the car – and this fixed the problems with the engine! The car now starts easily, idles much more smoothly when warming up, idles quite smoothly when warm, and no longer smells like it is running rich. I should have worked on the choke months ago. In any case “and there was much rejoicing!”
While the car was in the garage I also asked them to check and charge the air conditioning – the work leading up to this was covered in Chilling?. I was informed that they found a few small leaks which they fixed and then charged it. The AC was cooling, but not very well. They observed that the original AC expansion valve was still installed, and that since this valve was designed for R12 refrigerant it didn’t work well with the new R410A refrigerant.
I’m an idiot. I had purchased a new expansion valve, and really knew I should have installed it. I checked the new valve and, sure enough, it was labeled for R410A. I ran the new valve over to them. They then extracted the refrigerant from the system, replaced the expansion valve, made a new hose to fit the new expansion valve, and recharged the system. They discovered that the old expansion valve was clogged with debris, which certainly didn’t help, and said the AC condenser and evaporator should have been flushed out when I had the AC system apart.
The AC still isn’t cooling quite right. At a minimum the vacuum controlled air doors aren’t working correctly – a known problem, see This Blows: the Vacuum Side. More work is needed, but progress has been made.
After picking the Imperial up it was time to drive to the gas station and fill it up. I’ve described the driving experience – I actually enjoyed driving it! The gauge was reading empty when I headed out. After filling the tank the gauge slowly moved up to Full! Again, “and there was much rejoicing!”
The fill up took 15.7 gallons of gas. Since the tank holds 22 gallons, this means that there are ~6 gallons left when the gauge reads empty. Not ideal, but easy enough to work with. And I’m happier filling up early than running out of gas.
Now for the bad news. I went out to the workshop about an hour after parking the Imperial to discover the strong smell of gas as soon as I opened the door. Looking under the car I could see a puddle of gasoline under the car, dripping from the gas tank. Quickly checking I determined that the gas was leaking around the fuel sender fitting. Not Good! I’m just glad I didn’t wait until the next day to go out there!
Since the fuel sender fitting is located near the top of the tank I was able to stop the leak by draining 6 gallons of gas out of the tank.
Fixing this leak will involve dropping the gas tank, removing the fuel sender assembly, adding gasoline resistant sealer to the existing rubber sealing ring, and reinstalling the gas tank. Annoying, but should be straightforward. The gas resistant sealer is on order and should be here next week.
The good news about this is that I should be able to bend the float arm on the fuel sender to make the gauge more accurate. We will have to see what happens…
Next: Troubleshooting vacuum actuators for the heating system in This Sucks.