1982 Ford Bronco: Fuel System Overhaul Gone Wrong
Show Transcript
anybody who works on engines knows that you need three basic things for an engine to run at least an internal combustion engine. You need air, you need spark, and you need fuel. Without any one of those three things, an engine is basically just a gigantic paper weight. Last time I was working on the Bronco on my channel, I uh took care of the spark problem because uh there was no battery in the truck and now there is and it works. And luckily for me, all the other spark stuff uh seems to be working okay. The distributor is fine, the spark plugs are fine, um at least fine enough to run the way that it is right now. I haven’t gone through and done a uh tuneup or anything, but it runs right. So uh air is also really easy ’cause I mean it just sort of sucks it from the atmosphere and as long there’s there’s uh no blockage anywhere, you’re pretty much good to go. But fuel, fuel is what I’m tackling today.
Howy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage and today I’m be looking at the fuel system of this Bronco, dropping the fuel tank and trying to figure out why it was disconnected. Hello! All right guys, so here’s what we’re looking at for this fuel system repair. Um for some reason, the fuel line right up here in the engine bay is uh was disconnected from the fuel line that runs back to the tank in the rear of the Bronco. And uh the guy that I bought it from just had it uh running with a bottle of gasoline, a water bottle full of gasoline that went right into the fuel pump. So I don’t know why that was disconnected. I don’t know if it’s um because the guy I bought it from just wanted to get it running really quick and so he just disconnected it and uh popped the bottle on there and he didn’t to deal with the entire fuel system or if it was disconnected for a different reason. Uh maybe that fuel line is blocked, there’s a problem with the filter, or there’s a problem in the gas tank. I really don’t know, so I got to go through the whole thing and I’m going to start with a gas tank.
Now, uh this was what was in the engine bay. This is just a a pre-arb oret fuel filter. I have no idea what the microns are, I have no idea what model it is. Um there’s not really any markings on it. I I’m I’m not going to use this. Um I’ve got uh a better idea. So depending on which model you have, whether or not it came from the factory with a fuel filter, a pre-pump fuel filter, um in the frame rail, my my 85 has one, this Bronco does not. There is a rubber hose connection down there between um the two metal hoses that a fuel filter could go on. I don’t know if it came from the factory like that, but that is what I’m going to do. Um I’m a fan of two-stage filtering, so I got a couple of 100 Micron metal filters on the way uh that I’m going to use to replace that. So for a pre-pump filter, I’m also going to do the one on my 85 while I’m working on it and uh then the post pump filter is going to be right uh in front of the carburetor and that’s just a little uh tiny Motorcraft filter. I’ll show you that when I get there. Um I’m going to replace both of them while I’m doing it uh on both vehicles, so uh there’s that. But first things first, I got to drop the tank.
Now dropping the tank in these isn’t real hard, but you do have to undo all the connections. There’s the fuel filler neck, there’s the uh um obviously the gas hose itself, the sending unit electrical, uh which is just uh power for the uh um the meter and ground, and then there’s the EVAP system which is just a line that runs from the gas tank for venting up to a charcoal canister uh in the front of the truck here. Now on both of these trucks, that charcoal canister is not hooked up to anything. It just runs from the gas tank up into the canister and then there’s nothing going to the uh the rest of the emissions system or the carburetor or anything like that. So um I think, I’m not sure yet, but I think I’m just going to cut out the canister in the Bronco and probably just put either an inline um evap valve on the tank itself or get a vented gas cap. I’m not sure which one I’m going to do yet, um but that’ll take care of that.
So uh yeah, once you got all those lines disconnected and everything’s kind of a free, then you put a jack underneath, uh start on doing the straps and the tank should just drop right down. So uh especially if it’s really old, a lot of those lines can be really hard to to get off. Um so you just want to be patient and uh jack the back of the vehicle up to give you some extra room to get up in there. Uh but yeah, we’re just going work on that and uh I’ll bring you guys along.
All right guys, so here’s our fuel tank for the 82 Bronco and uh outside it looks pretty good. The straps are a little rusty, but that’s not that big of a deal and uh I don’t see anything wrong with the tank. I think it’s empty, it feels empty, so uh that’s good. We’re going to see when I drop it if there’s any fluid in there, but I’ve already found a really kind of a big problem. Um whoever had this Bronco before me did some uh some questionable work in terms of uh the bumper hitch here and I kind of got like a rear-ended Pinto situation going on. So uh yeah, before I run this thing in any real capacity down the road, this is going to have to come off. I have said it before, say it again, inheriting someone else’s project is uh always an interesting endeavor.
So anyway, these are the straps. You can see that I’ve already got some PB Blaster um on the bolts there or the nuts to help me get that off there. And there up here we have the fuel line, so I’ve got to get that disconnected. Um somewhere there is a power cable I believe that goes to the sending unit that I’ve got to get taken care of and then also uh the uh fuel filler neck here, I got to get that um unclamped from there so I can drop this thing down.
All right guys, sorry I lost a little bit of footage, uh but it was just basically me unscrewing everything down here. So I am now ready to drop the tank. I got everything disconnected and I have the straps off. Well, the only thing I don’t have disconnected yet is the uh the sending unit electrical is not disconnected, but I can’t reach up there and get to that until I drop it a little bit. So all my hope is that I can drop this a little bit and then get up into there and I’ll plug it without this falling down and killing me. So let’s see what happens.
There we go. Ah, there we go. This is just about the exact right size to fit up into here. So oh yeah, all kinds of yeah spider eggs and all kinds of great stuff up there. See up here? Hey, there we go, it just pops right off the top. All right, now I should just be able to drop the whole thing down and should be good to go. Don’t kill yourself, Edwardo. This is pretty jank, right? That’s as low as that goes. Yeah, it feels like there’s a little bit of fuel in there. Oh, it’s the fuel filling neck. All right, all right, I’m just going to take that out. Yeah, there’s actually a bit more fuel in here than I thought there was, but it’s not too bad. There we go, all right, tank is down and the underneath of this actually looks really good.
All right, let’s get this puppy out of here and we can take a look at it. All right, so there it is. That’s the tank. Other than being pretty dirty, actually doesn’t look too bad on the outside. There’s not a lot of rust, I don’t see any corrosion, it does not feel weak at all. There’s a dent on the bottom, but that’s to be expected in a Bronco, I’m sure. Yep, get it open, take a look inside. Wow, that puppy’s not moving at all. You got your uh fuel sending unit lock ring here, which is a real pain of the keester. Um I’ve hit it with PB Blaster, I’ve probed to get it off a little bit. I’m going to try again here. Um really just got to keep at it. PB Blaster should soak in for a while using a brass punch so there’s no spark and so that the brass that the uh the punch doesn’t mar up my rings here. I don’t know if I’ll reuse this sending unit or not, but um we’re going to see what the condition is like and if it’s in good condition, there’s no reason to to replace it.
With something new, so yeah, let’s see if I can get this thing knocked loose. There we go. All right, looks a little rough but not horrible. There is some rust and gunk on there. Yeah, I will probably replace this just because of the rust on this arm and the way that that looks right there. Okay, there’s some gunk on the bottom, but man, the inside of that thing looks clean, and the gas actually doesn’t look that bad. It doesn’t smell that bad either for the age of the Bronco. Now, I don’t know how old this gas stank gets. It’s got dirt and debris on it, so it must have been there for a while. For the age of this, I am not disappointed in how clean this looks and that gas. I mean, you guys can, I don’t know if you see this or hear this. There you go. Yeah, see, now it looks like there’s a piece of Velcro or something in there. I don’t know what that is right there. There’s a little bit of sediment that you can see, but the gas itself looks pretty good, and the bottom of the tank looks actually really good. So here you go. Yeah, it actually looks pretty good in there. Happy with that.
All right, guys, so the next step is going to be to clean this tank out. I got to get the gas out of there, dispose of it properly, get it all cleaned up, and clean out the inside. I’ll go through with you on how I’m going to do that, what I’m going to use to clean out the inside to get whatever sediment there is in there out. While I’ve got it out, may as well go ahead and clean it up. I don’t know yet if I’m going to put a finish on this, like paint it or anything. I really don’t think I will. There’s no rust on it, and it’s in pretty good shape. I guess I could just spray a real quick coat of rust inhibitor or something on there just to, you know, while I got it out, clean it up and make it a little bit better. But, um, yeah, and then, obviously, like I said, I’m going to replace the sending unit because I don’t like the look of this. The float here, the arm that it’s attached to, there’s a lot of corrosion on that. So these sending units are not super expensive, so I’ll just replace that. I got to replace the fuel line. I got some new fuel line coming in. This one here cracked on me. I don’t know if I did that, if it was like that. It’s entirely possible that this was already there, and that’s why it was disconnected, that there was a fuel leak there. I don’t know. It’s hard telling. Like I said, I don’t know what all happened to this thing before I got it.
Yeah, so, and then this is the vent that would go up to the charcoal canister in the front of the vehicle. I had to cut this off with a knife because I couldn’t get it off any other way. I think I’m just going to put an inline vent here and take the charcoal canister out because it hasn’t been hooked up in my other truck either for basically forever, so it doesn’t really do anything. So it doesn’t seem to hurt the way that it runs. It’s one less thing to worry about, and so I’m just going to go ahead and put an inline vent in here or pop a vent in the top of here. I got to do some research on which way I want to go there. But other than that, yeah, so the next thing is cleaning it up.
Why you do that? W, that’s a lot of gas. Yeah, it is. It’s so huge. I feel like Go Go Juice. W, it’s called the pressure washer. All right, guys, we are in the garage, going to finish cleaning this up on the outside. There’s still a little bit of stickiness and some stuff here from where the strap pads were on either side here. Just a little bit of rust. I’m going to clean that up with a wire brush in my drill, and there’s some stuff on the inside of the tank. I’m not sure exactly what it is, like little bits and pieces. There’s like a cap of some kind, like a plastic cap or something in there. I don’t know how that got in there, if that was something that fell in there when I was working on stuff or if that’s something that’s been in there for a while. But I got my shop vac here. I’m just going to stick the shop vac inside there, clean it out real good, and then I’m going to hit it with the wire reel and get it kind of cleaned up. So we’ll do that next.
Sorry I got to shoot at night, guys. It’s a little dark out here, but this is the time that I got. You know, I work full-time and got a couple kids, so do what you can. All right, so I’m ready to do my acetone rinse, and I went ahead and put the old sending unit cap back on. I cut the rust and sealed it off. I’m going to replace that anyway, so I just got the cap in there so that it seals it. I found a lid to like an old masonry jar, so that actually just pops right on here. It’s not going to make an airtight seal, but it’s going to keep most of the vapors on the inside so it won’t evaporate too quickly. Then I’m just going to cover this with some metal tape. That way it won’t eat through the flash, and it should come off without leaving any residue. We’re going to see how this works. I haven’t tried this yet, but we’re going to give it a go.
So now all I got to do is pour my acetone in there and give it a swish. This should probably be good. Use a whole container. Obviously, guys, I’m doing this outside. You don’t want to mess with this stuff inside a not ventilated room like my garage. Probably should be wearing gloves, but I’m not. So the nice thing about this setup, and I didn’t plan it this way, it sort of worked out this way, is that acetone will, of course, evaporate over time, which can build just a little bit of pressure inside the tank. Not that it’s going to get dangerous or anything, but if you want to release some of that pressure, you can have just a little opening, and this actually works for that because this cap isn’t perfectly on here. It’s just kind of sitting on it. It snaps on really well, but it’s not sealed, so that will give me a little bit of an escape path for some of the fumes and stuff.
So, all right, I’m going to go ahead and swish this around and get the tank a good coat on the inside, and then I will leave it overnight. And then tomorrow, even thing, I’ll come back out and we’ll rinse it, and I’m going to use isopropyl alcohol for that, and I will tell you why I do that. Let that sit, and I will come out in just a little bit, probably another hour or so, and do that again, and I’ll do that until bedtime. And then tomorrow morning, I’ll come out and check it to see how much acetone evaporation I’ve got, and hope there’s still some in there. If there is, I’ll shake it again, and we’ll just go from there.
So we’ve had our acetone in there for just about 24 hours. I’ve come out three or four times over the course of the last day and swished things around. Got the acetone moving around in there. It’s actually not evaporated that much, so that’s good. You can get it sloshing out of there. So now I got to get the acetone out of there, and to expedite that process, I’m going to rinse with 91% isopropyl alcohol. This is about a quart of it. Isopropyl alcohol mixes really well with acetone, and it helps increase the evaporation time. It also binds with any water that might be left over in there from when I did the rinse out earlier, although there shouldn’t be anything in there. But yeah, so we’re going to use isopropyl alcohol to rinse out the acetone, and then we’ll use my air compressor to blow it out, make sure it’s plenty dry, and then we’ll talk about painting it.
So one thing I do want to mention here is that you’ve got a lot of options when you’re cleaning out one of these things. I used acetone for a couple of reasons. One, it’s pretty powerful stuff. It does a really good job of cleaning things. It dries really fast, evaporates, and it’s readily available. You just go to the hardware store and pick up a gallon like this. It’s a little expensive; they’re around 20 bucks for that gallon. But it’s so cheaper than going out and buying a brand new tank. You’ve got a lot of options.
You could use, now one thing that I use, acetone. I use acetone because there’s not a lot of rust on the inside of this tank. Acetone isn’t going to help you with a rust problem. If you have a rust problem, then what you might want to do is use like muriatic acid. And you be careful with muriatic acid, it’s pretty potent stuff. Um, make sure you’re not like breathing in while you’re doing the muriatic acid thing, uh, because it will get into your nose and just kind of screw you up, right? Uh, but I use it for the pool all the time that we have, so you know, I know kind of how it works and everything. But it, uh, I didn’t really need to use muriatic acid because I don’t have a lot of rust in there. I just have the gunk and the varnish from all the old gas, so acetone works pretty well for that. Uh, you could also use something like, um, Simple Green or LA’s Totally Awesome, some kind of degreaser. Um, there’s one called Super Clean in a big purple container that you could use if you want something that’s a little bit less, um, powerful than acetone. Um, but I like acetone because it does, it evaporates really quick. It’s really easy just to dump out, get on the concrete here, it just evaporates into the air, doesn’t hurt anything. One thing I am going to do before I, uh, I dump the acetone out and rinse everything is, uh, I got one of these, uh, she’s called a bottle brush, and I’m just going to open her up and get inside and just kind of swish things around and do a little bit of scrubbing with these nylon bristles. You don’t want to do a whole lot of that with acetone ’cause the acetone will eat into the bristles, but if you’re only doing it for, you know, 10 minutes or so, it’s not going to have any significant impact, really. So, um, I’m going to do that real quick just to get the last little bits out, uh, right before I dump it out and then rinse it with my alcohol. Now, I said there’s a lot of stuff you can use to clean these tanks out, and you saw me use my, uh, my pressure washer and water and some detergent to do this as my first stage. Um, and that’s totally okay to do. Uh, it’s much better for me here because we’re in a super dry environment, so, uh, the fact that I’m using water isn’t really going to institute any kind of flash rust or anything, I don’t think, down here. Um, and I didn’t, I can see inside clearly, there’s no, there’s no rust or anything down there. Um, but you do want to make sure that you get that water out of there, which is one of the reasons why I’m using isopropyl alcohol. I don’t know if you guys know this, but isopropyl alcohol actually binds with water, um, and helps it, uh, to evaporate much quicker. And you can use, um, like a, uh, reverse flipped, uh, shop vac or a, uh, air compressor to blow it out and just get it that much drier, that much quicker. Um, so I’m using isopropyl alcohol again because it’ll help, uh, dry faster than the acetone by itself, and if there just happens to be any water left over from what I rinsed it earlier, this will take care of that. All right, guys, so after looking at this tank and actually reading the directions on this undercoat stuff that I got from Rust-Oleum, uh, it says do not apply, it says do not apply directly over rust. I thought this stuff could do that. It says stops rust right there on the can, but it doesn’t say that you can apply over top of it. So what I’m going to use is actually some Eastwood Rust Encapsulator, uh, that I’ve got for another project, and hopefully I don’t use the entire can on this ’cause I need to use this for some other parts of the Bronco, actually, that are like the body that’s rusting out. I want to put this on top of the body to keep it from rusting too bad. Um, but since there is a light coat of rust on top of this, and, uh, I don’t want the rust to spread underneath the coat that I’m going to put, uh, the undercoating, I’m going to go ahead and spray this on there. And if I got to buy another can, I got to buy another can. So, uh, there you go. Well, there’s everything painted up with the, uh, Eastwood Rust Encapsulator. Um, now I’m not super impressed with this stuff. Um, it came out of the can really splotchy and, uh, kind of thick, and it, you, I don’t know if you can see all the drips and stuff that are on the floor, uh, that all dripped out of the can while I was painting. And I actually got some drips on the floor of my garage, which you cannot get up if you let it sit for more than like 2 minutes. Uh, you can’t peel it up anymore, so those are now white spots on my garage floor that are pretty much permanent. I mean, luckily they blend in with the other white splotchy stuff that are down there, but yeah, so I mean, we’ll see how well it dries and how well the black undercoating goes over top of it. I mean, I know how well you can see the, uh, the tank. This is about one can worth, and man, I mean, look at, you can see the splotchiness and the spots and the drips and everything. Now, like I said, I’m going to cover this with a black undercoating, so I’m not too worried about it. It’s rubberized, so it should be thick enough to cover up these little bumps and everything else. It’s not that it matters, this is the top of the tank, nobody’s ever going to see it, so it doesn’t really matter. This is just to cover up so that it doesn’t continue to rust. But I was planning on using this on the outside of my, uh, my Bronco. Can’t really see it over there, dark, but I was planning on using this on the outside of my Bronco ’cause it matches the white paint on my Bronco. But after spraying this, man, I don’t know. I don’t know that I would want to use something like this, um, on the outside of a vehicle like that. Now, I mean, it could be my technique, um, it could be that, you know, um, I just did it poorly or whatever, but I mean, I, you know, I, after my initial opening of the can and using it, I couldn’t even continue to shake it ’cause if I shook it, I’d get white splotches just went everywhere when I shook the can. So, I mean, this is all just dripping from the can as I’m spraying. So anyway, maybe I just got a defective can. Uh, I don’t know. I mean, if you guys have used this kind of stuff, let me know in the comments what you think, if maybe I’m doing it wrong or if I just got a bad can or what’s going on. But anyway, I got everything covered, um, so I should be able to, uh, cover it with the rubberized coating tomorrow. Hopefully that sticks a little bit better, and, uh, yeah, we’ll let it dry overnight and see how it goes. Okay, this stuff is nice. I like it. It goes on real nice, real easy. It looks real good. That’s impressive. All right. All right, guys, next step is to replace the pre-carb fuel filter, which is that guy right there. And for those be curious, there’s the information, just a little guy. And I believe that is, um, does it say what it is? I’m not sure if it says what micron it is. I think it’s 10, but I’m not 100% sure. Um, yeah, anyway, that’s your fine filter that’s right before your carb. So I have no idea how long since it’s been since this one’s been changed, but since I’m doing the whole fuel system, hey, might as well go ahead and do that. Pretty easy, just unscrew it and replace it. All right, guys, well, there she is all painted up. Had to move things outside ’cause, uh, it’s actually a pretty nice day today, so I can paint outside. And, uh, I was getting some overspray inside the garage on my garage floor, so moved it all out here. But I’m pretty happy with it. Looks really nice for a gas tank. So I’ve been working on the fuel system in this Bronco, and, uh, yeah, they did something here. I don’t know if that was, if it got melted or if they tried to, to somehow, uh, seal that or something. I’m guessing it’s melting. I’m not sure what’s going on there. Is, uh, like with any used vehicle that you don’t know the history of, there’s always going to be some other stuff. I’m doing an oil change and stuff on my other F-150 while I’m doing all this. I may as well do the fuel and oil and everything else, so we’re doing that. But yeah, they actually had, um, some plumber’s pipe tape on there on both sides of this filter. Now, guys, you don’t want to use plumber’s pipe tape here because, uh
Fuel can degrade that stuff and then it’s going to go into your carb and mess things up. So yeah, we got that taken care of. Now, of course, I haven’t run any fuel through this thing yet, so I don’t know if there’s any leaks. When I did this, there was a leak over here, but I got that taken care of. I just didn’t have it on tight enough, so that’s all there is to it. But yeah, and I got my new oil filter on there and some other stuff. So yeah, we’re working through things.
So I want to show you guys this too. This is the inline fuel filter that I’m using. This is the pre-pump filter. It’s Earl’s Vapor Guard, it’s 100 Micron, and that’s just to filter out any kind of big stuff before I get to the actual pre-carb filter. You don’t necessarily need one of these, but they’re fairly cheap, and I’m going to go ahead and use them anyway. I got one for both trucks. So the Bronco actually didn’t have a filter in that location, so I’m going to add this, and my ’85 F150 does have a filter in that location, so I’m going to replace it.
So here we are underneath the Bronco, and you can kind of see where we are. There’s the trans case, there’s the rear axle, and along the frame rail on the driver side is this little patch right here, and that is where the fuel filter is going to go. Hopefully, I’ve got enough room in here to put that filter. It’s going to be real close, but I think we can make it work.
All right, so here we are back under the truck. I got my filter assembly made up. I did this inside the garage; it’s way easier to do all that inside of there than out here. Got new pieces of hose, and the problem that I see is that this is going to be really tight. I don’t have a whole lot of room in here, so we’re going to see if I can get this all put together. I don’t know how I’m going to manage this. I think I have just enough room, but I don’t have enough room to like pop it on. I really don’t want to have to undo these brackets, but I may have to. I’m not sure what they’re going on with. Oh, it’s just like a plastic clip. Well, that’s bad news; that means I have to break them. It’s in brackets there too, and I don’t think I can move it back because it’s right against that cross beam back there. So how am I going to do this? Do I have enough room to do that? Oh, I can bend the rubber bits just enough. Hey, there we go.
All right, now unfortunately I don’t have my gas tank in yet, so it’ll be interesting to see. I have to monitor this real close for leaks once I get everything in. All right, so next task is pretty simple: hook this up to this completely new piece of hose. This one here actually looks pretty good, but I don’t know where it came from, so I’m just going to use the hose that I bought. But before I do that, I’m going to blow out this line and just make sure that it’s clear. I’m going to do that with just a little bit like compressed air. The can, this would be better if I could be two places at once because then I can feel the other end, make sure there’s air coming out, but I can’t be, so I just got to deal with what I got. Let’s see if this works. I’m going to put a little flat piece of, uh, bit like a white piece of, uh, it’s like concrete sludge stuff, kind of, but it’s real light. It’s like the stuff that sits on top, and I’m going to see if I can blow that off there from the end. Survey says, well, it’s gone. I guess I’ll have to review the footage and see if they actually blew off of it. All right, well, I guess we’ll see if that leaks when I start her up. Got to get the fuel tank in first though.
Well, for some reason I lost the audio to this part of the video, but that’s okay. Really, all I’m doing here is just going through, showing you some of the parts that I’m replacing and kind of giving you an overview. So you can see in the background there that the tank is done, it’s painted. I’ve got the straps also painted all the way around. You can see that right now I’m putting in the new gasket for the EVAP valve that goes on top there. The one that came with it, that I pulled out of the truck, was pretty well rotted away, so I just replaced that. Again, that’s not very expensive, just like the sending unit. And also, you can see on the tank there that I’ve got some neoprene strips. It’s just rubber neoprene that goes on the top there, like I think it’s like an inch and a half wide, just lays in there. I took some spray adhesive and put it down there so it doesn’t move around. I mean, once I get it mounted, it’s not going to move, but that’s just to keep it where I want it while I’m mounting it onto the actual Bronco when I get to that point. And you can see over there on the right-hand side where I’ve got the straps already with the same exact treatment. I put a piece of neoprene rubber on there with some spray adhesive just to kind of keep everything together.
Here I am putting the new gasket for the sending unit together and getting ready to put the sending unit in. The new sending unit wasn’t very expensive, so that’s worth replacing, especially considering how coated that old one was. So yeah, just kind of putting the finishing touches on the tank and getting ready to mount it up. Woo, just get out of the way. So now I got to get the fuel filler hooked up. Having kind of dread in this, to be honest. Probably got to get the hose clamps on before I do all this crap, huh? All right, well, here we are about to hit the moment of truth. Everything’s hooked back up, and we just got to get the gas.
All right, guys, here it is, proverbial moment of truth. A, that was cheap. That, and there’s clearly some other stuff going on here too, guys. It smokes pretty bad and doesn’t want to stay running very well.
All right, guys, real quick fuel line and brake line 101 here on Bullnose Garage. This is a flare wrench, or called a line wrench. You want to make sure that you use these on your fuel lines and your brake lines, another kind of flare nut lines, because if you don’t, what you get is this. Yeah, that is what’s left of the nut that goes from the fuel line or on the fuel line that goes into the carburetor on the Bronco. And yeah, that’s pretty well mangled because somebody at some point in the past did not use a flare nut wrench or a line wrench on that nut. As a consequence, trying to get that put back on, I kinked the hose badly enough that it actually has a couple of holes in it. So when I did my startup test, it was actually spraying fuel into the engine. Now, I don’t know if the little bit of fuel spray that this was doing is enough to cause the engine to not run at idle like mine didn’t very well. So, you know, we’re going to find that out because I’m going to put a new fuel line on it. I’m actually just going to use a rubber fuel line, so I’ve got a couple of these flare nut fittings that’ll go in there, and then you just clamp a hose, a fuel line onto there. And I’ve got one for the carburetor side and one for the fuel pump side, so I’m just going to use a regular rubber hose instead of the metal piece there. Now, if I was getting super fancy, I could use like, you know, braided steel hoses and stuff, but I’m not going to do that right now. So yeah, we’re going to get this on and see if that fixes the issue.
So I don’t know if you guys are anything like me or not, but if I got a problem that I think I might have the solution to or know how to solve, even if it’s the middle of the night, I’m going to be working on it because I can’t just let things go and sleep on them. So that’s what I’m doing right here. You can kind of see there’s my new fuel hose going down to the fuel pump, down to the fuel pump and then up to the carb. And we are going to see right now in the middle of the night if it actually makes a difference. We’ll mount you. It’ll be a little bit wobbly, and we’re going to mount you right to the truck here. Here we go. Okay, so there’s a couple things that I’m looking for here to make sure of. One is that this doesn’t leak right here.
This doesn’t leak right here, and then it actually will run at idle without me having to goose it. So, uh, we’re going to see if any of that stuff happens. Okay, it is running. I’m not in the truck. It’s a little rough, but I don’t see any leaks. I mean, I feel like I probably also have some vacuum issues going on, but this is definitely better than it was. Oh, start to get some smoke now, so we’ll have to troubleshoot that. Oh, almost lost it. Yep, so we got some work to do, guys.
All right, guys, here we are. It’s a couple weeks later. I haven’t had much of a chance to work on the Bronco, uh, but I’m going to wrap this episode up and just let you know that all the fuel stuff is in. The tank is back up. I got fuel in there. Um, unfortunately, the Bronco won’t stay running. Uh, it’ll run for just a little bit, uh, but then it dies. If I give it some gas, it’ll run choppy, um, until I take the gas off. And then I, I don’t have time to get around to the front of the truck to see what’s going on before it dies. So I’m going to mess with the carburetor a little bit, see if I can get the idle tuned up, uh, so I can at least have it run long enough for me to come over here and see what’s going on.
I got to check fuel delivery because I just worked on that system, so it could very well be something going on there. Um, I got, uh, the vacuum system. The vacuum in this truck has been, uh, just mangled. So I, I don’t know, um, what else is going on with the vacuum system in there. There may be a vacuum leak. Um, who knows? There’s a lot of stuff going on. So, uh, but that is another episode. So, uh, yeah, thanks for watching, guys. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, or ramblings, stick them below, and we will see you next time’s. Edes but’s away getting things to shine. Oh, no, garage considered divine. Thanks again for watching. We will see you next time. Thanks again for watching. We will see you next time.
Hey folks, Ed here from Bullnose Garage. Today we’re diving into the deep end of frustration with my 1982 Ford Bronco. I’m tackling the fuel system, and let me tell you, it’s been a ride. Spoiler alert: despite all the wrenching, the Bronco is still giving me the cold shoulder.
Dropping the Tank: A Glimpse into the Unknown
Dropping the fuel tank on a Bronco isn’t exactly brain surgery, but it does require a bit of finesse. You’ve got to disconnect the fuel filler neck, fuel hoses, and the EVAP system, among other things. In theory, it’s straightforward—just put a jack underneath, undo a few straps, and voilà, the tank should drop. But in practice, it’s more like wrestling a greased pig.
I found myself staring at a tank that looked decent enough, but the mystery of why the previous owner had it disconnected remained unsolved. Turns out, the guy was running the Bronco off a water bottle full of gas. Classy, right?
Inside the Tank: Surprises and Gunk
Once I got the tank down, the outside of the tank was surprisingly clean, but the inside told a different story. The sending unit looked like it had been through a war. Rust on the arm and some questionable gunk at the bottom made it clear a replacement was necessary.
Despite the grime, the gas inside wasn’t as bad as I expected. A bit of sediment, sure, but nothing catastrophic. Still, I decided to clean it out thoroughly. Acetone rinse, followed by isopropyl alcohol to dry it out—because why not make a science experiment out of it?
Reassembly: New Parts, New Problems
With everything cleaned and new parts in hand, it was time to reassemble. I replaced the sending unit, added some new fuel lines, and even threw in an inline fuel filter for good measure. Of course, the rear bumper situation—a rear-ended Pinto waiting to happen—needed addressing too.
The new setup was looking promising, but as with any project car, it’s never that simple. I fired her up, and she ran… for about a minute. Then, splutter, die. Classic.
The Never-Ending Saga
So what’s next? Well, my Bronco still refuses to stay running. It could be a vacuum leak or something up with the carburetor—I haven’t ruled anything out yet. I’m gearing up for round two, where I’ll dive deeper into the mystery.
If you’ve got any theories or tips, I’m all ears. Drop them in the comments because heaven knows I could use the help!
Check out the video above to see the chaos unfold, and stay tuned for part two. It’s only going to get more interesting.
As always, thanks for watching and wrenching along with me. Let me know what you think, and I’ll catch you in the next episode!

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