Fuel For Thought

[hugh shawcross <shawcros@domain.elided>]

The other day I brought the Spider home from a little run and noticed after
that the garage smelled like gasoline.
I didn't see any puddles and under hood all looked well. It occured to me
that perhaps I was encountering a problem with the check valve/breather on
the vapour contol system in the trunk and resolved to look at it the next day.
The next day came and I didn't get to the Spider until the early evening,
running out to get some parts for the BBQ that refused to work. On route I
could smell gas. At a stop light, I took off briskly and shot a look in the
mirror before the car behind advanced over the spot I'd been previously
occupying. What I saw was a puddle (presumably gas!).
I pulled into the Walmart parking lot and with engine running took a good
look under the hood thinking gas line leak at the filter or Spica-----nada!
Still stinks like gas though.
Walking to the tail of the car, I took a look under and there was gas
running out from the area of the fuel pump.
After a furious little debate with my conscience, I decided to make a run
for home (just a few blocks away) and made it safely. I was actually more
concerned with running out of gas than lighting my Kamm on fire. Once home
I determined that the leak only exists while the fuel pump is running.
Ooooooooh, bad thoughts, bad thoughts. Don't want to spend big money on a
new fuel pump!!
Next morning I rolled under to discover that the discharge hose from the
fuel pump had been chafing against the parking brake cable and had finally
worn through. In fact, the outer cloth casing had worn away and the inner
rubber only had a slight amount of polishing but the hose had cracked in a
couple of places with one of the cracks going all the way through. 
This hose has been in place untouched for 4-5 years (since I changed the
fuel pump). What I'd never noticed in the intervening years (and I was just
in there with the rear drive shaft out changing a u-joint 2 weeks ago) was
the largish loop that this hose made before joining the hard tubing for the
trip forward to the fuel consumption machine (or "lump" as the brits call
it). With the car on jackstands, the brake cable is some distance away.
However with the car on all fours and the suspoension in normal position,
it closed quarters to rubbing level. Naturally with a few inches of ground
clearance on the Spider, there's not enough room to stick my melon in there
to look at such things with any kind of useful perspective while the car is
sitting on it's tires. I suspect that it was only rubbing when the
suspension was under large loads or else it would have failed some time ago.
I'm now  just a bit paranoid and have thought of a number of other things
that I might just take a glance at in upcoming days. I also think I might
just become a little more committed to following a more precise preventative 
maintenance schedule.  

Man, I almost took the wife for a little getaway in the Spider this long
(for we Canadians) weekend. Wouldn't that have started some interesting
conversations at the side of the road! Come to think of it there probably
would have been one short, and very loud, conversation followed by a
significant silence! 

Hope this little story gives some of you a little fuel for thought about
your own machines.

Hugh Shawcross
' 74 Spider 
Medicine Hat, Alberta      
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