I woke up early this morning and set out to get ready to start the Jeep.  First order of business was to install the new ballast resistor.  No problems there.

I took the front license plate off to register it with the BMV.  Since it was still too early to wake up the neighborhood I took the front plate bracket off to clean and paint it.

More rusty hardware to clean.

Cleaned, painted, and reinstalled.

Still waiting for the help to arrive so I decided to start taking out the fuel tank hardware.  I already know I will have to replace the tank but the condition of the rest of the hoses are questionable too. First step is to separate the rubber hose from the plastic tube under the back of the car.

Next I crawled into the back of the car to a place I affectionately call “Tetanus Junction”.  There are 8 machine screws with nuts holding the pipe to the fuel filler on the side of the car.  There are also some very corroded sheet metal screws holding what is left of a gasket around where the hose goes through the floor.  The upper screws and nuts were no problem but several of the sheet metal screws in the floor were too rusty to get a bite on with the screwdriver.

So I got creative and put Vice-Grip pliers on the ends of the screws sticking through the floor.  That worked.

Most of this stuff can be saved.  The floor gasket needs replaced as does the rubber hose between the fill pipe and the tank.  The fill pipe is some sort of plastic (probably polyethylene) and seems like new.  I also need to pull and test the fuel gauge sender to see if that can be reused.

While the car was in the driveway anyway Rachael started wire-brushing the frame and body back where the gas tank goes.  While the tank does not exist is the ideal time to do this.  But she got really, really dirty….