LESSON 1: Things to check when rebuilding from a pile of parts.

[allanv6gt]

Had a little issue where I became stranded on the side of the road right after my rego check. Been build this car up from a bare shell using many parts and over many years.
So... Had itr ready to go, threw some petrol in, ran it in the garage and booked it in for the rego check. All went well, with only 1 minor issue (speedo cable unseated itself and stopped working).
But then, on the way home, it died........ Cranked over okay, so either no spark or no fuel. Fuel guage said a qtr of a tank, so must be spark.

Ah well, caught the bus home, gather some tools and parts (incl ignition bits), and threw in a jerry can for more fuel (just in case), and went back in the daily driver. Got back to the car (still there thankfully !!), and still failed to start.
Okay, easy things first....
1. check connections still connected - Yep
2. fuel was low and don;'t trust Ford gauges, so threw another 20lts into the tank. Crank, crank, crank, brrm brrrm brrm. And continued to brrm for another five minutes. WTF??? But the fuel guage says a qtr full, should be heaps. Grumble brumble, just get the thing home for now. Drive home and more bus trips to collect discarded daily driver.

At home, a quick read of the manual suggested the problem was with the fuel tank sender (other guages worked fine). I drained all the fuel from the old tank - was showing just over half with fuel beforehand to now a qtr full when empty (so....sender problem confirmed!!!). After a rummage in the shed, I found another tank yesterday and swapped it into the car.

And, before I went any further with the new tank, when still bone dry, I checked that it did indeed show 'EMPTY' when empty - correct.
Add in the drained fuel, now over a qtr full.
So, problem fixed.

Moral of the story
When assembling things from mountains of bits, check at each step. Make no assumptions about the correctness of all your guages. To do so might just leave you stranded on a cold rainy night in the middle of nowhere.

Lesson learned.
Experience is a wonderful thing after the event.

Grrrr........